How to Drive to Regina

Last Friday morning, I threw a hastily packed bag, a box of books, and a bin full of bags and shoes in my partner's car, which is a small SUV with four-wheel drive.

Photos courtesy Shelley Banks.

And then I muttered something like, "He said he cleaned!" before systematically ejecting his CDs and inserting CDs of my own into the stereo. Waiting for the car to warm up, thinking on the pair of boots, snowpants, and M's super-mitts that I'd also stowed in the back. Just in case.

I was scheduled to do a reading and workshop in Regina and I wasn't taking any chances.

I had meant to go up on Thursday, but we'd had a pile of snow in addition to the all the terrible cold on Wednesday.

I've made that drive to Regina a bunch of times over the past ten years, but mostly during the summer and fall. So I let myself be talked out of doing the drive on Thursday, even though it meant missing the radio interview that had been scheduled for mid-day on Friday.

But I was in luck. Even though I dreaded getting out of the car to gas up or eat, the roads were bare and it was an easy drive to the Queen City.

I got to Tracy Hamon's place just in time to change and head out to a dinner-with-poets. Which is the best kind, especially if it's at a Korean/Japanese fusion place where you can simultaneously eat bibimbap and reminisce about the time you read there.

Saturday was the workshop, where I deployed strategies for working with texts, for drumming up inspiration rather than waiting for that particular lightning strike. We spent the afternoon wandering around 13th Ave, visiting the fancy paper shop and the craft store and sourcing my favourite Saskatchewan product: Lucky Bastard Gin.

Sunday night was the reading with Garry Thomas Morse at the SWG offices. It was a cold night, but we had a nice crowd. And Garry sang operatically as part of his reading.

I read a few poems from Hump, a few poems from How to Make a Collage (and am now down to my last copy...) and a few brand new poems which will be published in Stowaways.

Afterwards, a bunch of us headed to La Bodega, where I had mussels and gin...and then it was back to Tracy's...and then back home the next morning.

My hearty thanks to the SWG for having me, to the Canada Council for funding the entire affair, and to Tracy Hamon, whose next book will be out in fall 2014.

Blurb/blubber

So poet/publisher kevin mcpherson eckhoff has blurbed me again.

Last time, it was in service of Kalamalka Press' How to Make a Collage chapbook, which won their John Lent Poetry Prose Contest. Kevin is Kalamalka's Editor-in-Chief, an English prof at Okanagan College, and a cheeky/intelligent/kind poet/person.

As much as I love winning things, the best part of the whole experience was getting to know Kevin and Jake Kennedy and Jason Dewinetz and Laisha Rosnau and John Lent a bit better.

So when it was time to wrangle blurbers for the new collection, I knew I wanted Kevin. Because he's a hard-working peer and someone whose poetry is very different from mine. And so I really appreciate his support of my work. And I like that he was excited to be asked.

So here's the blurb, which should be in Palimpsest's section of the LCP spring 2014 catalogue:

"Ariel Gordon’s Stowaways is a scrapbook of tender snapshots and snappy comebacks, of fairytale hopes and roadkill truths. This collage of poetry carbonates my alive blood with the oh! of words and the ha! of hearts. A wet, necessary, beautiful, gluey mess of memory, putrefaction, and dreams!" - kevin mcpherson eckhoff
 
I find writing blurbs even more torturous than writing short short reviews. My problem is that I mistrust superlatives. I want the blurbs to tell people about the work instead of just saying "it's magnificent genius!" over and over.

There are one or two more blurbs coming, but I don't want to pluck my proverbial chickens before they've reached the feather-plucking-station. At the poetry abattoir.

* 
In other news, the title of the collection has officially changed from the working-title How to Pack Without Overpacking to the final-final Stowaways.

It took forever to settle on a final-final. I asked every goddamn writer I knew to help me. And then Palimpsest poet/publisher Dawn Kresan suggested Stowaways, which is the title of one of the poems.

