Events July 2025
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Feature Poet Pauline Le Bel
Pauline Le Bel is the author of two collections of poetry, two non-fiction books, an award-winning novel, two award-winning screenplays, several musicals and plays, and a CBC radio drama. A singer/songwriter, she has produced five CDs of her original
songs, including “Deep Fun: Songs About Science, Food and Sex.” She has also worked as a journalist, festival organizer, community activist, and is the founder and creative director of Knowing Our Place: a Reconciliation Initiative on Bowen Island.
She received a Cable ACE Award and an Emmy-nomination for her screenplay, “The Song Spinner,” a movie of the week for Showtime and went on to write three other — theatrical and literary — versions of her original story. Pauline is a fan of recycling.
As an ancestor-in-training, Pauline offers workshops: “Way to Go! Poetry and Conversation on the End of Life, “ where her poems invite thoughtful conversation on aging and dying. Her most recent book of poems, Becoming the Harvest (Caitlin Press 2024) has been described as “beautifully crafted with wit, intimacy and grace,” and “a fierce and humorous meditation on the end of life.”
Pauline’s passion for words began with song: a Bachelor of Music in Voice in 1975, and a career across Canada in musical theatre. In Vancouver in 1978, she created a theatrical buzz with her passionate portrayal of French chanteuse, Edith Piaf, in a play
she co-wrote and toured. Her engaging poetry presentations often include a song or two. She lives on the unceded traditional land of the Squamish Nation on Bowen Island/Nexwlélexwm.
Visit Pauline's website: https://paulinelebel.com/
Past Events in June 2025
Feature Poet Josh Klassen
Josh Klassen has been creating art his whole life. For him, art is a way of life, a way to see the world, navigate his time on Earth, create beauty and community with those around him. He enjoys painting, music and many other forms of expression. He began writing in high school when he fell in love with creating hip hop music. Klassen grew up in rural Black Creek and currently lives with his wife and daughter in Courtenay.
Past Events May 2025
Artful : The Poets
features Paul E. Nelson
About Paul E. Nelson
Poet/interviewer Paul E. Nelson founded the Cascadia Poetics LAB & the Cascadia Poetry Festival. His books include DaySong Miracle (Past 62) (2024); Cascadian Prophets (Interviews 1999-2023) (2024); Haibun de la Serna (2022); A Time Before Slaughter/Pig War: & Other Songs of Cascadia (2020); American Prophets (interviews 1994-2012)(2018); American Sentences (2015, 2021); A Time Before Slaughter (2009). Nelson is the Co-Editor of Cascadian Zen Volume I: Bioregional Writings on Cascadia Here and Now (2023, Watershed Press), Make it True meets Medusario (2019) (Spanish & English) and other anthologies.
Nelson is the Literary Executor for the late poet Sam Hamill and lives in Rainier Beach, alongside dxʷwuqʷeb Creek.
The Octet Salon Exhibition runs May 21 thru June 14
Join us for the Artist Reception
Saturday, May 24, 7-9pm
Past Events April 2025
Feature Poet: Neil Surkan
Neil Surkan is the current Poet Laureate of Nanaimo, BC (2024-2026). Born in Penticton, BC, he is the author of two full-length poetry collections — Unbecoming (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021), which was selected as one of three finalists for the City of Calgary’s W.O. Mitchell Award, and On High (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018) — and the chapbooks Die Workbook (The Blasted Tree), Ruin (Knife|Fork|Book, 2023), Their Queer Tenderness (Knife|Fork|Book, 2020), and Super, Natural (Anstruther Press, 2017). His award-winning poems have appeared in numerous Canadian magazines.
Neil earned a PhD in English from the University of Calgary in 2021 after completing an MA-CRW at the University of Toronto and a BA (Hons) at the University of Victoria. A Professor in the Department of English at Vancouver Island University, he lives in Nanaimo, on the traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation, with Luca, Edi, and Lloyd.
Spring Poetry Workshop: Words + Images
with Diana Kolpak & Carys Owen
Second performance added 4:00pm for Kim June Johnson!
Kim June Johnson ~
Songs For a Quiet Day
Kim June Johnson is an award-winning singer-songwriter and poet living in the Comox Valley.
This concert is a pre-release show for her album, "Songs For a Quiet Day", due to be released in May.
The concert will showcase performances of songs from the new album as well as live readings of poems.
She will be joined by Jordie Robinson on cello.
"A rare and exceptional talent." - ECLIPSE
Past Events March 2025
Spoken Word: An Oral Excursion From Page To Performance
This hands-on workshop will engage writers in the process of weaving written words into performance. Activities such as voice projection and spacial recognition will be included as well as more challenging practices such as blocking, choreography, movement and memorization. Participants will receive coaching and feedback on weaving individual poems and prose into performance. There will be discussion and history on sub-genres of spoken word including storytelling, mixed media, musical accompaniment and sound poetry.
Facilitator Steven J. Thompson is a poet and performer with 20 years of experience in poetry slam, spoken word and performance art. He has written articles for Monday Magazine and has participated in the CBC Poetry Face-off. Steven's poetry has appeared in publications such as Oratoriallis and MuseMedusa. A three-time member of the Victoria National Poetry Slam team, Steven has performed at festivals and events across Canada including Vancouver’s Word on the Street, The Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and The Calgary International Spoken Word Festival.
As well as a graduate of the Banff Spoken Word Program and the co-founder of the award-winning Tongues of Fire spoken word series in Victoria, Steven is a former Artistic Director of the Victoria Poetry Project and the former director of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. All ages and levels of experience are welcome. Please note that performance poetry has a physical aspect to it and varying abilities will be taken into consideration. Please email to discuss any concerns regarding the physicality of performing spoken word poetry.
Feature Poet: Cynthia Woodman
Born in Toronto, a resident of Hong Kong, Vancouver and France, Cynthia Woodman Kerkham studied English Literature, French and Asian Studies at UBC and has spent her working life as a teacher bridging different cultures. From 2004, she studied poetry extensively in poetry retreats with the late, great Patrick Lane and has further learned her craft from several poets, including Lorna Crozier, Hua Nguyen and Sue Goyette, the latter during Cynthia’s scholarship to the Wired Writers Program at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She’s now in two writing groups which give her tremendous encouragement and inspiration.
