Winter Season 2012
Robson Reading Series presents
Sean Johnston and Anne Simpson
Thursday, March 8, 2012, 7pm
UBC Library/Bookstore at Robson Square
In Sean Johnston's second collection of poetry, The Ditch Was Lit Like This (Thistledown Press, 2011), he returns to the roots, ancestral and poetic, that have shaped his language and consciousness. Structured in five sections, the work interplays the convergence of memory and personal history in unexpected and profound ways that are both wise and revealing.
Sean Johnston's first book, A Day Does Not Go By (Nightwood Editions, 2002), won the 2003 ReLit Award for short fiction. His novel, All This Town Remembers (Gaspereau Press, 2006) was shortlisted for the ReLit Award and for a Saskatchewan Book Award and his short story, "The Instructions," was a finalist in the 2011 CBC Literary Awards. His work has been published in many Canadian journals, including The Malahat Review, Grain, and The Fiddlehead. Originally from Saskatchewan, he now lives in Kelowna, BC.
In Is (McClelland & Stewart, 2011), Anne Simpson finds form and inspiration in the cell---as it divides and multiplies, expanding beyond its borders. The poems journey from the creation of the world world emerging out of chaos to the slow unravelling of life that is revealed in a poem that twists like a double helix. Rich with the muscular craft, vibrant imagery, and exquisite musicality for which her poetry is widely acclaimed, Is is indeed a work of great vision.
Anne Simpson was the winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize and a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Poetry for her second book, Loop (McClelland & Stewart, 2003). She is the author of many award-winning books including Light Falls Through You (M&S, 2000), winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Atlantic Poetry Prize; Quick (M&S, 2007), winner of the Pat Lowther Memorial Award; and a novel, Canterbury Beach (Viking Canada, 2001), which
was shortlisted for the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award.
Simpson lives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
Photo of Anne Simpson by Karin Cope.
Sean Johnston and Anne Simpson appear thanks to the support of The Canada Council for the Arts.
topRobson Reading Series presents
Dani Couture and Nicole Lundrigan
Thursday, March 22, 2012, 7pm
UBC Library/Bookstore at Robson Square
"To read Dani Couture's Algoma is to be reminded of the aching beauty of loss, the
thin, pale terror of hope, and the strength and sacrifice required just for living, day by day.
Haunting and fundamentally human, Algoma is a gift."
--Robert J. Wiersema, author of Bedtime Story
In poet Dani Couture's debut novel, Algoma (Invisible Publishing, 2011), she explores multifaceted layers of grief, obsession, and disquiet as a family tragedy unfolds in the icy wilderness of Northern Quebec.
Dani Couture is the author of two collections of poetry: Good Meat (Pedlar Press, 2006) and Sweet (Pedlar Press, 2010). Sweet was named one of Maisy's Best Books of 2010 by Maisonneuve, was nominated for the Trillium Book Award, and won the ReLit Award for poetry. In 2011, Dani also received an Honour of Distinction from the Writers' Trust Dayne Ogilvie Grant. She lives in Toronto, ON.
"Glass Boys is nothing short of a family epic. Evoking rural Newfoundland with a gritty grace that is all her own...Lundrigan intimately explores the unbreakable ties between us, weaving a tale of filthy beauty that never abandons its quest for love and rejuvenation." -- Arts East
In the style of Newfoundland literature established by Michael Crummey and Lisa Moore, Glass Boys (Douglas & McIntyre, 2011) is the haunting story of an unforgivable crime that brings two families to the brink. Powerfully written, with vivid and unflinching prose, it is an utterly riveting, deeply moving saga of the persistence of evil, and the depths and limits of love.
Nicole Lundrigan is the author of four novels: Unraveling Arva (Breakwater Books, 2003), Thaw (Jesperson Press, 2005), The Seary Line (Breakwater Books, 2008), and most recently, Glass Boys. Her literary fiction has been selected as a Globe and Mail Top Ten Pick, was long-listed for the ReLit Award, and given Honourable Mention for the Sunburst Award. Originally from Upper Gullies, Newfoundland, Nicole now lives in Markham, ON.