I like it thematically and also because even though it's a one-word title, it's very firmly a two-syllable word. It's a gorgeous goddamn word, too, with all those Ws. It almost falls apart when you say it more than once or twice.

The only other thing I'm working on, Stowaways-wise, is trying to get a few excerpts published in lit mags. YOU HEAR ME, EDITORS OF LITERARY MAGAZINES?!

Ahem.

Reprint: Canadian Poetries II

From the Micro-Reviews section of Canadian Poetries:

Some women knit booties, spend months learning how to turn the heel. Others become morbidly interested in pastels. Me, I yanked out my hair, hank by hank, lining the crib with the long black stuff.

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m drawn to a well-made book. Show me a letterpressed cover on some beautifully sturdy card stock, and I will buy it in a heartbeat. Happily, this chapbook collection is well suited to the colourful, layered lettering gracing the front cover. Kalamalka Press did a lovely job presenting Ariel Gordon’s winning manuscript for the Inaugural John Lent Poetry-Prose Award, How To Make a Collage.

In six compact pieces, we are drawn into Gordon’s world of tiny baby teeth, disease remedies reminiscent of the early part of the century, and the maternal instincts of both geese and frogs. From the grandmother’s radiation-singed inner arm in ‘How To Make a Collage’, to the inventive twist of The Frog Prince in ‘Pond Scum,’ each poem transcends the everyday in disconcerting, yet arresting fashion. I couldn’t help but be reminded of staying up late reading something off the bookshelf I shouldn’t have been, simply because the details are so vivid.

That night, confused by meltwater, I circled the harbour’s plastic junk & beached myself when I saw him, thin & drunk & knee-deep in slush.

Gordon propels her poems as effortlessly as the beluga whale swims the icy waters of the Churchill River. (They are after all the only whale with a flexible neck). This is the kind of poetry that suspends between reality and disbelief, but does so with balanced skill, without leaving the reader behind. Rather, we are caught up in the swells of water and the flush of skin, eventually coming to shore, after what feels like the kind of dream you think about for days.

- review by Trisia Eddy

* * *

Yay! How to Make a Collage's first review!

Saskatoon! Reading!

My Saskatoon reading June 10 was cooked up with the help of some of my favourite Saskatoon writers: Andréa Ledding, dee Hobsbawn-Smith, and Jeanette Lynes.

I've read in Saskatoon twice, both via the Tonight It's Poetry reading series.

Once was under Taylor Leedahl's tenure and was at the Flint with its awesome mix-and-match charcuterie platter. That was with Kerry Ryan, who I'd bullied into touring with me. (We even had t-shirts designed by her partner Jeope Wolfe!)

The second was with John Toone and Jonathan Ball just as the series was migrating to a more spoken-word focus. I stayed with Bernice Friesen, who has since moved to BC, but she made me very very strong tea and showed me her latest art/upcycling project.

All of which is to say that Saskatoon feels almost like home. But it was lovely to get to read with Andréa, who has always come to my readings and who is a whiz-bang poet/parent herself.

And with dee, who hosted myself and Tracy Hamon for a reading when she and Dave Margoshes - her sweetie - were in residence at the Stegner House in East End years ago. And with Jeanette, who edited Hump and then moved to Saskatoon, though I'm not completely sure those things are connected.

It was end of term for dee, Andréa and Jeanette - the former are students in USask's Creative Writing MA and Jeanette the instructor/administrator/major domo of said program - and I was sort of knackered after more than a week away from home, hauling all the luggage, etc.

But the reading went well, with a pile of poets and poet-lovers in attendance, and M and Aa, who were on a father-daughter camping trip of their own, arranged to meet up with me at the reading. (The girl only had to cover her ears during one poem...)

Thanks to City Perks for hosting our Poetry With Perks event. (And especially for the chai latte.)

Call/response in Van

So I've been chatting with Bren Simmers and Anna Swanson for years, separately and together.