Her poetry has appeared in most Canadian literary journals and she’s won several awards, including The Malahat Review’s Open Season Award, the Federation of BC Writers Contest, and the shortlist for the CBC Poetry Prize and the Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Competition. She’s also the winner of the John Lent Poetry/Prose award and the author of the chapbook published with that award titled with feathers (Kalamalka Press, 2023). She’s the co-editor of the anthology Poems from Planet Earth (Leafpress, 2013) and the author of two full-length poetry collections Good Holding Ground (Palimpsest Press, 2011) and, most recently Water Quality (McGill-Queens University Press, 2024) which was on the CBC list of 44 Poetry Collections to Watch for in 2024.
Cynthia teaches and edits in Victoria, BC, where she hasn’t found a body of water she doesn’t like.
Past Events Feb 2025
This workshop will connect you with the joy of creating for the sake of exploration, humour, and collaboration. Creating with unexpected materials can lower our inhibitions, giving us the playful experience of creating with curiosity and openness to the unexpected...just for the pleasure of it!
Unsculpted is not about learning to sculpt with skilled technical expertise; it will expand your creativity though, just not in the ways you might expect! $105 workshop fee covers gst and all materials.
Feature Poet : Carol Neufeld
Carol Neufeld was born in southern Alberta and attended the University of Calgary, travelled through the Middle East and North Africa before landing here on Vancouver Island in 1969. Fishing out of Tofino for salmon, herring and tuna off their custom built 54’ sailboat built by George Bruigom of Courtenay was only part of the coastal exploration that led to settling on Brooks Peninsula with her partner. When Neufeld became pregnant, they built a home on Wickaninnish Island. When that chapter of her life closed Neufeld attended UVIC and SFU. She studied with Don McKay and Jan Zwicky, and followed that up with a Master of Arts in Poetry.
Neufeld shares that her life has not felt so exciting since. As a single mother, she was employed in various capacities and grew to love the Comox Valley. Instrumental in saving the MacDonald Woods, she is politically active, works with non-profits, writes poetry and cared for her young grand-daughter. Neufeld has four published books of her poetry, and along with the natural world, considers poetry her home.
Past Events Jan 2025
Past Events Dec 2024
Feature Poet: Kim June Johnson
KIM JUNE JOHNSON is an award-winning singer-songwriter and poet living on the unceded territory of the Komoks First Nations. Her fifth recording project, “Songs For a Quiet Day” is a collection of small poem-songs praising quiet things, and will be released in the spring.
Her poems and short essays have appeared in Room, Prairie Fire, TNQ, Best Canadian Poetry, FOLKLIFE and elsewhere. She hosts an online writing community called "Cozy Sunday Write-Ins" and lives in a draughty house beside a creek with her teen daughter and an assortment of animals. www.kimjunejohnson.com
Past Events Nov 2024
Elisha Almeida
Elisha Almeida's poetry is inspired by being with the river, trees, soil, and plant kin. She writes about heart and ancestral re-connection. She attempts to describe the journey of soul that is tender, intimate and evolving. She finds writing to be soul's balm and is relieved when the words have found paper. She has been revelling in human connections lately, especially communal song spaces that bring her heart joy.
Micki Findlay
Author Micki Findlay is a long-time resident of Vancouver Island. She focusses primarily on writing memoir-based stories and poetry in hopes of helping others recognize their self-worth and find hope through difficult circumstances. She also writes to heal herself.
Micki’s writing has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul, Van Isle Poetry Collective, Black Press Media, various magazines including Oasis Life and EyesOnBC, and several anthologies such as, Back The Way We Came by The Memory Keepers, Crone Rising by Jazz House Publications, and Grateful by Quillkeepers Press.
Two of her poems received awards, and her story, Too Late, was a finalist in the Women on Writing 2024 non-fiction writing contest. Several of her poems were recently accepted for Poetry on the Big Screen at the 2024 Poetry Festival in Perth, Australia.
Micki is currently working on an anthology with her writing group and her own memoir-based, healing journal. Creativity, collaboration, and coffee are her love languages.
Erica Keen
Erica Keen (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist based out of Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ territory (Ucluelet) and K'omoks territory (Cumberland). A recent graduate of SFU The Writer's Studio, Erica writes poetry and creative non-fiction. Their work can be found in Sea and Cedar Literary and Arts Magazine, the Comox Valley Collective, and forthcoming in PRISM International.
Join poets/multidisciplinary artists Carys Owen & Diana Kolpak to explore the magical intersection of found poetry and images. Poets and collage artists at all levels of experience are welcome.
The creative spark for the third instalment of words + images is: “into the dark…” Focusing on the use of rhythm and repetition of words, images, colour, shapes, and sounds, we’ll explore darkness’s many facets.
Each participant will create their own work, as well as contributing to a collaborative poem. All materials will be supplied but you are welcome to bring any special materials you would particularly like to use.
Events & Exhibitions Oct 2024
Feature Poet: Steven J. Thompson
Steven J. Thompson is a writer, spoken word artist and poet. He has written articles for Monday Magazine and 11th Transmission, and participated in the 2007 CBC Poetry Face-off. Steven’s poetry has appeared in print, in publications such as Oratoriallis and MuseMedusa.
As a three-time member of the Victoria National Poetry Slam team, Steven has performed at festivals and events across Canada including The Pacific Festival of the Book, Vancouver’s Word on the Street Festival, The Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and The Calgary International Spoken Word Festival. He is a graduate of the Banff Spoken Word Program where he studied with Sheri-D
Wilson and Juno Award winner Lillian Allen.
Steven is co-founder of the long-running, award-winning Tongues of Fire spoken word/poetry series in Victoria. As executive director of the Victoria Poetry Project Society he worked as a liaison with arts organizations across Canada. In 2009 Steven was the festival director of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.
Follow Steven on Instagram - @averagewhitebard
Just two weeks following a lymphoma diagnosis in October of last year, Courtenay artist Josh Klassen wanted a low-key, but creative way to connect with friends and family for his birthday. The first group painting party kicked off a project that would last through the next several months of treatment. A loose collective was formed, and a body of work emerged. The Art Writers Ghost Collective gathered most Sundays between November 2023 and March 2024 for brunch and a collaborative painting.
The core group of artists includes Anna Rambow, Josh Klassen, Olivia Klassen, Marcelle Wheeler, and Dave Miklos, but the attending participants are fluid with a range of people contributing towards each painting.
Often using up-cycled canvases, the pieces are usually large enough to cover the dinner table. The artists rotate around the canvas and spin the painting throughout the afternoon. The process begins with a colourful abstraction which is then detailed with a final inking. An intention of letting go, non-attachment, trust in each other and no wrong answers sets the tone for the journey through each session.
