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Congratulations to Kevin Spenst, MFA Alumnus and first place winner in the poetry category for the Lush Triumphant Literary Award.
Lush Triumphant Literary Award
Congratulations to BFA alumnus Lucas J. W. Johnson, whose story was recently published in Speaking Out: LGBTQ Youth Stand Up anthology edited by Steve Berman.
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Vancouver Queer Film Festival
Elena E. Johnson (MFA 2009) was one of three finalists for the 2011 Alfred G. Bailey Prize. The Bailey Prize is awarded annually for the best yet-to-be-published poetry manuscript. She was also a finalist for this year's CBC Literary Awards.
Wade Kinley, a joint first year MFA student in CrWr and Theatre, has received an internship with the Lark Play Development Center in New York City.
Creative Writing Alumna, Josie Mitchell recently won a cash prize for third place in the Vancouver Cultural Centre's Young Playwrights Competition for her one-act play.
The Creative Writing Program welcomes Steven Galloway as an Assistant Professor to its prestigious Faculty Roster.
Congratulations to current MFA Creative Writing student, Kevin Spenst. Kevin has been shortlisted for the The Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. The prize is awarded annually to the best poetry manuscript by an emerging Canadian writer.
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Creative Writing current students and alumni comprised five of the ten finalists in the EVENT 2010 Creative Nonfiction competition. Congratulations to winner, Chris Urquhart!
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Congratulations MFA student, Jordan Hall! Jordan Hall is the winner of the Samuel French 2010 Canadian Playwrights contest for her play, Kayak.
MFA Creative Writing Alumni to be published in Coming Attractions 10, edited by Mark Anthony Jarman.
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Creative Writing MFA student Kaitlin Fontana has been chosen by Evelyn Lau to share her Vancouver Mayor's Arts Award.
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When Random House received Creative Writing MFA Alumna, Carol Shaben's thesis manuscript, they didn't wait long to acquire it.
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Creative Writing Optional Residency MFA Alumna, Sarah Selecky's short-story collection This Cake is For the Party, has been long-listed for this year's Giller Prize.
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Creative Writing Optional Residency MFA, Krista Foss featured in the National Post for Journey Prize Questionnaire.
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Creative Writing BFA alumni, Paolo Javier, named Poet Laureate of NYC's Queen.
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Creative Writing MFA Alumni and students, Andrew Clark, Oliver Kellhammer, Alex Leslie and Mitch Miyagawa received honorable mentions at the National Magazine Awards.
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Congratulations to Creative Writing MFA Alumnus, Dave Deveau, who received the 2010 Gordon Armstrong Playwright's Rent Award.
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Creative Writing MFA Alumna, Susan Olding, received the Reader's Choice Award at the Creative Non-Fiction Collective ceremony at the Banff Centre on April 24th, 2010 for her essays from Pathologies.
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Creative Writing Student, Nicola Campbell made the 2009 USBBY Outstanding International Books list for her Children's book Shin-Chi's Canoe.
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BFA Creative Writing Major, Karina Melendez's poem, The Sound was Editors' Choice in Arc Poetry Magazine's 14 Annual Poem of the Year Contest and published in Arc 63: Winter 2010.
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Creative Writing congratulates MFA Creative Writing Alumna Melanie Little on her new position at House of Anansi Press as Senior Editor of Canadian Fiction.
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Current MFA, Rebekah Lopata's play What if I Don't will be presented at the third annual award-winning EBE Ensemble, festival of new one act plays in New York.
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Creative Writing students dominate the StudentWrites! Playwriting Competition 2009. Gillian Bennett took home first prize in the competition for her play 'Sick or Swim', while Brie Wittman and Shannon Campbell took home the second and third prize.
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MFA Creative Writing alumna, Elena Johnson, makes the shortlist for the Malahat Open Season Awards and the ARC Poem of the Year Contest.
Creative Writing Optional Residency MFA Student, Daniel Griffin, is a 2009 Finalist for the Journey Prize"
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Producer Michael Parker plans to use Comic Con award scholarship to obtain a Masters of Fine Arts in Film Production and Creative Writing degree at UBC.