Our conversation started back in 2003 at Sage Hill, where I met Bren Simmers (and, also, Brenda Schmidt). We were both young ambitious poets. And that was about all you could say about us.

I met Anna Swanson (and, also, Gilly Wigmore) at the Banff Center a few years later.

We were the youngest poets in the Wired Writing Studio program that fall. And we gravitated towards each other other because of that, but, also, because we recognized each other.

Bren and Anna knew each other from BC's community of young queer poets. And they'd both spent time at firetowers in Alberta, writing and watching for smoke.

And we all happened to publish our first books in 2010. But we'd never been in the same room together, Anna, Bren and I.

Coming to Vancouver for a few days between my conference in Victoria and my conference in Saskatoon just felt right. I hadn't been to Van in years. And what better excuse to coerce your kind peers, your whipsmart sympathetic community, to read with you than a new chapbook?

We decided to do a call & response, reading-in-the-round kind of thing. Which meant a somewhat elaborate structure, where we introduced each other and then read poems one after another, poems that responded to the previous poem in some way.

But it was so refreshing to move between poems, to find and follow the link between that poem and this poem, to listen in this slightly different way. (And one of Anna's poems made me tear up, which is always surprising and wonderful and also slightly offensive...I'm in control of what/who makes me cry, aren't I?)

After we'd gotten through the bits we'd planned, we got a bit theatre-sports-y, and asked the crowd to shout out themes/keywords/ideas. The idea was to pluck something out of the air and read a poem. And nothing was calling to me, so I read a poem that had been cut from How to Make a Collage for space considerations.

It's called "How to Keep a Relationship Fresh" but my private name for it is "the toenail poem." And it's the latest of the insulting love poems I've written to M. And both Anna and Bren had wanted me to read it when we were doing our scheming. So I did it.

Thanks to Bren and Anna for all their various hospitalities over the years, but, also, for their kindnesses this particular weekend.

(And thanks to Anna's mum, who wielded Anna's iPhone during the reading, for these pics...)

Seafood + Victoria reading

I made two rookie mistakes during my Victoria reading.

First, I sat in the chair I'd been specifically warned off of. It was a slouchy leather armchair. It appealed to me because it looked comfortable and ALSO was right at the front, so I'd be able to get photos of the readers. (Oh, the ephemera...)

It was the kind of chair that absorbs you. That keeps you from EVER getting up.

I perched on the edge of the chair during the open mic that preceded the main event. I sipped on my tea and watched Marita Dachsel do "Almera Woodward Johnson" from Glossolalia, trying not to blind her with my happiness at seeing her again.

I sipped my tea while listening to Peter Midgley break out of his Congress acquisitions funk to read a poem. And I refrained from heckling him, which is about all that anyone can expect from me, in terms of behaviour. (I'm an inspired heckler...)

And then Yvonne Blomer, host of Planet Earth Poetry and Palimpsest pressmate, got up and introduced me. (She's a dab hand with a mic stand, that one...)

It was me and then three Malahat-ian readers: recent contributor/fictioneer Cody Klippenstein and board members Iain Higgins and Eric Miller.

And I lurched out of the chair. LURCHED!

My second rookie mistake was being somewhat under-rehearsed. Everything in How to Make a Collage is brand brand new, so I didn't yet have the poems half-memorized, as is my wont. And the sun was setting into the cafe. And I was tired after three days at Congress, all the exuberant shrubbery everywhere, the fact that there are no screens on the windows just getting to me.

But I'd eaten some magnificent seafood during those three days. And Congress is all about ideas and human conversation. And Susan Sanford Blades was kind enough to sell my books at the Malahat books table.

And it was so much fun. And I do so love reading, which is why I'd organized this mini-tour in the first place. So I launched in, reading poems from Hump and from How to Make a Collage. I read a poem for my aunt Sue, who lives in Victoria now, and who had snuck my cousin Chris into the event. I hadn't seen him in fifteen years. And I read for M, who was somewhere on the road between Winnipeg and Revelstoke, car-camping with the girl.

