The Creative Writing Program at UBC: Welcome

"Shi-shi-etko" to Screen at the
2009 Vancouver International Film Festival

Vancouver, BCŠMonkey Ink Media Inc. is excited to announce that the short film Shi-shi-etko has been invited to screen as part of the 2009 Vancouver International Film Festival as part of the Canadian Images program on October 14th at Tue, Oct 13th 9:15pm and Wed, Oct 14th 4:00pm at the Pacific Cinematheque.

Shi-shi-etko follows a six year old Native girl in her last four days before she is taken to residential school. Each day she spends with a family member, each of whom  remind her of the importance of remembering who she is. 

Shi-shi-etko was filmed in traditional Sto:lo territory, in the Sto:lo language of Halq'emeylem (English Subtitles).  The Producer and Director, along with the primarily Sto:lo cast, had the daunting task of bringing to life the authenticity of the Sto:lo culture and language by working with language instructors and the community. 

With the support of the Sto:lo Nation, the film will now be a part of language kits and used as a teaching aid in elementary schools to increase knowledge about the Residential School tragedy of Canada.

Shi-shi-etko received three LEO Award nominations including Best Cinematography, Best Musical Score and Best Performance by a Female in a Short Drama for Ta'kaiya Blaney.

Monkey Ink Media presents a Kate Kroll film, Starring Ta'Kaiya Blaney, Lee Provost, Inez Jasper, Rita Pete Written By Marilyn Thomas & Kate Kroll, Based on the childrens book Shi-shi-etko written by Nicola Campbell, Director of Photography Danny Nowak, Production Designer Darren Sasges, Music By Hal Beckett, Edited by Thomas Sabinsky .

Shi-shi-etko was produced in association with Bravo!FACT , the BC Arts Council and Kickstart - a Program funded by the Director's Guild of Canada, BC District Council and British Columbia Film.

Click here to visit the Vancouver Film Festival

Finalists Announced for 2009 Canadian Children’s Book Centre Awards
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Toronto (August 20, 2009) ―

The Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) is pleased to announce the finalists for the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse, Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award, Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction and Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People.

The winners of the English-language awards will be announced at an invitation-only gala event at The Carlu in Toronto on November 19, 2009. The winners of the Prix TD de literature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse will be announced at an invitation-only gala event at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal on November 3, 2009. Overall, $110,000 in prize monies will be awarded.

The Canadian Children’s Book Centre is also pleased to announce that the prize money for the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award/Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse has increased to $25,000 (up from $20,000) and the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award has increased to $20,000 (up from $10,000). The CCBC thanks TD Bank Financial Group and Marilyn and Charles Baillie for their generous support.

This year’s nominated titles will captivate the hearts and imaginations of children and adults everywhere. Among the finalists are stories introducing readers to daring and adventurous female heroes; to a chicken, a pig and a cow and their new drooly friend; to tragic yet hopeful experiences of two siblings in a residential school; to a remarkable stuffed toy and the spoiled child who rejects him; and to 14-year-old Kit and her fight for survival during the Great Hunger.

As a result of a new partnership with Toronto's International Festival of Authors (IFOA), readings from this year's TD Canadian Children's Literature Award shortlisted titles will be presented at IFOA on Saturday, October 24. For more information, please visit www.readings.org.

The books on these shortlists exemplify some of the best work by Canadian authors and illustrators. The Canadian Children’s Book Centre is proud to share these titles with you.

Vancouver filmmakers win $10,000 scholarships, Comic Con award
By Craig Takeuchi
Georgia Straight

Congrats go out to two local filmmakers have been named the inaugural winners of $10,000 Daryl Duke scholarships that will go towards furthering their education.

The scholarship is named after Daryl Duke, an Emmy Award–winning director and producer who worked at the NFB and CBC, is best known for directing the TV miniseries The Thorn Birds , and also founded the independent Vancouver TV station CKVU in 1976. He died in 2006 at the age of 77.

The first of the two recipients is writer, director, and producer Michael Parker, who is planning to use the scholarship to obtain a Masters of Fine Arts in Film Production and Creative Writing degree at UBC.

The other recipient is director of photography and producer Amy Belling will apply the award toward completing her Masters of Fine Arts in Cinematography at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

Belling helped found the UBC Film Alumni Association, which helped to save the UBC Film Production program from being cancelled.

Watch the trailer for "Hirsute".