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Creative Writing Arnold and Nancy Cliff Writer in Residence: Steven Galloway.
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Kazat Poet in Residence at the Historic Joy KogawaHouse: 21 year old Akerke Mussabekova is a third-year student in the translation department at al-Farabi Kazakh National University, the country's largest and premier university, situated in Almaty. She is being hosted by Historic Joy Kogawa House and funded by the HSBC Poet in the City cultural exchange program.
UBC's Creative Writing Program is sad to note the passing of poet and MFA Creative Writing alumna Kuldip Gill on Sunday, May 10, 2009. Her poetry has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies such as In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry and Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets.
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UBC MFA in Creative Writing alumni Robert Paul Weston’s book, Zorgamazoo, named one of the Top 10 First Novels for Youth: 2008.
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After a successful launch this past fall, the UBC Alumni Book Club is back for 2009.
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Creative Writing MFA Alumna, Clea Young was recently nominated for the $10,000 McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her short story Chaperone, published in Grain Magazine. This prize recognizes excellence in an emerging writer who has published a short story from an in-progress novel in a Canadian literary journal.
More on the Writers’ Trust of Canada and the McClelland and Stewart Journey Prize>
Creative Writing MFA alumnus, Lee Henderson, received a nomination for the 2008 Writers’ Trust Awards for his novel The Man Game. Henderson, who will be competing with award winning authors for this $25,000 fiction prize won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for The Broken Record Technique.
More on the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize>
Short story, “The Riot and a Girl” written by University of British Columbia MFA Creative Writing alumna Tsering Lama, was nominated by the Malahat Review to be published in The Journey Prize Stories 20, an anthology that showcases the best of Canada’s new writers.
Click here for more information on the Journey Prize>
Former Creative Writing Writer in Residence, Miriam Toews receives a nomination for the 2008 Writers’ Trust Awards for her novel The Flying Troutmans. Towes, who will be competing with award winning authors for this $25,000 fiction prize won the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction in 2004 for her novel A Complicated Kindness.
More on the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize>
Elena E. Johnson, MFA Creative Writing student, celebrates as her poem is published in the anthology Rocksalt – Contemporary Poets of British Columbia as well as an honorable mention in THIS magazine’s Great Canadian Literary Hunt (2008).
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UBC's Creative Writing Program is sad to note the passing of Ted Rogers, President and CEO of Rogers Communications, a company that has supported our work in Creative Writing.
Creative Writing Instructor, Deborah Campbell takes gold at the 33rd Annual National Magazine Awards.
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We'd love to hear from you! If you are Alumni of the UBC Creative Writing program we invite you to contact us with your news and successes.
Congratulations to Kevin Spenst, MFA Alumnus and first place winner in the poetry category for the Lush Triumphant Literary Award.
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Congratulations to Creative Writing Alumni, Zsuzsi Gartner and Lynn Coady – both shortlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller.
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Congratulations to BFA alumnus Lucas J. W. Johnson, whose story was recently published in Speaking Out: LGBTQ Youth Stand Up anthology edited by Steve Berman.
Congratulations to MFA alumnus Michael Christie, a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
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Congratulations to Event Magazine’s 2011 Non-Fiction Contest Winners, MFA student Chris Donahoe and MFA alumna Krissy Darch!
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Congratulations to the 2011 Journey Prize shortlist finalists: Miranda Hill, a recent graduate of the Optional-Residency MFA Program, and Seyward Goodhand, who is nominated for a story published in PRISM sinternational. The $10,000 prize will be awarded on November 1st. The winning journal also gets an award of $2000. Journey Prize
Congratulations to Scotiabank Giller Prize 2011 Longlist Creative Writing alumni: Michael Christie, Zsuzsi Gartner and Genni Gunn!
Elena E. Johnson (MFA 2009) was one of three finalists for the 2011 Alfred G. Bailey Prize. The Bailey Prize is awarded annually for the best yet-to-be-published poetry manuscript. She was also a finalist for this year's CBC Literary Awards.