The first showcasing of work by the Art Writers Ghost Collective takes place for one day only at Artful: The Gallery in Courtenay. All are welcome to join us on October 12 from 1pm until 5 pm. There will be an interactive painting for those interested in participating, set to the experimental music soundscape of David Miklos and Jesse Gentes duo ZEK. The open house exhibit marks the one year anniversary of Josh’s cancer journey, and a celebration of his remission. All are welcome.
Events & Exhibitions Sept 2024
Feature Poet: Lorin Medley
Lorin Medley is a counsellor and writer from Comox, BC published in Drift: Poems and Poets from the Comox Valley, Sweetwater: Poems for the Watersheds, Refugium: Poems for the Pacific, The New Quarterly magazine, subTerrain, The Puritan, Many Gendered Mothers, and Portal. She won the 2014 Islands Short Fiction Contest, Aislinn Hunter's 2015 Books Matter poetry prize and was long listed for the 2016 Prism International Poetry Contest.
Events & Exhibitions August 2024
Stay tuned for more information about the poetry programs for Sunday, August 25th.
In the meantime, folks can email Adelia at adelia.macwilliam@gmail.com if they have any questions or want to register for Paul Nelson's workshop on Saturday, August 24th.
Feature Poet: Kelly Madden
Kelly Madden’s work has appeared in publications supported by the League of Canadian Poets, SAPPzine, Reckoning, Island Writer’s Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, The Poet, and various anthologies. Her first collection of poetry, If I’d Known, was published in 2021.
Join poets/multidisciplinary artists Carys Owen & Diana Kolpak to explore the magical intersection of found poetry and images. Poets and collage artists at all levels of experience are welcome.
Bring your own scissors, your imagination and your sense of adventure…all other materials will be supplied for you to create your own frame-worthy collage poem to take home! Feel free to bring special materials of your own.
This session dives into the wonders of haiku & offers an opportunity to contribute a panel to a collaborative collage poem…but you can also just solo freestyle if that’s what heats you up!
Max. 16 participants. Email dlkolpak@gmail.com to reserve your spot.
READING-INTO-WRITING is a workshop by Cornelia Hoogland that will precede her reading (followed by an open mic) at the Artful : The Gallery, Courtenay B.C. The workshop runs 5:00-6:30 pm on July 8, 2024. Lots here for the community! These back-to-back workshop and reading are by separate donation to cover separate costs. Please arrive ON TIME, say,10 minutes beforehand!
Cornelia Hoogland, author of 8 books of poetry, has taught writing during her university career, in her annual, online courses, and in the community (for which she received the national 2023 Colleen Thibaudeau Award for Excellence in Poetry).
In READING-INTO-WRITING, participants (beginners welcome) will hone their skills in reading a poem in a way that allows them to create a template to use in writing their own poems. The template can help avoid the formal or linguistic habits we writers fall
into, and offer alternatives, thereby refreshing our writing practice and surprising us.
In preparation for the workshop, find and bring a poem that you admire and want to emulate (This is voluntary!). Cornelia will bring copies of the poem we’ll use to build our template, and time permitting, try out. Bring writing materials and a sense of fun and experimentation. In the reading that follows, Hoogland will expand concepts introduced into the workshop, giving living examples of her READING-INTO-WRITING method. Join us for either or both!
Feature Poet: Cornelia Hoogland
Cornelia Hoogland is 2023 winner of the Colleen Thibaudeau Outstanding Achievement in Poetry Award. Trailer Park Elegy, (Harbour, 2017), was a finalist for the Raymond Souster award. Woods Wolf Girl (Wolsak and Wynn, 2011) was a finalist for the ReLit Award for Poetry. Tourists Stroll a Victoria Waterway was a finalist for the 2017 CBC Poetry Awards and her long poem, “Sea Level,” a finalist for the CBC Nonfiction Awards, was published as a chapbook (Baseline Press, 2012).
Cosmic Bowling, A Girl Walks into the Woods (a graphic novel with Diana Tamblyn) and Tracks in the Snow (Baseline), are her latest books. She lives on Hornby Island with the visual artist Ted Goodden and Drummer. Cornelia is
Professor emeritus, Western, London, Ontario, and lives on Hornby Island B.C.,the traditional territory of the K’ómoks Nation, Gilakas’la/čɛčɛ haθɛč.
To learn more about Cornelia visit www.corneliahoogland.com, find her on Twitter @CHoogland, or check out some of these additional links of interest:
Winner of the 2023 Colleen Thibaudeau Outstanding Achievement in Poetry Award
Dressed in Only a Cardigan She Picks up Her Tracks in the Snow (Baseline)
Carousel review of Cosmic Bowling by Julie McIssac
Cosmic Bowling is travelling the Vancouver Transit System 2020-2021
Ted Goodden in the garlic patch 4 min. video trailer of Cosmic Bowling
Printed Matter Artist Reception
Join all of the artists at Artful on
Friday, June 14, 7-9pm
for the celebration of this exhibition!
Feature Poet: Claire Gordon
Claire is an emerging writer and film photographer. She is a settler of Celtic, French, and Eastern European ancestry; born and raised in Snuneymuxw territory (Nanaimo) and currently living in K’ómoks territory (Cumberland).
Her writing meditates on human interaction with and on the land through narrative and documentary poetics. She is interested in form, imagery, and culture-creation through art. Claire’s academic and creative work has appeared in Queen City Writers, Canadian Yogi, and Sea & Cedar Magazine, among others.
Check out Claire on Instagram @clairegordon
Folk N Punk
This collection of folk punk/punk/folk/punk adjacent artists from the islands, the mainland and quathet are converging on Courtenay to play at Artful on May 18th, 4-8pm for this all ages arthouse show. Thanks to 2B-Deterrant (Dan Kerr) for bringing it all together.
Shorefox: A queer fae folk singer from Saltspring Island Jodie's Ford Ride This Train
Séamus R-L: Artist and performer from Powell River Bug
The Oldest Man I Know: High energy, punk inspired folk band from Vic When It's Gone
Gilson: Singer Songwriter from Lake Country, BC Gilson
Lumpen Soup: Soupy folk-punk in so-called Vancouver Lumpen Soup IN
2B-Deterrent: A transient busker since 2018 anywhere from Toronto to Tofino Spotify Bandcamp
Feature Poet Marie Metaphor
For more info about Marie Metaphor visit https://www.mariemetaphor.com/about
or follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariemetaphor/
Marie Metaphor Specht is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, and educator living on the unceded territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən- and SENĆOTEN-speaking peoples. A long-time member of the Canadian spoken word scene, she is currently serving a two-year term as the 6th Poet Laureate of Victoria, B.C. In addition to her independent practice, she has collaborated with filmmakers, lighting engineers, dancers, and musicians to create immersive and interactive works. Marie believes in the transformative power of this art form and has had the privilege of coaching and creating space for youth poets for nearly two decades.