So I read for the people there, ones I knew and the ones I didn't, and felt that they were listening to me, that they were engaged with the poems, and then it was over.

Poetry with Perks

Featuring Ariel Gordon, dee Hobsbawn-Smith, Andréa Ledding + Jeanette Lynes

When: Monday, June 10, 7:30 pm
Where: City Perks (801 7 Ave North, Saskatoon)
Cost: Free!

Please join us for the perkiest of poetry readings, featuring three of Saskatoon’s plummiest writers and a Winnipeg poet with a letterpress chapbook to launch.

* * *

Jeanette Lynes is the author of six collections of poetry and one novel. She is also co-author, with Alison Calder, of a chapbook published by Jack Pine Press. Jeanette is Co-ordinator of the MFA in Writing at the University of Saskatchewan.

Andréa Ledding is a Saskatoon-based writer, reader, mother, and photo-journalist. Recent awards include 2012 John V. Hicks Long Manuscript for poetry, 2011 John V. Hicks Long Manuscript for CNF, and subTerrain's 2010 Lush Triumphant for poetry, along with inclusion in the 2011 "Best Canadian Poetry" anthology (Tightrope Press). Her play "Dominion" opened up the 25th annual Weesageechak Festival in Toronto this past November, and she is currently working on her master's thesis.

dee Hobsbawn-Smith is a poet, writer, journalist, chef, educator and local foods advocate. Her award-winning journalism, poetry and short fiction has appeared in books, newspapers, magazines, anthologies and literary journals in Canada, the USA and elsewhere. After 27 years in Calgary, dee now lives in her family’s 100-year-old farmhouse west of Saskatoon. She is currently earning her MFA in writing at the University of Saskatchewan. Dee’s sixth book and first collection of poetry, Wildness Rushing In, will be published by Hagios Press in 2014, and her first collection of short fiction, Appetites, will be published in 2014 by Thistledown Press.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer. Her first book of poetry, Hump (Palimpsest Press), was published in 2010, and her second is slated for publication in 2014. Most recently, she won Kalamalka Press' inaugural John Lent Poetry-Prose Award. The resulting letterpress chapbook, How to Make a Collage, will be launched at this reading. When not being bookish, Ariel likes tromping through the woods and taking macro photographs of mushrooms.

Vancouver reading!

Call & Response: Three Poets in Conversation

When: Saturday, June 8, 7:30 pm
Where: People's Co-op Books (1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver)
Cost: Free! Light refreshments provided!

Poets build community at places like the Sage Hill Writing Experience and the Banff Centre. But also long distance, via postcard and email, from first draft to launch party.

Please join award-winning poets Anna Swanson and Bren Simmers as they welcome Winnipeg’s Ariel Gordon to the city...for a reading that echoes all their conversations over the years.

* * *

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer. Her first book of poetry, Hump (Palimpsest Press), was published in 2010, and her second is slated for publication in 2014. Most recently, she won Kalamalka Press' inaugural John Lent Poetry-Prose Award. The resulting letterpress chapbook, How to Make a Collage, will be launched at this reading. When not being bookish, Ariel likes tromping through the woods and taking macro photographs of mushrooms.

Bren Simmers has worked in libraries, fire lookouts, and as a park interpreter. Winner of the Arc Poem of the Year Award, and finalist for the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award and The Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, her first book of poems, Night Gears, was published by Wolsak and Wynn in 2010. She is currently working on a book about her East Vancouver neighbourhood.

Anna Swanson is a poet and children’s librarian living in Vancouver, BC. Her debut book of poetry, The Nights Also (Tightrope, 2010), asks how identity is formed and challenged in relation to chronic illness, sexuality and solitude. It won a Lambda Literary Award and the Gerald Lampert Award for best first book of poetry.

Planet Earth Poetry!

Congress @ Planet Earth
Friday, June 7 2013, 7:30 p.m.