Photo of Nicole Lundrigan by Zoltán Deák.
Nicole Lundrigan appears thanks to the support of The Canada Council for the Arts.
top Robson Reading Series at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
presents
Lee Maracle
Thursday, March 29, 2012, 2:00-3:00pm
Irving K. Barber Learning Centre,
Lillooet Room 301
UBC Point Grey
campus, 1961 East Mall
"Maracle's ability to weave stories together is amazing and this collection does not disappoint. She addresses such issues as female sexuality and creative empowerment, loss and strained relations, and fuses all genres of writing in a tone that is candid and holds nothing back." --Christine McFarlane, Raven's Eye
First Wives Club: Coast Salish Style (Theytus Books, 2010), is a poignant and powerful collection of short stories that provide revealing glimpses into the life experiences of an Aboriginal woman, a university professor, an activist and a single mother. With lyrical eloquence, Lee Maracle takes the reader on a deeply stirring and emotional journey that is at times humorous and heart-wrenching but not soon to be forgotten.
Lee Maracle is a member of the Stó:lo Nation and was born in North Vancouver. She is the author of numerous critically acclaimed literary works including: I Am Woman, Bobbi Lee - Indian Rebel, Ravensong, Sojourners & Sundogs, and Daughters are Forever. She has edited a number of anthologies including My Home As I Remember. Her awards include an Honorary Doctor of Letters from St. Thomas University and the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award. Lee currently teaches at the University of Toronto.
Lee Maracle appears thanks to the support of The Canada Council for the Arts.
The Robson Reading Series partners with the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre to present a series of afternoon readings throughout the academic year. All events are free and open to the public.
topPrevious Events at the Robson Reading Series
Robson Reading Series presents
Steve Burgess and Daniel Griffin
Thursday, February 16, 2012, 7pm
UBC Library/Bookstore at Robson Square
"Burgess has written not only the funniest book published this year, but one of the most moving memoirs Canada's prairies have offered up." --The Tyee
Who Killed Mom? A Delinquent Son's Meditation on Family, Mortality, and Very Tacky Candles (Greystone Books, 2011) brims with uproarious anecdotes and one-liners. Telling the tale of his mother's life and death, and along the way laying bare his own struggles, Burgess delivers a moving meditation on life and family.
Steve Burgess is a writer and broadcaster whose honours include two Canadian National Magazine Awards and three Western Magazine Awards. Burgess is the former host of "@the end," a talk show on CBC Newsworld, and a frequent CBC Radio guest host. Burgess's stories have been featured in Reader's Digest editions around the world, as well as Maclean's, The Globe and Mail, and other publications. His debut book, Who Killed Mom?, was chosen as a Globe 100 Best Book of the Year and for Canada Read's Top 40. He lives in Vancouver, BC.
"This fine fine collection evokes echoes of the plain and piercing voice of Raymond Carver. These stories upended me: they are strong, surprising and full of heart. The size of the soul looms large in Daniel Griffin's writing."
--David Bergen, author of The Time In Between
In Stopping for Strangers (Vehicule Press, Oct. 2011), stories about artists, lovers, brothers and strangers acutely probe love and loss, and the family ties that bind. A father renews an old artistic rivalry with his dying son; a raucous family gathering ends in tragedy; a quick stop to pick up a hitchhiker begins a chain of events that changes a man's life. Dark and yet uplifting, these stories take us to the tangled heart of what matters in the lives of people on the edge of crisis.