Marie’s poetry has been published in Oratorealis, Untethered Magazine, Chestnut Review, The Hellebore, and Room Magazine, among others. Her debut poetry collection, Soft Shelters is out now with Write Bloody North Publishing (2023).
Trio of Writers Read at Artful
On Saturday, April 13th at 7:00pm friends Judy Leblanc (Comox Valley), Cornelia Hoogland (Denman Island) and Arleen Paré (Victoria) will treat us to readings!
Judy LeBlanc is a writer from Fanny Bay, BC. Several of her stories and essays have been published in Canadian literary journals; a collection of her short stories, The Promise of Water, was published by Oolichan Books in 2017, and her novel, The Broken Heart of Winter, was published by Caitlin Press in 2023. She’s won the Sheldon Currie Fiction prize and the Islands Fiction contest, and she’s been a runner-up for fiction contests with Room, PRISM international and the CBC. In February of this year, Permission to Land was published by Caitlin Press. She was born and raised on the west coast, has European/Acadian ancestry on her father’s side, and European/WSANEC ancestry on her mother’s side. She was the founder of the Fat Oyster Reading Series in Fanny Bay and taught creative writing at North Island College for several years. Learn more about Judy's books at Caitlin Press or BC Book Look.
Cornelia Hoogland is 2023 winner of the Colleen Thibaudeau Outstanding Achievement in Poetry Award. Trailer Park Elegy and Woods Wolf Girl were finalists for national awards, Tourists Stroll a Victoria Waterway for the CBC Poetry Awards and “Sea Level,” for the CBC Nonfiction Awards, and published as a chapbook. Cosmic Bowling, A Girl Walks into the Woods, a graphic novel, and Dressed in Only a Cardigan She Picks up Her Tracks in the Snow (Baseline), are her latest books. Hoogland was the 2019 writer-in-residence for the Al Purdy A-Frame and the Whistler Festival. www.corneliahoogland.com
Arleen Paré is a Victoria writer with ten books of poetry and one anthology. She’s been short-listed for the Dorothy Livesay BC Award, and has won the Victoria Butler Book Prize, a CBC Bookie Prize, the bpNichol Chapbook Award, the American Golden Crown Award for Lesbian Poetry, twice, and a Governor Generals’ Award for Poetry.
She lives with her wife, Chris Fox, in Victoria on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people. Read more about Arleen at Caitlin Press or follow her on Facebook.
Feature Poet John Beaton
John Beaton’s metrical poetry has been widely published and has won numerous awards. He recites from memory as a spoken word performer and is author of Leaving Camustianavaig, a poetry collection published by Word Galaxy Press. For four years he authored a monthly poetry page in the local magazine Eyes on BC. He has also moderated a respected online metrical poetry workshop and is slated to be a speaker at the 2024 Earth Charter International Conference in Florida to present his environmental poetry. Raised in the Scottish Highlands, John lives in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island.
https://www.john-beaton.com/
Bruce and Judy Wing
Judy and Bruce Wing are a seasoned Comox Valley duo whose music offers intertwined guitar parts that support smooth vocals, evocative lyrics, and percussive rhythms. They will be performing a curated selection of multi-genre songs -- many original, and some reimagined covers.
Their music earned three Vancouver Island Music Award nominations including Female Songwriter of the Year (Islander), Pop/Rock Song of the Year (Lucky You), Country Song of the Year (Small Town Girl), and as well as an award for Roots Song of the Year with the blues tinged "Miss Your Exit". Since forming their duo in 2005, Bruce and Judy have recorded 5 albums together and have enjoyed being part of other musical collaborations including Comox Valley's Lunchbox Legend Band. They will be sharing an evening of songs and poetry on Saturday, March 16th from 7-9pm at Artful : The Gallery.
Robert Moon's entire life was dedicated to beauty and art, and for this reason his celebration of life will be held in an art sphere. Robert's family and friends will gather to celebrate and remember this gifted artist on March 17, 7-10pm.
Comox Valley Songwriter's Circle
Artful : The Gallery is excited to welcome the Comox Valley Songwriter's Circle to the gallery for their monthly song circles! The circles are a place for both new and experienced songwriters to come share new songs they are working on, or to dust off some old ones that may need some practice. They take turns going around the circle sharing one song at a time, and each artist can decide if they want others to jam or singalong to their tune.
The evenings are hosted by singer/songwriter Ashley Sykes, who has enjoyed being part of the Comox Valley songwriter circles since they first began in 2005, and she’s been happily hosting them since the fall of 2022.
Ashley is happy to collaborate with Kristina Campbell, owner of Artful : The Gallery, to welcome songwriters to a cozy and inspiring atmosphere, surrounded by visual art as we share our musical art. The event will be held each month on the second Tuesday. Please note: this event is only for people who are coming to participate in the circle and by donation at the door ($10 suggested).
Ed Varney
Ed Varney has been a poet, a visual artist, a book and zine publisher, an editor, a critic, a curator, a book designer, and a printer. He has a BA and an MA in English Literature. He has never worked for the man.
He began writing poetry and making art and visual poetry as a teenager and has never stopped. He has produced 26 books and chapbooks in the last 50 years and his work has appeared in numerous publications and exhibitions in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. His most recent poetry publication is "Ineffable: The Mystical Poems" from The Poem Factory, 2022.
Varney lives quietly in Royston, BC, Canadada. He is not into self promotion but he does have 1400 friends. He is currently the archivist at The Museo Internacionale de Neu Art, an editor at The Poem Factory, and a Senior Fellow at The Specific Research Institute. He does not have a cell phone but can be reached at evarney@shaw.ca
Sea to Sea:
Bernice Friesen, Anita Anand and Kim June Johnson
Bernice Friesen
Now a Comox Valley local, BERNICE FRIESEN grew up in Saskatchewan in a farming family full of dyslexics, inventors and other divergent minds. The life of her great-grandfather’s family has been written in The Mulberry Tree by Victor Carl and Anna Friesen. She trained as a visual artist and teacher, took creative writing courses with Elizabeth Brewster, Guy Vanderhaegue and Tim Lilburn. Her fiction, poetry, and visual art has been published in anthologies and magazines in Canada and Europe, and she has served as fiction and senior editor of Rhubarb Magazine.