Planet Earth Poetry Reading Series
Moka House, #103, 1633 Hillside Ave.
$3 (after open mic)

Writers attending Congress 2013, showcase your work at Planet Earth Poetry's June 7th open mic. Poets, fictionists, and creative nonfiction practitioners are equally welcome.

Sign up for the open mic begins at 7 p.m. Each reader is limited to one piece of three minutes or less. Bring your edgiest bon mots because Congress's theme this year is all things "@ The Edge."

The evening's featured readers are Manitoba's Ariel Gordon, Malahat #182 contributor Cody Klippenstein, and Malahat board members Iain Higgins and Eric Miller.

* * *

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer. Her first book of poetry, Hump (Palimpsest Press, 2010), won the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry, and her second, How to Pack Without Overpacking, is slated for publication in 2014. Most recently, she won Kalamalka Press' inaugural John Lent Poetry-Prose Award. The resulting letterpress chapbook, How to Make a Collage, will be launched at this reading. When not being bookish, Ariel likes tromping through the woods and taking macro photographs of mushrooms.

Cody Klippenstein's fiction has appeared in the Spring 2013 issue (#182) of The Malahat Review, Joyland, The Fiddlehead, and Zoetrope: All-Story as the winner of its 2012 short fiction contest selected by Karen Russell. She currently lives in Victoria, BC, where she is at work on a novel, and will be an MFA candidate at Cornell University this fall.

Iain Higgins is a writer, translator, critic, and teacher. His books include Then Again (poems), The Invention of Poetry (a translation of Polish poet Adam Czerniawski’s selected poems), The Book of John Mandeville (a translation of a fictional medieval travel book about the East), and Writing East: The “Travels”’ of Sir John Mandeville (an academic study). His poems have appeared in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 and Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry, and his creative nonfiction has appeared in Maisonneuve. He is currently finishing a new book of poems and working on a novel. He teaches in the English department and in the Medieval Studies Program at UVic.

Eric Miller has published three books of poetry, Song of the Vulgar Starling, In the Scaffolding, which was nominated for the 2006 ReLit ward, and A Day in Moss. His book of lyric essays, The Reservoir, was short-listed for the 2007 Hubert Evans Award. He has published two book-length translations: Bettina Klix's Rapture of the Depths and We Are Like Fire, which collects writings by Wilhelm Waiblinger and Hermann Hesse on Friedrich Hoelderlin. Eric’s work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, Books in Canada, Brick, Canadian Literature, Columbia, Descant, The Fiddlehead, Ploughshares, Queen's Quarterly, and Vallum. He sits on the poetry board of The Malahat Review and teaches English at the University of Victoria.

How to Make a Collage

* * *
How to Make a Collage, letterpressed by Kalamalka Press.

My thanks to Kevin McPherson, Jake Kennedy, Laisha Rosnau, and Jason Dewinetz.

How to unpack "How to Make a Collage"

How do you unpack How to Make a Collage?

(Which arrived in the mail today, i.e. the day AFTER the 'launch.' Sob.)

(Answer: With a knife. In the bedroom.)

MBA 25th Anniversary reading

* * *

(l-r) Faith Johnston and Simone Chaput reading, MWG interim administrative coordinator Cam Bush listening raptly at the books table, Armin Wiebe, the last performer, reading the end of Tatsea, and me, as host, gesticulating madly.

* * *

Tonight was the MBA 25th anniversary reading. Featuring eight of twenty-two possible multiple award-winners.

We were in aceartinc light-and-dark gallery space. There were fruit and veg platters. And books/ideas.

It was a dreamy night, the no-show of my chapbook, How to Make a Collage, notwithstanding. But I can launch that another night. And it was good to read some apropos wretched-spring poems from Hump and a poem from my Papirmasse accordion broadside.

Thanks to the MWG for letting me host/read! (And for administering the MBAs for 25 years...)