Belling's on an award-winning roll at the moment, it seems. She was also the producer of "Hirsute", a short film about time travel written and directed by fellow Vancouver filmmaker A.J. Bond. The film scooped up the best science fiction/fantasy film award at the 2009 Comic Con International Independent Film Festival in San Diego this past weekend.

If you want to see how A.J. Bond achieved the smooth-skinned appearance he features in his short film (a much more mind-boggling technique than the time-traveling process), watch this short clip of his body waxing experience (which doesn't appear quite as traumatic as the one in The 40-Year-Old Virgin ):

For further reading: please click here

Terry is an adjunct professor of creative writing in the Optional-Residency MFA program and is being honoured for his nonfiction writing. Established in 2003, the $5,000 annual prize celebrates writers who have contributed to the literary life of the province. The award's jury praised Glavin for having "an extraordinarily holistic vision that … shows us a world where culture and nature, human aspiration, natural beauty, language, history and social justice are inextricably intertwined." Glavin's most recent book is The Sixth Extinction: Journeys Among the Lost and Left Behind.

Meet your new best yoga-and-healthy-eating friend in this smart, accessible, and funny memoir of dieting and discovery.

For years, Jessica struggled with fluctuating weight and bouts of unhappiness. Like many of us, she found comfort in food and craved cigarettes and self-confidence. Then one day Jessica took her first yoga class in Katmandu. She lost 40 pounds and changed her life forever.

In enLIGHTened, Jessica shares the core principles of yoga philosophy—not the poses and postures, but the ancient system of ideas that lies behind them, drawn from a 2000-year-old text called the Yoga Sutras. The inspiration for this memoir-driven diet and health book is studied by devout yoga students and teachers, and offers answers to eating smartly, living right, and losing weight.

Jessica goes beyond yoga’s merge into mainstream – beyond trendy diets, unsustainable exercise routines, and the quest for the perfect figure. Using spiritual philosophy, and personal stories everyone can relate to, she sets the reader on a journey to self-acceptance, personal peace, and long-term health.

Lee Henderson’s debut novel, The Man Game, was described by Walrus Magazine as a “sprawling, brilliant, playful, heartbreaking, and eminently wise book that considers its world with unusual bravery and purpose.” It has also received rave reviews in the National Post, Quill & Quire and CBC Radio.

Andreas Schroeder is the award-winning author of 22 books, including most recently Renovating Heaven, an autobiographical novel. Other books include Shaking It Rough, Dustship Glory, File Of Uncertainties, The Late Man, Toccata In 'D', and three collections of outrageous scams and hoaxes. His books have been finalists for the Governor-General's Award, the Sealbooks First Novel Award, and the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-Fiction. He won a National Magazine Award in 1990, a Stephen Leacock Award in 1997, and a Canadian Association of Journalists Best Investigative Journalism Award in 1991. He currently holds the Rogers Communications Chair in Creative Nonfiction at UBC.

MICHAEL POSNER

From Monday's Globe and Mail
December 28, 2008 at 5:12 PM EST

One of Britain's most popular book clubs has selected two Canadian novels for its 2009 reading list.

TV hosts Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan put Steven Galloway's The Cellist of Sarajevo and Winnipegger Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle on their top 10 list.

Galloway's book (Random House) was inspired by a musician who played outdoors for 22 days during the mid-1990s siege of Sarajevo, commemorating 22 lives lost during the shelling. It made the 2008 Giller Prize's long list and was sold to 18 countries before publication.

Davidson earned an advance of $1.25-million U.S. for his gothic romance novel, his first, which took him seven years to write. It has since been published into 26 languages.

Books chosen by Madeley and Finnigan — former Channel 4 presenters who now appear on digital TV channel Watch — often become bestsellers in Britain. For example, Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, which they featured in 2006, became the U.K.'s fastest-selling paperback of all-time.

Canadian books previously accorded Richard-and-Judy honours include Lori Lansens's The Girls and The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson.

Krissy Darch got into UBC’s Creative Writing Program to practice alchemy. She aims to transform 400 pages of raw notes into a lucid work of literary nonfiction -- a genre also known as participatory or immersion journalism.

An MA student, Darch arrived in Vancouver this fall with a suitcase full of journals about her experiences working and living in Accra, the capital of Ghana.

I came to the Creative Writing Program for mentorship and support to edit this huge amount of material,” says Darch, who has a BA from the University of Ottawa in visual arts. She will complete the book as her MFA thesis.