The title story of her first book, The Seasons are Horses (1995), won the Vicky Metcalf Award for Best Young Adult Short Story in Canada. Her book of poetry Sex, Death and Naked Men, came out in 1998 and her first novel, The Book of Beasts, in 2007. It won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction in 2007, was rated in the top five first fictions by the Toronto Globe and Mail, and was short-listed for the Rogers Writers Trust of Canada Fiction Prize. Universal Disorder, her second novel,
came out in 2020 from Freehand Books, is still being post-pandemic launched, and was named in that year’s top ten novels in Canada in Quill and Quire Magazine. She writes an exhibition blog at https://bernicefriesen.wordpress.com/ showing pieces of her visual art in tandem with written intellectual adventures. Now, when she works with her hands, it’s sometimes wearable art incorporating fur, chains, pipe-fittings or other junk. When she wears these things people often ask her about them or are afraid to ask her about them.
She also considers herself an experimental plumber.
Anita Anand
Anita Anand was born in Montreal and lives in a suburb of that city now. When she was younger, she moved back and forth between her hometown and such places as the Bronx, Bedfordshire, England and Richmond, B.C. In every neighbourhood where she has lived, she has been the only person her age of Indian origin, a priceless gift to her development as a writer.
This Anita Anand is not the Canadian Minister of Defense, nor the British novelist and broadcast journalist, although she
regularly receives their email. Unlike her namesakes, she was an ESL instructor until recently and now focusses on pitching literary translations to publishers, practicing for her guitar lessons, and trying to save the world through signing petitions. She also writes, but only sporadically.
A Convergence of Solitudes, her first novel, won last year’s gold Independent Publishing (Ippy) Award, was a finalist for the 2022 Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, the 2023 Ontario Library Association’s Evergreen Award and a Foreword Indies Award. Anita’s first book, Swing in the House and Other Stories won the QWF-Concordia University First Book Prize in 2015 and was nominated for both the 2015 Montreal Diversity Prize for a First Publication and the 2016 Relit Award. Anita has translated four novels by Québec authors: As the Andes Disappeared, by Caroline Dawson, Lightness and Mukbang, both by Fanie Demeule, and Nirliit, by Juliana-Leveillé-Trudel.
According to Miss Ellis, her third-grade teacher, “Anita finds humour in situations where it is not evident to other people.”
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/aconvergenceofsolitudes/
Kim June Johnson
Kim June Johnson is a singer-songwriter, storyteller, poet and embodiment coach currently living and working in the Comox Valley. Kim tours with her cellist Jordie Robinson, performing house concerts and folk clubs; their shows often incorporate live poetry. A recent graduate of Lighthouse Writers' Poetry Collective, her poems and short nonfiction have appeared in Prairie Fire, Room, The New Quarterly, CV2, FOLKLIFE Magazine, River Teeth and elsewhere. For the past three years, Kim has been deepening her study of somatic modalities and complex trauma and is fascinated
by how we can access stories and release resistance through the body. Kim hosts an online writing community called "Cozy Sunday Write-Ins" that meets to write together in the style of "writing-practice" on Sunday evenings during the colder months (Nov - March). She lives in a draughty house near a creek with her teen daughter, their Bernese Mountain dog and two cats. Kim posts poems, songs and stories on her instagram account @kimjunejohnson. You can also find her at kimjunejohnson.com and healingground.ca
Searching For Emily is a feature length documentary that I created “unintentionally”. I had been hired by the Royal BC Museum to shoot some video footage for their exhibition “The Other Emily” which paired art by Emily Carr with portraits of Carr, painted by contemporary artist Manon Elder. Elder wanted to disrupt the charicaturized vision of Emily Carr as the old woman with a monkey. That was how this project started.
6 months later I had over 40 hours of footage and realized that in addition to what the museum wanted, I had captured an amazing story about Emily Carr. Recognizing I was way out of my depth in terms of practical knowledge or experience, I spent a weekend in Vancouver at what was billed as 2 day film school…talk about a crash course!
Three months later, I had wrestled that footage into a doc which has been shown across Canada at theatres, film festivals, museums and art galleries, most recently in early 2020 at the Audain gallery in Whistler and the Beaverbrook Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick. I have not had the pleasure of seeing this film on a big screen for a few years, so I am very excited to share it at the Stan Hagen Theatre as part of Elder College's Winter 2024 offerings.
Feature Poet: Steve Horel
Steve Horel travelled to BC in 1970 when everything not nailed down rolled west.
As the Owner Operator of RockBottom Farm in Merville, Horel has been growing organic vegetables since 1974. Perhaps this makes him a cautious optimist.
Still buys green bananas with confidence.
Still plants seeds each Spring.
His poems have appeared in West Coast Review, Eyeopener, Rain Forest, The Scent, Mandela, abraxas, and published in Hanging Loose and Drift (Anthology of Comox Valley Poets, 2020).
Feature Poet: Corwin Fox
Corwin Fox is a multihyphenate music maker living in Cumberland, BC. He makes soup and grows oyster mushrooms, but mostly he travels around the world singing his songs when there is not a global pandemic. When there is a global pandemic, Corwin stays at home writing one sentence stories; his first publicly available collection is called Kill Love.
Feature Poet: Carys Owen
Carys Owen is a poet, educator, community builder and nature-lover who respectfully lives on the unceded territory of the K’omoks First Nation. Her office is on the beach, by the river, in the forest, near a mountain. For several years she has been sharing her poems at readings, community events and in a self-published collection – Into the Ordinary.
Most recently Carys has been published in ‘Alchemy and Miracles’, an anthology. This collection is designed to create a sense of interdependence with the world around us. It is poetry as a celebration of nature while also being a call to action.
In 2023, Carys was the poetry director for the inaugural Downtown Courtenay Poetry Walk. This resulted in the display of eleven poems by local artists in the windows of several downtown businesses.
Her poetry has been read at conferences and meetings to illustrate the life of various organizations, for example the BC
Teacher’s Reading Conference, Lush Valley Food Action Society and CV Rotary Club. Her poems are regularly featured in Movement Matters, an inspirational dance session led by Michael Skelton.
She once published a collection of poetry along the Community Centre Trails of Quadra Island- posting a poem at every fork in the path. It was called ‘Lost in the Woods’. Some people reported being unable to locate all of the poems...
Carys is a co-founder of ‘Artful: The Poets’ who meet once a month to share their poetry at ‘Artful: The Gallery’, Courtenay BC. She is mindful of creating poems that celebrate the wonders of the natural world with the aim of encouraging connection and hope.