Daniel Griffin's stories have twice appeared in the Journey Prize anthology, and "The Last Great Works of Alvin Cale," was a finalist in 2009. His work was featured in Coming Attractions 08, and his stories have appeared in numerous magazines and journals. Stopping for Strangers is his debut short story collection. He has lived in Guatemala, New Zealand, England, Scotland, France, India and the US and currently makes his home
in Victoria, BC.
topRobson Reading Series presents
Lynn Coady and Anne Perdue
Thursday, February 2, 2012, 7pm
UBC Library/Bookstore at Robson Square
"The Antagonist excels at a number of levels: It's a readable, quixotic coming-of-age story, a comedy of very bad manners, and a thoughtful inquiry into the very nature of self. It's the sort of novel--and Coady the sort of writer--deserving of every accolade coming to it." --Robert J. Wiersema, National Post
In Lynn Coady's fifth novel, The Antagonist (House of Anansi, 2011), she delves deeply into the ways we sanction and stoke male violence, giving us a large-hearted, often hilarious portrait of a character tearing himself apart in order to put himself back together.
Lynn Coady is an award-winning author, editor and journalist. Her most recent book, The Antagonist, was a finalist for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and was recognized as a top book of the year by the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and Amazon.ca. Her previous novels include Strange Heaven (1998), which was nominated for a Governor General's Award; Saints of Big Harbour (2002), which was a national bestseller and a Globe and Mail Top 100 book; and Mean Boy (2006), also a Globe and Mail Top 100 book. She writes the popular weekly advice column, "Group Therapy." Lynn is originally from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and is now living in Edmonton, Alberta.
"Writing from a litany of perspectives...Perdue builds gritty characters who are pathetically funny, keenly aware of their own flaws, and sometimes so realistic it's painful to read on." --Katherine Laidlaw, This Magazine
The darkly humorous stories in Anne Perdue's debut collection of short fiction, I'm A Registered Nurse Not A Whore (Insomniac Press, 2010), take dead aim at how easily our desire to be good is perverted or undermined by a desperate need for love and recognition. Beautifully flawed, well-meaning yet easily sidelined, the characters in these eight stories catapult off the rails of ordinary life before raising themselves up--if only for a moment--in oddly heroic ways.
Anne Perdue was born in Winnipeg and has lived in Toronto and Vancouver. She studied English at the University of Toronto and graphic design at OCAD and paid for it all by working in a coal mine in Tumbler Ridge, BC. In 2009, she graduated with honours from the U of T School of Continuing Studies Creative Writing program where she won the Random House Student competition and received the Marina Nemat Excellence in Creative Writing Award. She lives in Toronto, ON.
Lynn Coady and Anne Perdue appear thanks to the support of The Canada Council for the Arts.
top Robson Reading Series at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
presents
Kevin McNeilly
with percussionist Nicholas Jacques
Thursday, January 26, 2012, 2:00-3:00pm
Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, Lillooet Room 301
UBC Point Grey
campus, 1961 East Mall
"McNeilly gives us the lives of the jive cats and jellyroll mamas and Dixieland trumpeters who gave jazz meaning by making sure it'd swing...Best of all, McNeilly's poetry is lyrical, free, down-to-the-bone, as real, fresh, and immediate as true jazz always is." -George Elliott Clarke
Embouchure (Nightwood Editions, 2011), contains thirty-seven portraits of trumpet players who came to prominence during the "pre-bop" era. Buddy, Satch, Bix, Jabbo, Cootie, Cat and the rest are resurrected in their smoky, brassy, sepia-toned glory as figures deeply steeped in their own mythos. While embracing the fictional aspects of their lives, McNeilly styles these remarkable men and women with pure love and admiration, not only for their shared history and contribution to the evolution of jazz, but also for the pure, loud, messy beauty of the music itself.
Kevin McNeilly is an associate professor in the Department of English at UBC. He has written and published scholarship and critical essays on a variety of literature, media and music, including work by writers, thinkers and performers such as Charles Mingus, Elizabeth Bishop, Jan Zwicky, Miles Davis, and Robert Creeley. He is a member of the "Improvisation, Community and Social Practice" research initiative. In addition to his academic publications, he has had poems published in Canadian Literature and The Antigonish Review. Embouchure (Nightwood Editions, 2011) is his debut poetry collection. He lives in Vancouver, BC.