Darch is one example of the growing waves of young writers intent on telling stories that weave the personal with the political – a trail blazed by authors as diverse as Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Ryszard Kapuscinksi, David Foster Wallace and George Orwell.

Student interest in the genre has exploded, notes Deborah Campbell, one of four instructors teaching nonfiction writing in UBC’s Creative Writing Program. A freelance journalist, Campbell’s work has appeared in Harper’s, The Walrus, The Economist, Ms., New Scientist and The Guardian.

Campbell says enrolment has more than doubled over the past three years, with 25 graduate students currently in the program’s two nonfiction classes.

Many of them have a global view and an interest in bringing a writer’s eye to real-world issues,” explains Campbell, a Vancouver native and UBC alumna whose international background includes studies at the Sorbonne and Tel Aviv University.

For Darch, the attraction is being able to explore ideas of neo-colonialism, and the phenomenon of “slum tourism,” in which local people see privileged foreign aid volunteers and business expats “waltz in and waltz out” in ever increasing numbers.

Between 2005 and 2008, Darch saw these worlds colliding during two separate eight-month periods working as an intern and volunteer in Ghana. Her first assignment, from a Canadian non-government organization, had her teaching basic literacy and visual arts skills to children and adults. Her students were mostly women who eked out a living by working as seamstresses, housekeepers or as market traders selling basic household items.

Darch lived close to the community library where she taught. She noticed, however, that many volunteers stayed in compounds or in Accra’s affluent neighborhoods, getting to and from work in air-conditioned SUVs, rather take than the city’s crowded buses.

Darch has chosen for her working title an apt proverb from Africa’s Ivory Coast -- “The Stranger Has Big Eyes” -- that alludes to the blinkered view of many Westerners. Her book also addresses the fresh-faced and idealistic youth who arrive hoping to save the world, but receive some harsh life lessons.

Every year, NGOs send new waves of workers,” says Darch. “A lot of them are young women who’ve never experienced gender inequality or abject poverty. They often don’t realize when local men want to take advantage of them.”

Darch says she’s grateful to have Campbell’s guidance “as a working writer” to capture these myriad realities. Campbell has earned a reputation for distilling complex global issues into truthful narratives, particularly about the Middle East. Campbell’s 2002 book, This Heated Place: Encounters in the Promised Land, provides a literary journey inside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Able to speak French, conversational Farsi, Hebrew and some Arabic, Campbell immerses herself in the societies she writes about. She spent more than two months living among Iraqi refugees in Syria for her article Exodus: Where will Iraq Go Next? The article appeared in the April 2008 issue of Harper’s and was recognized this fall with the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Magazine Award.

Campbell’s classes provide students grounding in the basics of journalism, with assignments that focus on interview and research skills combined with narrative storytelling techniques.

She frequently counsels students not to confuse the “I” with the “eye” -- the use of first-person narrative must always be justified. “If you’re telling the reader you’re hungry or tired, that must in some way serve the story.”

When critiquing student work, Campbell says she’s careful to stress that no amount of time at the keyboard can replace true-life experience.

The students who really flourish are inquisitive,” says Campbell. “They’re able to look at the world from more than one perspective.”

The workshop style classes provide instant feedback, which Darch has found extremely useful. “This is a group of some of the most discerning readers you can find. You always end up walking away seeing things in your work you hadn’t seen before, positive and negative.”

UBC Creative Writing celebrates professor and student’s Governor General Literary Awards

Maureen Medved, Assistant Professor, and Catherine Banks, Master of Fine Arts student in Creative Writing in the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing Program, are both celebrating their 2008 Governor General’s Literacy Awards after yesterday’s announcement from the Canada Council for the Arts.

“I am absolutely thrilled with the translation, with the work of the translators, Louise Chabalier and Claire Chabalier, and with the award,” remarked Medved.

Maureen Medved’s novel, The Tracey Fragments, received the Governor General’s award in the French translation category. Earlier this year, The Tracy Fragments was adapted into a film staring Oscar and Golden Globe nominated actress Ellen Page and was nominated for six Genies.

“It's so fantastic to watch Tracey as she embarks on her many journeys since her birth,” Medved added. “I am especially grateful to the publishers -- both  the original publisher, House of Anansi,  as well as the publisher of the translation, Les Allusifs, and all the people along my own journey who believed in Tracey and this book.”

Keith Maillard, Chair of UBC’s Creative Writing program affirmed, “The award that Maureen Medved’s novel received is a strong reflection of the international success her book has achieved.” Maillard adds, “That success also reflects of the level of experience embodied by the professors who teach in UBC’s Creative Writing Program.”