About the memoirs:
Fade to Light by Jessica Evans
In this memoir, Jessica tells the story of leaving her family to move away from a closed religious society that refers to itself as “The Truth.” The church gave her a rulebook for life that separated members of the Truth from the rest of society. Remaining inside the community was Good. Being outside the community—in Satan’s World—was Bad. The Truth keeps close records of all its members who are in Good standing.
Jessica left that community via what the church calls a “fade.” Fading means a person moves frequently until no congregation is tracking their records. But finding her own way outside the religion left her with no rulebook. Only what was taught in the Truth—don’t trust Satan’s World.
Out on her own she adopted one identity after another, seeking stability. First as an obsessive rock climber, committed spouse, then a yoga teacher, and a busy businessperson. The book follows her travels and adventures through all these identities until it’s clear what was needed most—to learn unconditional love. This love is very different from the love experienced in the Truth. As a child, love was experienced only if Good behaviour was maintained. Behaviour that was required to keep her family and her membership in The Truth. Eventually, she learned a different way of being herself. Jessica’s writing style is candid; you’ll feel like she’s telling you her story firsthand. To purchase book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1777666341
To learn more about Jess: jessica-evans.ca.
To purchase book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1777666341
Back the Way We Came by The Memory Keepers - Micki Findlay
Vancouver Island author, Micki Findlay, likes to refer to herself as an 'artrepeneur', as she loves dipping her toes into a sea of creative ventures. Writing is both her passion and her lifeline. Micki is published in Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jazz House Publications, Van Isle Poetry Collective, Black Press Media, various magazines, and several anthologies including Back The Way We Came by ‘The Memory Keepers’. Her poem, Autumn Affair is soon to be published with Quillkeepers Press. She is currently working on her own candidly raw, memoir-based book titled, You Can’t Always See The Bruises.
Micki writes her life stories to help other women recognize their own self-worth, find hope through difficult circumstances, and realize they are not alone in their struggles. She also writes to heal herself. She has fought her way out of many years of clinical depression with the help, love and support of people who believed in her when she could not believe in herself.
In the new anthology, Back The Way We Came, The Memory Keepers touch on uniquely personal yet emotionally relatable themes – love, the joy and loss of deep friendship; coping with dementia; toxic relationships; menopause and late-life dating exploits. Some venture into more off-beat territory – surviving three months in a US jail; exploitation in a spiritual cult; corruption and rural life in West Africa and the hedonistic 1980s London drug scene. Others untangle intricate webs of family dynamics; physical, sexual and psychological abuse; grief for the death of a daughter; teenage pregnancy; working with terminally ill children and the loss of newborn grandchildren.
A must-read for anyone who has ever longed to be heard and understood, Back The Way We Came will inspire you to dig deep, unveil your stories and shine your light. Contributing Authors: Carol Prior, Chassie Stone, Delia L Seville, Juliet Coe, Lindsay 'Lou' Tunstall, Micki Findlay, Nicola Field, Peta Heskell, Sarah Lionheart, Stephanie Peart and Suzi Bamblett. These authors all live in Britain except for Micki Findlay who lives in Canada. They are all former students of Memoir Writing Ink who connected online during the pandemic.
To learn more about Micki: www.mickifindlay.com
To purchase book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Back-Way-We-Came-Fearless/dp/1800945647
Act 3 Media Interview about Back The Way We Came: https://youtu.be/GynrkaMoNaI?feature=shared
Feature Poet: Diana Kolpak
When forced to choose one descriptor to sum up what she does, Diana Kolpak calls herself a story-teller - with the proviso that the story that wants to be told must dictate the best form of its telling...and this explains why her creative output includes fiction, poetry, plays, theatrical clowning, music, and photography.
Her most recent theatrical work is BLUE, an interactive solo clown musical for adults that is a deep dive into the ocean of love, guided by former-mermaid-turned-lounge-singer Sally Siren.
Published writing includes Starfall - a children's book that chronicles a clown's magical quest to bring sunshine and starlight back to the world; the play Bedtime Stories - a provocative feminist retelling of four fairy tales; postry in several online magazines, and photos in the latest volume of Wordstorms's Counterflow.
Born and raised in Southern Alberta, Diana moved to the Comox Valley last year after living in Toronto since 1985, where she ran her own independent theatre company, Whetstone Productions. She has directed and helped develop over a dozen original shows that have been performed across Canada. She also teaches clown and creativity workshops.
Diana is always on the lookout for collaborators and co-conspirators who want to create work that merges artistic disciplines in unexpected ways, is slyly socially relevant and is also full of heart. If that concept makes your heart sing, please get in touch. www.dianakolpak.ca
Harold Macy
Harold Macy was born on the prairie, caught between the stubble and the endless sky. The mountains and the forest beckoned and he moved to the coast. It has been his everlasting pleasure to live forty years in the rural community of Merville, on Vancouver Island, a tectonic splinter off the left shoulder of a restless continent, where he is surrounded by old hippies, fundamentalist Christians, faded cowgirls, broken old loggers, gimpy rednecks and urban refugees with their new plaid shirts and attitudes - all great sources of character and story. He studied writing with the UBC Mentorship Program, Victoria (BC) School of Writing, Sage Hills (SK) and North Island College.
His first book was The Four Story Forest: As Grow The Trees So Too The Heart (2011). The historical novel San Josef was published by Tidewater Press in 2019, and his latest work, All The Bears Sing was published by Harbour Publishing in 2022.
His work has appeared in PRISM International, Malahat Review, Orion, Eye & I, The Broken City, Rhubarb, and others. He was awarded Honourable Mention in the 2015 and 2016 Islands Short Fiction Contest. His story ‘Unclipped’ won the 2013 NIC 3-hour Fiction Contest. He was an invited author at the Fanny Bay Fat Oyster Reading Series in 2016. He is presently working on a short story collection ‘Stranglers, Water Thieves, Wide-mouth Pumpkins and the Sweet-talking Angels in the White Trailer.
To learn more visit: haroldmacy.ca
Feature Poet: Dan Kirk
Dan Kirk has been writing and presenting poems and doing storytelling for more than 20 years. One of his favourite gigs was for a full house at Fanny Bay Community Hall with folksinger David Freeman. He also enjoyed a reading at Joe's Garage in tandem with a jazz combo and a few other poets. Dan has been the featured poet at events in Port Alberni, Qualicum, Courtenay and been one of the featured readers at 15 Minutes of Infamy in Nanaimo and Elevate the Arts in Courtenay. He has also read at the Courtenay Library, Muir Gallery in Courtenay, and Coast Collective and Planet Earth Poetry in Victoria.