Kevin McNeilly appears thanks to the support of The Canada Council for the Arts.
The Robson Reading Series partners with the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre to present a series of afternoon readings throughout the academic year. All events are free and open to the public.
topRobson Reading Series presents
Sachiko Murakami and Nick Thran
Thursday, January 19, 2012, 7pm
UBC Library/Bookstore at Robson Square
"These are angry poems. Proud and angry. But smart and quirky, too, daring us to tear up our death pledge to real estate, and rethink our citizenship in scandalous cities." --Meredith Quatermain, author of Recipes from the Red Planet
In Sachiko Murakami's second collection of poetry, Rebuild (Talonbooks, 2011), Vancouver has become as much a city of cranes and excavation sites as it is of ocean and landscape. Her poetry dissects the urban centre through its inhabitants' greatest passion: real estate, where the drive to own is coupled with the practice of tearing down and rebuilding, questioning in all its poetic ferocity our concept of "development."
Sachiko Murakami's first collection of poems, The Invisibility Exhibit (Talonbooks 2008), was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She has been a literary worker for numerous presses, journals and organizations, and was a member of the Kootenay School of Writing. Most recently, she initiated ProjectRebuild.ca, an online collaborative poetry project. Originally from Vancouver, she now lives in Toronto where she co-hosts the Pivot Reading Series.
"Side-stepping the more likely subjects, Thran's poems freewheel through a rangy lyricscape of our urban, cultural life, from Picasso to Jessica Rabbit, from the Smurfs to Barry Bonds. Sprawling, irrepressible, Earworm darts with wild control and energy." --David O'Meara author of Noble Gas, Penny Black
Nick Thran's second collection, Earworm (Nightwood Editions, 2011), expertly combines wicked cleverness and a uniquely insightful perspective, tearing through a range of topics from pop culture to Caravaggio to cicadas, all unified by a perfectly balanced blend of thoughtful observation and a whimsical sense of humour.
Nick Thran's first collection of poetry, Every Inadequate Name (Insomniac Press, 2006), was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. His poems have appeared in numerous publications across Canada, including Arc, The Best Canadian Poetry 2010 and Geist. Since growing up in western Canada, southern Spain and southern California, Nick has spent the last few years living in Toronto and Brooklyn, New York. He currently lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Sachiko Murakami and Nick Thran appear thanks to the support of The Canada Council for the Arts.
topRobson Reading Series presents
Esi Edugyan and Jen Sookfong Lee
Thursday, December 15, 2011, 7pm
UBC Library/Bookstore at Robson Square
"The language of Edugyan's narrative moves us with its intrinsic power, grace, and soulful jazz cadences. Half-Blood Blues is an engrossing and unforgettable story." --Austin Clarke, author of The Polished Hoe
Half-Blood Blues (Thomas Allen Publishers, 2011) is an entrancing, electric story about jazz, race, loyalty and sacrifice. From the smoky bars of pre-World War II Berlin to the salons of Paris, author Esi Edugyan recreates a fascinating world alive with passion, music and the spirit of Resistance.
Esi Edugyan's debut novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne was published internationally. It was nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, selected for More Book Lust and chosen by the New York Public Library as one of 2004's Books to Remember. Her work has appeared in several anthologies, including Best New American Voices 2003, (ed. Joyce Carol Oates), and Revival: An Anthology of Black Canadian Writing. Half-Blood Blues was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Fiction, a finalist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize and won the 2011 Giller Prize. Esi lives in Victoria, BC.
"This novel is a moving example of the ways in which memories can become 'ghosts, clinging to the body like the anchoring threads of a spider's web,' and chance encounters can lead to enduring love." -The Winnipeg Free Press
In the novel, The Better Mother (Knopf Canada, 2011), Jen Sookfong Lee evokes the storied streets and wild spaces of Vancouver like no other, in a way that is at once lush and stark. Set mostly during an unseasonably hot summer in 1982 when HIV/AIDS was spreading rapidly, The Better Mother brims with undeniable tragedy, but resounds with the power of friendship, reinvention and truth.