Catherine Banks received her award in the Drama category for her play titled Bone Cage. Banks is currently a student in the Creative Writing Master of Fine Arts Optional Residency program.

“Creative Writing students and alumni, such as Banks, continue to demonstrate the traditional excellence of our program,” explained Maillard. “Banks’ award also testifies to the power of our on-line program – the MFA Optional Residency Program to attract remarkable students to UBC.”

The 2008 Governor General’s Literacy Awards, which are funded, administered and promoted by the Canada Council, are given in the categories of fiction, poetry , drama, non-fiction, children’s literature (text and illustration) and translation, in English and French. This year marks the 72nd presentation of the Governor General’s Literacy Awards, Canada’s oldest and most prestigious awards for English- and French-language Canadian literature. For more information on the 2008 Governor General’s Literacy Awards and the winners, visit: www.canadacouncil.ca

The Creative Writing Program at UBC is Canada's premier creative writing program. We provide a uniquely comprehensive opportunity for writers to develop their craft within the studio environment, offering BFA and MFA degrees with study in nine separate literary genres as well as an innovative MFA by distance education. For more information on the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing program, visit: www.creativewriting.ubc.ca.

Click here to view Renovating Heaven book cover.

An autobiographical novel about Mennonite life in British Columbia from the 1950's to the 1970's. Schroeder's family settles on a small Fraser Valley farm and proceeds to try making sense of the perplexing mores and values of "The English" who surround them. Hilarious, bizarre and heart-breaking by turns, this account fills in the gap between Rudy Wiebe's "Of This Earth" (a generation older), and Miriam Toews' "A Complicated Kindness" (a generation younger). Well-known New Yorker writer Edith Iglauer called it "a masterpiece"; writer/publisher Howie White called it "humorous, tragic and masterfully written".

Winner of the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Magazine Award To Receive Prize at the Word on the Street Book and Magazine Festival, Vancouver

Deborah Campbell, Vancouver freelance writer, is the 2008 winner of the recently redesigned Dave Greber Freelance Writers Magazine Award for her article published in the April 2008 issue of Harper’s magazine entitled Exodus: Where will Iraq Go Next? Based on the two months she spent living among Iraqi refugees in Syria, the article is considered one of the most comprehensive accounts of the human story behind the ongoing Iraqi refugee crisis. Shirley Dunn, developer of the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Magazine Award, will present the $2000 prize to Ms. Campbell on September 28, 2008 at the Word on The Street Book and Magazine Festival in Vancouver.

Dave Greber’s death in 2000 at the age of fifty prompted his life partner, Shirley Dunn, to establish a fund to honour Dave's memory and to perpetuate his professional values through the creation of two annual Greber Writing Awards (Magazine and Book) for freelance writers of nonfiction. The awards are unique in two ways: they provide support to working Canadian freelance writers when they most need it in their work cycle and it gives special regard to those writing in the area of social justice. The award gives public recognition to the skills necessary to craft a story based on excellence of writing and research. Writers anywhere in Alberta, Saskatchewan or B.C. may submit their work Deborah Campbell is an award-winning writer whose work has taken her to Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Dubai, Cuba, Russia and Israel-Palestine. Deborah’s book, This Heated Place: Encounters in the Promised Land (Douglas and McIntyre, 2002) is a literary journey inside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her writing has appeared in numerous magazines a few of which include Harper’s, The Walrus, The Economist, New Scientist, Ms., the Guardian, Adbusters, Vancouver Magazine, Vancouver Review, and in anthologies, essay collections and scholarly journals in Europe, Asia and North America. Her radio documentaries have aired on CBC radio and NPR. Deborah has guest lectured widely on social justice issues and the state of media democracy.

Deborah studied history, political science, languages and Near East Religions at universities on four continents. An adjunct professor of literary nonfiction at the University of British Columbia, she is currently teaching creative nonfiction writing to graduate students. Deborah is a founding member of the FCC literary journalism collective. To learn more about Deborah Campbell and her writing go to www.deborahcampbell.ca.