Running for a number of years, Dan founded a monthly poetry event at Red Tree Specialty Coffee in TinTown in Courtenay with featured poets that included Ilya Tourtidis, bill bissett, Pam Galloway, John Donlan, Cornelia Hoogland, and Matt Rader among others. Along with Ed Varney and Adelia McWilliam, Dan put on two Cascadia Poetry Festivals in Cumberland and MC’d a third.
Along with Ed Varney, Dan published Drift - Poems and Poets from the Comox Valley that came out of all of their encounters with the poets in the Comox Valley over the last 25 years or so. Published in 2020 the first edition sold out quickly. Poetry lovers in the Valley are hopeful there will be a second edition.
For extended periods Dan has engaged in a practice of daily reading and writing, in the tradition of poet William Stafford, and derives much pleasure in hearing the fruits of this labour read aloud. Otherwise, he sees the poet as fulfilling a valued community function that brings into the form of poetry, the content of our lives.
Years ago, some friends made him a leather notebook cover that he refills with stock notebooks and almost all his writing is made manifest within this cover. The poems for this reading will spend time in the questions we all consider and images we often encounter when we pay close attention.
Feature Poet: Janet Bartier
Janet Bartier was born in Prince Rupert, raised in the Okanagan Valley and now lives with her partner in Campbell River BC on the historical and unceded territory of the Laich-Kwil-Tach Peoples. Janet has an ATCL in piano and a BA in Liberal Studies, but is most honoured to be called Mom.
A piano teacher since a young teen, she has also written for the educational market, and has more recently published poems in Canadian literary magazines including Prairie Fire, Arc Poetry, and EVENT.
As a student in Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio, Janet has poetry forthcoming in the Writer’s Studio anthology Emerge 2023, and is working on a book of poems that seek to examine connections and form new connections—in particular, family connections—using surprising shapes and colours. You can find Janet on Twitter @JanetBartier.
Join Air Above Mountains and Unseen Sight from the Comox Valley on their first stop in a series of valley wide experimental listening sessions. Expect an evening of improvisations in sonic ambience and textures.
Air Above Mountains are an instrumental trio who use free improvisation to create immersive, outward bound, and cinematic music.
Cultivating a sonic vocabulary over the past eight years, AAM’s atmospheric sound shifts prismatically through meditative and unsettling passages.
Unseen Sight is an experimental music duo from West Courtenay. Blending sonic qualities, traditional and unusual, acoustic and electronic into fantastic aural environments. The results are strange, and often unexpected, even to the performers themselves.
For more: www.airabovemountains.bandcamp.com www.unseensight.bandcamp.com
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Senyuè is a queer Chinese Canadian performer, producer, facilitator and expressive arts therapist with a major in Pacific and Asian studies with a focus on China. They have lived in both China and Canada and currently reside on the unceded traditional territories of the K’omoks Nation, colonially known as Cumberland, BC. Their musical work surrounds their Chinese Canadian family legacy, ancestors, history and identity as well as speaking hard truths about racism in Canada. Through movement, storytelling, and folk song, their expression paints a story through colonial history to our current day from a decolonized lens. It encourages community members to learn, be self-reflective, and invites the question of how we would like to move forward. We can’t move forward without first acknowledging where we have come from even if it's hard to do so.
To learn more about Senyuè @senyue.artist on IG/FB or visit www.senyueartist.com
Scott Hamilton is a 54-year-old Canadian writer, artist and self-published author who spent most of the formative years of his youth on a remote off-grid homestead in Northern British Columbia. He has been writing since childhood and published his first book of poetry titled Last of the Marlboro Men in 2022. He is currently working on a second poetry book titled Where the Wild Things Roam, centred on environmental and climate change, and various animal species that are increasingly endangered as a result. He is also currently working on a sci-fi post-apocalyptic novella based on a future of human survival amidst total climate collapse.
Aside from writing, Scott is a keen outdoor enthusiast who has a deep passion for the environment. He enjoys staying active and keeping fit through running, mountain biking, and paddle boarding. He raised his four adult children in the Comox Valley, where he currently resides with his partner Carmen and their two dogs, Maddie and Teeter.
Scott’s experiences as a father and living off the land inspired much of his first book of poetry, which explores themes of human nature, family, and redefining a patriarchal society. He plans to continue writing and publishing and hopes to encourage others to reach their own creative goals.
Lawrence J. W. Cooper is the poet laureate of the Comox Valley. He has published five books of poetry. His latest book, The Tourist, is a poetic novel about an aging poet struggling with his feelings about being a tourist in Los Cabo, Mexico. He questions the meaning and purpose of his work and his life.
Cooper is a retired educational psychologist and counsellor. He has published a book on borderline personality disorder and two workbook style teaching booklets on combining spiritual practices with sound psychological self-therapy strategies. After some personal struggles he is now living a life that he truly loves to live with his dear wife Dorothea on Baynes Sound in beautiful Fanny Bay, where the sea meets the mountains and the mountains meet the sky.
A relative new-comer to the valley, Scott Lawrance has been a denizen of the Salish Sea his whole life, having dropped roots in Vancouver, Robert’s Creek, Gibson’s, Saltspring Island, Oak Bay, and Cortes Island. He was one of the team who brought Raincoast Chronicles into the world, and was co-editor of two poetry magazines, Circular Causation and Raven.
Over the years, he has published seven books of poetry, including two collaborations with his friend from elementary school, artist and jazz drummer, Gregg Simpson. His most recent book, Playg Daze explores, through a range of styles and voices, the threshold experience of the Covid pandemic. He is now working on a follow-up volume that gestures toward what comes to birth following that transitional moment. Lawrance is part of the GTEC Reader Collective (Green Technology Education Center) and many of his recent writings appear there.
Like many other poets, his day jobs have been varied, including tree-planting, carpentry, teaching from elementary school to post-secondary, counselling, psychotherapy, and counsellor education. Currently, he facilitates wilderness rites of passage and serves on the advisory council of the Wilderness Guides Council, while continuing to encourage his children and grandchildren to get into as much of the good kind of trouble as they can.
Clown meets the blues by way of 30’s Berlin cabaret with a little detour through Las Vegas in blue, an interactive solo musical written and performed by Diana Kolpak, at Artful : The Gallery on February 11th, 2023.
blue is a sassy, sophisticated, poignant and rollicking fusion of theatre, cabaret, clown, fortune-telling and music. Former mermaid turned lounge singer Sally Siren is your guide on this odyssey, singing her heart out while accompanying herself on her fabulous toy piano. The audience charts its own course, choosing a playlist from 16 original songs. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious - but always presented with pizzazz - Sally’s musical numbers reveal love in all its passionate complexity.