Manitoba Book Awards 25th Anniversary Pre-Gala Reading

When: Monday, April 22, 7:00 pm
Where: Ace Art (2-290 McDermot Avenue)
Cost: FREE

Please join us for a special evening of readings to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Manitoba Book Awards! 

Host extraordinaire Ariel Gordon will helm an evening of pre-Gala readings by eight multiple award winners from the MBA’s first 25 years. 

Our full roster of readers includes:  

Lori Cayer, Simone Chaput, Ariel Gordon, Faith Johnston, J.R. Léveillé, Chandra Mayor, Larry Verstraete, Armin Wiebe

Free admission. Refreshments will be provided; bar by donation.

Don’t forget to join us at the 2013 Manitoba Book Awards Gala on Sunday, April 28 at the West End Cultural Centre (doors at 7:15 pm, Gala at 8:00 pm)!

* * *

This event will be great fun...it will also function as the launch of my Kalamalka Press chapbook, How to Make a Collage. 

Yay! Fun!

Reprint: How to Make a Collage

 From the Kalamalka Press website:

* * *

Details on my brand new Kalamalka Press chapbook, How to Make a Collage.

Those of you hoping to get a copy will have to get them direct from me at any of the events in Winnipeg, Victoria, Vancouver, and Saskatoon, as apparently they're sold out.

I only have twenty in my cache, so I may have to come up with an elaborate rationing system to make sure I still have a few left by the time I hit Saskatoon in June. (By the light of the moon. With a bassoon.)

Yay! My thanks to Jake Kennedy, Kevin McPherson, Laisha Rosnau, Jason Dewinetz, the students of ENGL205, and, of course, to John Lent.

Interiors

Books! For me!

As I've mentioned in this space previously, I had the great good fortune to work on my upcoming Kalamalka Press chapbook with a bunch of writers whose work I admired.

And then there were the come-from -away readers also performing at Word Ruckus and Vertigo Voices.

So it should go without saying that my 'soft launch' of the chappie last week in Vernon & Kelowna saw me accumulating quite a stack of books to bring home.

Jake Kennedy's How to do Typing
Laisha Rosnau's Notes on Leaving
Al Rempel's This Isn't the Apocalypse We Hoped For
Hannah Calder's More House
Jason Dewinetz's moving to the clear
David Pitt-Brooke and Christine McPhee's Accommodation: A Dialogue of Culture and Nature

After spending a bit of time with their authors I'm looking forward now to spending time in the books.

I also picked up some of the weird books piled on the floor at Word Ruckus. And hauled them home. And will therefore learn about The Horse Through the Ages, All About Ferrets, and Evergreens through seventies-tinted glasses.

* * *

In other Kalamalka Press chapbook news, I will be hosting/reading at the MWG Book Awards Anniversary Reading on April 22 at aceartinc (2nd Floor, 290 McDermott Ave).

The event will feature multiple MBA-winners, including Lori Cayer, Chandra Mayor, Faith Johnston, J.R. Leveille, Larry Verstraete, and Armin Wiebe. (And one or two as yet confirmed others...)

It will also function as a How to Make a Collage launch. Because I've got a chapbook to launch. And don't feel like organizing an additional event. Just to launch it.

Yay! Fun!

Ruckus-ing!

(clockwise from left) Chestnuts from Jake Kennedy's yard in Kelowna, a bone bone-folder and a plastic bone-folder from Jason Dewinetz' letterpress bunker in Vernon, ENORMOUS rosehips from an ENORMOUS old rosebush on the Bishop Wild Bird Sanctuary aka Laisha Rosnau's yard in Vernon, and a wooden type block from the letterpress demo at the Word Ruckus in Kelowna.

* * *

I just got back from two readings in BC's interior to celebrate my upcoming Kalamalka Press chapbook, How to Make a Collage.

In addition to the readings, one of whom was with a pile of people and the other of which was with Gillian Wigmore, who I met years ago at the Banff Centre and who has done some pretty marvelous things since then...