Jen Sookfong Lee was born and raised in Vancouver's East Side. Her books include The Better Mother, The End of East (Vintage Canada, 2007) and Shelter (Annick Press, 2011), a novel for young adults. Her poetry, fiction and articles have appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including TOK: Writing the New City, The Antigonish Review and Event. A popular radio personality, Jen was the voice behind "Westcoast Words" on CBC Radio One for three years. She appears regularly as a columnist on "The Next Chapter" with Shelagh Rogers and "Definitely Not the Opera" with Sook-Yin Lee. She lives in Vancouver, BC.
Esi Edugyan and Jen Sookfong Lee appear thanks to the support of The Canada Council for the Arts.
topRobson Reading Series presents
Michael Christie, Kim Clark and Ashley Little
Thursday, December 1, 2011, 7pm
UBC Library/Bookstore at Robson Square
"Imagine Galileo was alive today. Imagine he was living out of dumpsters, writing his memoirs and saying to hell with the stars. Then you might discover in his tear-stained pages the level of wonder and intellect at play in the teeming world of The Beggar's Garden." -Heather O'Neill, author of Lullabies for Little Criminals
Brilliantly sure-footed, strikingly original, tender and funny, The Beggar's Garden (HarperCollins Canada, 2011) is a collection of nine linked stories that follows a diverse group of curiously interrelated characters as they navigate life in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Michael Christie holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. His debut short story collection, The Beggar's Garden, won the 2011 Vancouver Book Award, was longlisted for the 2011 Giller Prize and was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His stories have appeared in Taddle Creek, SubTerrain, and Vancouver Review, as well as The Journey Prize Stories 20. He worked for five years in an emergency homeless shelter in the Downtown Eastside and provided outreach for people living with severe mental illness. A former professional skateboarder, he is a senior writer for Color Magazine. Michael now lives in Thunder Bay, ON.
Imagine finding out your body can have only six more orgasms...The irrepressible Mel plots to make the most of her last six kicks at the can---while living with the challenges of progressive Multiple Sclerosis. She is just one of the feisty, more-than-slightly manic characters who inhabit Attemptations (Caitlin Press, 2011), Kim Clark's debut collection of darkly hilarious stories where altered and twisted realities make the impossible possible.
Kim Clark holds a BA in Creative Writing from Vancouver Island University and was the winner of the 2005 Cecilia Lamont Literary Contest for fiction. Her work can be found in Body Breakdowns (Anvil Press, 2007), e-zines and other publications in Canada and the US. Her first book, Attemptations, is a collection of short, long and longer fiction and includes the story "Solitaire" which was shortlisted in The Malahat Review's 2010 Novella Contest. Kim lives in Nanaimo, BC.
"An arresting look at the world of tattoo; graphic as a freshly embroidered skull on virgin skin. With wistful shades of Willie Vlautin and all the grit of Charles Bukowski, Ashley Little lushly demonstrates that hers is an important new voice in unflinchingly real story telling." -Dennis E. Bolen, author of Anticipated Results
Written in intense, rapid-fire bursts, PRICK: Confessions of a Tattoo Artist (Tightrope Books, 2011) explores themes of addiction, desire, and remorse. As its anti-hero Anthony "Ant" Young's life spirals out of control, he struggles to hold on to the one thing he really cares about in this unforgettable, disturbing, and darkly funny tale.
Ashley Little received a BFA in Creative Writing and Film Studies from the University of Victoria. Her work has appeared in Broken Pencil, The Danforth Review, Room, and the anthology Writing Without Direction: Ten and a Half Short Stories by Canadian Authors Under Thirty (Clark-Nova, 2010). She won first place in the 2008 Okanagan Short Story Contest. PRICK: Confessions of a Tattoo Artist is her first novel. She lives in Tofino, BC.