A recent transplant to the Comox Valley, Diana Kolpak is a performer, director and writer who spent over 25 years honing her theatrical clowning skills in Toronto and was the first-ever Canadian invited to perform at clowning - an international festival of women clowns in Vienna.
blue has been performed at the Toronto Festival of Clowns, The Dark Crop Festival (Cambridge, ON), In The Soil festival (Ste. Catherines, ON), The Textile Museum of Canada and on a pirate ship in Toronto Harbour. The show is intended for adults, with some audience participation & mature content. Running time: 60 minutes.
blue
written, performed & composed by Diana Kolpak
directed by David Benjamin Tomlinson
Saturday, February 11, 2023, 7 & 9 pm
$20 adult $18 seniors/students
Purchase tickets online at: https://whetstone-productions.yapsody.com or click:
Louis Stevenson was born in a heat wave in Whitehorse, Yukon. His mother was a Cree woman from Alberta, with Metis roots. His father was born in Moosejaw, to English parents, and served in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Stevenson doesn’t remember learning to read, but was an avid reader and loved literature from an early age. He spent his childhood on Air Force bases across Canada and always had a love for poetry. He was influenced heavily by folk music from the 1960s and in particular, Buffy St. Marie. Stevenson studied under Barry McKinnon while in Prince George, Robin Skelton while in Victoria, and finished his degree in Creative Writing and Journalism while attending Vancouver Island University.
Stevenson spent the best part of seven years in China from 2005 to 2012 teaching English. He has been heavily influenced by the 'I Ching' and loves reading translations of Chinese poetry from the Tang Dynasty.
Stevenson has worked as a Forest Service Officer, a letter carrier, a tree planter, an English teacher in China and Mexico, a logger, a security officer, an Officer of the Australian Commonwealth Government, a circus roustabout, a printer, an outreach worker for a couple of different First Nation organizations, and has spent time as a bass player for a jazz trio and a Zydeco band.
He is still trying to figure out what he wants to be when he grows up.
Adelia MacWilliam is co-founder of the Cascadia Poetics Lab and a longtime Subud-Canada member who splits her time between Cumberland, BC and Galley Bay, Desolation Sound.
She was the black sheep of her family, and over the years the noir-ness of this element has faded and been replaced with country noir. Adelia believes that if you cast your mythic imagination across a piece of land that you love, everything will out.
When she began to write about her family’s tenure on Salt Spring Island (since 1905), the land that had been familiar (the root word being famelier from mid-14th Century French, meaning intimate, very friendly, on a familiar footing) seemed very unfamiliar. What was her families footing on this land? What was her footing as a poet regarding the fraught history of this coast? Her poems are a requiem in which the dead have a voice.
Adelia’s chapbook, Details of the Passage: Poems From an Island will be available for sale at the reading, which will be followed by an Open Mic 7-9pm, Dec 5th.
Paul E. Nelson
Artful : The Gallery welcomes poet and interviewer Paul E. Nelson as the feature poet to kick off our poetry Open Mic on Sunday, August 28th at 7 pm. Nelson is one of the co-founders, and current director, of the Cascadia Poetics LAB and the Cascadia Poetry Festival. As a professional journalist, Nelson has created over 600 hours of interview programming with legendary poets (yes, Allen Ginsberg is on the list!) and whole systems activists.
A long list of published works includes the recent Haibun de la Serna (2022), American Prophets (2018), American Sentences (2015 & 2021), Pig War: & Other Songs of Cascadia (2020). Winner of the 2014 Robin Blaser Award from the Capilano Review, Nelson is engaged in a 20-year bioregional cultural investigation of Cascadia, and lives in Rainier Beach, in the Cascadia bioregion’s Cedar River watershed.
The Cascadia Poetics LAB hosts the annual Poetry Postcard Fest and registration for 2023 opens on September 1, 2022. Visit https://paulenelson.com to learn more about our featured poet.
Paul E. Nelson writes an American Sentence everyday. Bring yours to share!
Marvelous Memoirs
Two Island authors have productively used Covid to bring their memoirs to press. Adele Irving and Sheila Norgate have both taken years (and years!) to bring their efforts to completion, and luckily for us, neither of them gave up.
Irving’s Splat! starts in 1995 when her ‘perfect’ life went splat! in her face. As she points out sometimes you are the bug, sometimes you are the windshield. 30 years later, writing her story has allowed Irving to examine how she was able to pick herself up and keep going. It’s an engaging read, like getting a deliciously long letter from an old friend that you’ve lost contact with and catching up in one fell swoop. It’s the perfect read for a beachy afternoon or weekend when binging is possible. Reading Splat! I laughed out loud, I cried, I chastised, and I celebrated with Adele from start to finish.
This book is a powerful reminder that most of us have struggles (especially under the covers of ‘perfect’ lives!) in our lives, and that secrecy is the enemy of healing and growth. This story of family inspires and entertains with the truth of one woman’s life, and the magic of patterns and synchronicities to guide and affirm.
In 2021 Splat! received honourable mentions in the New York Book Festival, Paris Book Festival, New England Book Festival and Southern California Book Festival in the personal memoir category.
Norgate’s memoir has been writing itself for at least 25 years. After many abandoned attempts to commit the thing to paper, a spate of confessional one-woman performances, and a half a dozen writers’ retreats, one of which involved an overnight greyhound bus ride to Saskatoon, Norgate has finally wrestled her self-reflective ducks into a row long enough to produce If You Are Reading This.
The book is a collection of short essays, some as short as one page, covering a wide swath of territory. Making appearances are childhood trauma, World War II, the lesbian night owl (world famous oxymoron), God, false teeth, feminism, lady painters, Santa Claus, and a funny bone that has stood the test of both time and trouble.
Norgate’s early accolades are saying: “stupendous, a beautifully crafted life story…”, devastating and witty…smooth like Noel Coward” and “a breathtaking accomplishment”.
Two different stories, two different worldviews, two talented women courageously and vulnerably sharing their life stories for our entertainment, for our edification, and to inspire our own self-examination.
American icon Anne Lamott has plenty to say about encouraging women to write their stories and has famously prodded with her pithy wisdom, “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
Monday, August 22, 7:00 pm at Artful : The Gallery, Irving and Norgate will each read selected segments of their books and be available for what promises to be a delightfully engaging and inspiring Q&A.
By donation at the door ($10 suggested) with cash sales of both memoirs available that evening, personally signed by the authors.