In addition to the readings, I ALSO got to spend time with each of the people who contributed to the chapbook: the judges (organizers/editors/emcees) who selected it, the designer/students who 'set it in metal,' and the man it was named for...

And it was SUCH a goddamn pleasure.

More later, but for now: Yay! Fun! (And, always, thank you...)

Vertigo Voices poster!

* * *

I do so love optical illusions. When they don't give me migraines, that is. (I'm not joking. If I'm pre-migraine, shirts with optical illustion-y patterns hurt.)

Reprint: Word Ruckus 2013

So this came directly out of the (frenzied) brains of poet/prof/organizers Jake Kennedy and kevin mcpherson eckhoff. As such, I'm not going to do anything to it, except reprint it, because it makes me a little dizzy....:

Word Ruckus 2013: A Festival of Words & Community

On Saturday, March 23, 2013, from 4:00 pm to 1 am-ish, at the Laurel Packinghouse, Okanagan College, with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, will present Word Ruckus 2013: A Hootenanny of Words & Community.

What is a Word Ruckus? According to the organizers an Okanagan College English professors, Jake Kennedy and kevin mcpherson eckhoff, “Word Ruckus is an all-ages literary shin-dig, a pay-what-you-can writerly free-fer-all, a poetic hoe-down and a magical linguistical brouhaha.” 

In other words, Word Ruckus is not your grandfather’s poetry reading.
 
This year, Word Ruckus will feature 14 professional writers reading from their poems, stories, novels, and plays. The event will also showcase “that poetry car” that everyone can cover in words, a Poem Maker Machine, Alphagetti short story/poem contests, Kids Giving Adults Famous Author Haircuts Extravaganza, affordable wine and beer, free books, kids’ & adults’ typewriter and art area, open-mic slots, and couches and chairs for poetic people to lounge on. 

This year Word Ruckus will also be announcing the winner of the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature.
 
In the early hours of the Ruckus—from approximately 4:30-7 pm—all of the programming will be child-focused and will then highlight the literary creations of some of the Okanagan’s most talented young teens. The Ruckus begins at 4:30 with a number of live-on-stage literary performances and improvisations of under-10s including “sound poem speed racing,” “interpretive poetry dancing,”
and “kids judge books by their covers.” The Ruckus will then feature performances from several Kelowna Secondary high school poets, too.
 
 Okanagan College professor and book-maker, Jason Dewinetz, and some of his Writing & Publishing Diploma students, will also be present to hand-set letters of words on a flat-bed letterpress.
The night will also include rad music from the WR houseband—Murmur—and of course the spectacular literary performances of Angie Abdou, Annharte, Arlene Bowman, Kathleen Brown, Hannah Calder, Mercedes Eng, Ariel Gordon, Aaron Giovannone, Claire Lacey, Dorothy Lusk, Muriel Marjorie, Cecily Nicholson, Al Rempel, and Laisha Rosnau. 

Finally, the night will conclude with an open jam and Word Ruckus’ traditional prank calls to famous Canadian authors.
 
This year, the fifth year in a row that this big literary party has been thrown, the organizers are expecting about 300 people to attend maybe, so reserve your couch through karma! 

Admission is like pay what you can-can! 
 

Word Ruckus

* * *

So I'll be heading to Kelowna and Vernon in March to read from my Kalamalka Press chapbook, How to Make a Collage.

Here's the event poster for the Kelowna event, called Word Ruckus but also a "Community Literary Festival Hootenanny Show Event."

The Vernon reading, which will be part of the Vertigo Voices series, will also feature Gillian Wigmore, who I met aaaaaages ago at the Banff Centre's Wired Writing Studio.

So I'm as pleased as punch to be reading with her. And, also, that I'll get to know Laisha Rosnau, jake kennedy, and kevin eckhoff mcpherson, who've acted as jurors/editors/organizers on this chapbook, a bit better...

Yay! Fun!