FEATURED READERS OCTOBER 2013

Upcoming readings

Friday, October 4, 2013

JULIE PAUL
& JOHN REIBETANZ

Julie Paul lives here, in Victoria, and she’s pretty content with that right now. Her nomadic tendencies have taken her around the continent a few times; those tendencies can spill over into her writing, where she can migrate from short fiction to poetry to novel all in an afternoon, which is definitely easier than packing up the furniture. Her first book of short stories, The Jealousy Bone, was published in 2008; she’s had poetry and stories published in journals and anthologies across the country. When she’s not putting the finishing touches on a manuscript of stories called “The Pull of the Moon,” she’s working on a novel and poems about growing up in Lanark Village, population 800.

John Reibetanz has published eight collections, and his poems have appeared in such magazines as Poetry (Chicago), The Paris Review, The Walrus, and The Fiddlehead. He lives in Toronto and teaches English and creative writing at Victoria College. A finalist for both the National Magazine Awards and the Re-Lit Awards, John has given readings of his poetry in major cities all across Canada. He has won prizes in the annual national competitions sponsored by Vallum and by The Fiddlehead, and has won first prize in the international Petra Kenney Competition. His latest work is in Hidden Treasures (ekphrastic poems on the art of Peter Cserhati, Rufus Books, 2012) and Afloat (Brick Books, 2013).

Friday, October 11, 2013

DANIELA ELZA
& EMILIA NIELSEN

Daniela Elza’s work has appeared nationally and internationally in well over sixty publications. Her poetry collections are the weight of dew (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2012), milk tooth bane bone (Leaf Press, April, 2013) and the book of it (iCrow publications, 2011). Daniela helps to coordinate and host Twisted Poets Literary Salon and is poetry editor at Cascadia Review, where she makes sure Canadian voices from the bioregion are well represented. In 2011 Daniela earned her doctorate in Philosophy of Education from Simon Fraser University.

Emilia Nielsen holds a BFA in Writing from the University of Victoria, and a MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of New Brunswick. During her studies, she was the recipient of several British Columbia Arts Council Senior Scholarships and a Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Currently, she is a PhD Candidate at the University of British Columbia. Her poetry has appeared in literary journals across Canada including The Antigonish Review, Contemporary Verse 2, Event, Descant, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Prairie Fire, Room Magazine, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry by Prism International. Her first collection of poetry, Surge Narrows, is forthcoming with Leaf Press in 2013. She teaches in the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC.

Friday, October 18, 2013

JEANETTE LYNES
& BARBARA PELMAN

Jeanette Lynes’ sixth collection of poems, Archive of the Undressed (Wolsak and Wynn, 2012) was shortlisted for two Saskatchewan Book Awards. Jeanette's poems were also shortlisted for the 2012 Matrix Litpop Award and won the 2010 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Award from The New Quarterly. Her first novel, The Factory Voice, was long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a ReLit Award; it was also podcast on CBC Radio. Jeanette is the Coordinator of the MFA in Writing at the University of Saskatchewan and lives in Saskatoon.

Barbara Pelman is a sort-of retired teacher, having taught high school English for many years, and is now teaching part-time in the Faculty of Education. She has two books of poetry, One Stone (Ekstasis Editions 2005) and Borrowed Rooms (Ronsdale Press 2008) and a number of poems in literary journals. She has been an active member of the poetry community, poeming strangers during Random Acts of Poetry, organizing students to paint poems on hoardings downtown (those blank construction walls you're always tempted to write on), reading at the open mic at Planet Earth Poetry. She has a daughter, a piano, and an ex-husband. 

Friday, October 25, 2013

ELIZABETH GREENE
& RONA SHAFFRAN

Elizabeth Greene has published two collections of poetry, The Iron Shoes (Hidden Brook, 2007) and Moving (Inanna, 2010). She edited and contributed to We Who Can Fly: Poems, Essays and Memories in Honour of Adele Wiseman (Cormorant, 1997) which was awarded the Betty and Morris Aaron Prize for Best Scholarship on a Canadian Subject. She has recently published poems in The Literary Review of Canada, The Antigonish Review, Guernica's Poet to Poet Anthology, and the Poems from Planet Earth anthology, (Leaf Press). She has twice been short-listed for the Descant/Winston Collins Prize (for 2011 and 2013). Her current collection of poetry, Understories, is being read at Inanna. She lives in Kingston with her son and three cats.

Rona Shaffran lives in Ottawa, Ontario. Ignite (Signature Editions, 2013), her first published collection of poetry, tells the story of remarkable things that can happen in a broken relationship between a man and a woman. Rona launched Ignite at the 2013 Ottawa Writers Festival. Read a review of her book. Recently retired as co-director of the Tree Reading Series, Rona is a member of its board of directors, and co-directs RailRoad, a new series. She graduated from Humber’s School for Writers and the Banff Centre Writing Studio. Her poems have appeared in Canadian literary journals and numerous chapbooks.