The presentation of the prize is to be held at approximately 3 pm in the Magazine Life Tent Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at the Word on the Street Book and Magazine Festival. Check the website www.thewordonthestreet.ca/vancouver to read about the exciting activities planned between 11:00 am and 5:00 pm at Library Square, located Homer and Hamilton Streets between Robson and Georgia. To learn more about the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award visit www.greberwritingaward.com

Contact Person: Shirley Dunn
Developer, Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award
Tel: 1-403-259-5689 or 1-877-271-3283
Fax: 1-403-259-5689
Email: info@greberwritingaward.com or dunnss@telusplanet.net
Web: www.greberwritingaward.com

Still Searching for the Write Stuff
Toronto Sun, Sun, July 20, 2008
By RACHEL SA
www.torontosun.com

It's about 80 years too late to run off to the left bank of Paris and live the artist's lifestyle. Thankfully, in Canada, we have the University of British Columbia's Creative Writing program.

On campus, we have the mountains of Vancouver instead of the Eiffel Tower and mountains of sushi instead of bottles of bubbly.

I am just wrapping up a two-week stay at UBC, part of the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) optional-residency program. With classes conducted in online workshops throughout the year, the program allows students from around the world to study creative writing from home and gives us the option to come out to campus each summer to work face-to-face with our colleagues and mentors.

But going home to Toronto is always difficult.

A lure of this program over the traditional residential MFA program -- which would have required I move to Vancouver and study full-time for two years -- is that it allows students to integrate their writing in their daily lives. You don't have to uproot yourself, quit your job, or leave your family to do it.

For more information on UBC's Optional Residency Program, please visit our Optional Residency Program page

The Cellist of Sarajevo

Contratulations to UBC Creative Writing sessional faculty member Steven Galloway for his new book, The Cellist of Sarajevo. Read an interview with Steven on the CBC Website.

"Though the setting is the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990’s, this gripping novel transcends time and place. It is a universal story, and a testimony to the struggle to find meaning, grace, and humanity, even amid the most unimaginable horrors." -- Khaled Hosseini

"A gripping story of Sarajevo under siege." – J. M Coetzee

"Galloway’s novel does the work of a good fiction: it transports you to a situation that might be alien to you, makes it familiar, and so brings understanding. While reading The Cellist of Sarajevo you are imaginatively there, in Sarajevo, as the mortar shells are falling and snipers are seeking to kill you as you cross a street. Your mind’s eye sees, your moral sense is outraged: your full humanity is being exercised.” – Yann Martel

Rights to The Cellist of Sarajevo, released in Canada in April, have been sold to the US, UK, Australia / New Zealand, Germany, Italy, France, Holland, Spain, Catalan, Brazil, Portugal, China, Japan, Denmark, Taiwan and Bosnia. Critical praise is pouring in from all over. Read the National Post review. Read the Globe & Mail review.

Click here to read this Story in the Globe and Mail.

Congratulations to PRISM international, which published the 2007 Journey Prize winning story. The $10,000 Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize was presented to Victoria-based writer Craig Boyko for his story “OZY.” In recognition of the vital role literary journals play in discovering new writers, McClelland & Stewart also gave its own award of $2,000 to PRISM.

Faculty member Linda Svendsen joins Alma Lee (formerly of the Vancouver International Writers' Festival) and other literary luminaries as part of the Vancouver World City of Literature steering committee. The intent: to have Vancouver designated a UNESCO City of Literature. Read more on the Vancouver Sun website.

During her 20 years at UBC, Pat Rose has helped hundreds of fledgling writers navigate their careers at UBC and then tracked their development in the professional world.

Rose, the long-time Secretary in the Department of Creative Writing, is known for her skills fostering a deep sense of community amongst students and staff. She organizes department socials and student readings, sometimes demanding that participants come in costumes. Her bake, thrift and book sales have raised funds for UBC's United Way campaigns over the years.

Brightness, colour, humour and constancy are words that colleagues and students use to describe Rose. A stalwart on her dragon boat crew, she is also appreciated for her ability to raise money and enthusiasm fundraising for cancer and AIDS runs and walks.

Click here to read full press coverage.

26TH Annual Western Magazine Awards Finalists

On Thursday, May 22, 2008, the following finalists were announced at the Western Magazine Awards Foundation's Finalists Party held at Art Works Gallery in Vancouver.

The winners will be announced at the Gala Dinner & Awards on Friday, June 20, 2008.

PRISM was nominated in the following three categories:

• Magazine of the Year-BC/YK
• Fiction for Some Light Down, by S. Kennedy Sobol
• Human Experience for Worlds of Delight, by Trevor Herriot

Kudos to the editors for their great eye and hard work!

Visit PRISM International Magazine