Michael Christie appears thanks to the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
topRobson Reading Series presents
Carmen Aguirre and Rishma Dunlop
Thursday, November 17, 2011, 7pm
UBC Library/Bookstore at Robson Square
"A moving, heart-racing journey through the political landscape of South America during the 1970s and 1980s, told by a brave daughter of the Chilean resistance. Something Fierce is an inspiration to anyone who strives to live a life of passion and purpose." -Camilla Gibb, author of Sweetness in the Belly
Dramatic, moving and darkly comic Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter (Douglas & McIntyre, 2011) takes us to war-ridden Peru, dictatorship-run Bolivia, post-Malvinas Argentina and Pinochet's Chile offering a rare, first-hand account of revolutionary life from the inside.
Carmen Aguirre has written or co-written eighteen plays, including Trigger (Talonbooks, 2008) and The Refugee Hotel (Talonbooks, 2010), which was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play in 2010. Carmen has sixty film, TV and stage acting credits, including a lead role in the feature film Quinceañera, winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Carmen lives in Vancouver, BC.
"A poet who, with muscle and grace, fearlessly focuses on the contradictions of her time."
-Molly Peacock, author of The Second Blush
Lover Through Departure: New and Selected Poems (Mansfield Press, 2011), is a powerful overview of Dunlop's career-to-date alongside new and vibrant works. The collection also includes her short story "Paris," a finalist for the CBC Literary Awards and The Gloria Vanderbilt Short Fiction Award. Tinged with an erotic edge, Dunlop's persona is a compelling witness to the beauty and violence of the 21st century.
Rishma Dunlop is the author of five books of poetry including White Album (Inanna, 2008) and Reading Like a Girl (Black Moss Press, 2004). Along with Priscila Uppal, she co-edited Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets (2004). Her translations of Cuban poet María Elena Cruz Varela were published in 20 Canadian Poets Take on the World (2009). She was the winner of the 2003 Emily Dickinson Prize for Poetry, and has been a finalist for the Chapter-Robertson Davies Prize for Fiction and CBC Literary Prizes in Poetry and Creative Non-Fiction. In 2011 she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Academy of Arts and Humanities. She lives in Toronto, ON.
Carmen Aguirre and Rishma Dunlop appear thanks to the support of The Canada Council for the Arts.
top Robson Reading Series at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
presents
Michael V. Smith
Thursday, November 10, 2011, 2:00-3:00pm
Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, Lillooet Room 301
UBC Point Grey
campus, 1961 East Mall
Michael V. Smith is a filmmaker, author and performer teaching creative writing in the interdisciplinary program of the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at UBC's Okanagan campus. His new novel, Progress (Cormorant Books, Spring 2011), is a tense, spirited depiction of how tragic events and long-held secrets shape a small working-class town.
Smith's first novel, Cumberland (Cormorant Books, 2002), was nominated for the Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award. In recent years, Smith won Vancouver's Community Hero of the Year Award and the inaugural Dayne Ogilvie Award for Emerging Gay Writers. He has also won a Western Magazine Award for Fiction, scooped two short film prize categories at Toronto's Inside Out festival, and was nominated for the Journey Prize. Originally from Ontario, he now lives in Kelowna, BC.
Michael V. Smith appears thanks to the support of The Canada Council for the Arts.
The Robson Reading Series partners with the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre to present a series of afternoon readings throughout the academic year. All events are free and open to the public.
topEvent Archives:
- 2006/2007
- 2008
- Spring 2009
- Fall 2009
- Spring 2010
- Fall 2010
- Spring 2011
- Fall 2011
The UBC Bookstore/Library at Robson Square is located in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia:
800 Robson Street, Plaza Level
(between Howe and Hornby Street)
Vancouver, BC V6Z 3B7
Canada
Tel. 604-822-6453
Fax. 604-822-0863
Email. robson.readingseries@ubc.ca
For directions downtown, visit: Directions to Robson Square
The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre is located on the Point Grey Campus on Vancouver's West Side:
1961 East Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
Canada
For directions on campus, visit: UBC Campus Maps
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