More about the Alfred G. Bailey Prize
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Congratulations to Creative Writing current students and alumni who were nominated and received awards at the 2011 National Magazine Awards: Michael Christie, Lynn Coady, Kaitlin Fontana, Jeff Stautz, Kevin Patterson and Creative Writing's PRISM International magazine!
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Creative Writing Alumna, Josie Mitchell recently won a cash prize for third place in the Vancouver
Cultural Centre's Young Playwrights Competition for her one-act play.
As part of the prize, she will also next year be involved in their IGNITE! Mentorship Program in 2011-12 and the one act play she writes in this program will receive a production in the spring of 2012. Ms. Mitchell will be mentored by a professional Vancouver playwright.
MFA Alumna Gina Woosley is the winner of the CBC Literary award.
MFA Creative Writing Alumni to be published in Coming Attractions 10, edited by Mark Anthony Jarman.
MFA in Creative Writing Alumnus Michael Christie's debut collection of linked stories, The Beggar's Garden, to be published this month by HarperCollins Canada.
The Creative Writing Program congratulates MFA Creative Writing Alumna Alex Leslie on her collection of award winning stories, People Who Disappear, which will be available in the Spring of 2012 with Freehand Books.
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MFA Alumna, Claire Tacon wins Metcalf-Rooke Award for Fiction.
Leensok letoch haor hachi chazak: Mevchar shirim [Fly Off Into the Strongest Light: Selected Poems] by Professor Seymour Mayne (MA in Creative Writing Alumni '66), translated into Hebrew by Moshe Dor (Keshev le’Shira, 2009), has been awarded the 2010 J.I. Segal Award for the translation of a book with a Jewish theme. Congratulations! Click here to read more
MFA Creative Writing Alumna, Annabel Lyon is amongst the Canadian authors who've made the long list for the IMPAC Dublin award, the world's richest literary prize for single work of fiction. Click here to read more
We have a GG winner! Fishtailing, a teen novel by Master of Arts in Children's Literature alumna Wendy Phillips, has been awarded the 2010 Governor General's Literary Award for Children's Literature - Text. Click here to read more
The Vancouver Sun named MFA alumnus Terry Miles one of the "Top 10 Artistic leaders whose stars are on the rise".
MFA Alumna, Sarah Leavitt is a finalist for the 10th Annual Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize.
When Random House received Creative Writing MFA Alumna, Carol Shaben's thesis manuscript, they didn't wait long to acquire it.
Creative Writing MFA Alumna, Amber Dawn's novel reviewed in The Tyee.
Creative Writing MFA Alumnus, Terry Miles' third feature film is opening at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film stars Jennifer Beals and Gil Bellows and is produced by UBC Film Production BFA alumnus Sidney Chiu.
Creative Writing MFA Alumna, Carla Gillis responsible for the creation of Scott Pilgrim.
Creative Writing Optional Residency MFA Alumna, Sarah Selecky's short-story collection This Cake is For the Party, has been long-listed for this year's Giller Prize.
MFA Creative Writing Alumnus, Ben Hart, wines the second prize for fiction in The Antigonish Review’s 6th Sheldon Currie Fiction Contest.
Creative Writing BFA alumni, Paolo Javier, named Poet Laureate of NYC Queens University.
MFA alumni Dennis Foon wins best screenplay honours at the Leo Awards for his work on the hit movie A Shine of Rinbows, which he co-wrote with Vic Sarin and Catherine Spear.
Creative Writing MFA Alumni and students, Andrew Clark, Oliver Kellhammer, Alex Leslie and Mitch Miyagawa received honorable mentions at the National Magazine Awards.
Creative Writing Program MFA alumna, Rachelle Delaney, wins the CAA/Bookland Press Emerging Writer Award at the 2010 CAA Literary Awards.
Congratulations to Creative Writing MFA Alumnus, Dave Deveau, who received the 2010 Gordon Armstrong Playwright's Rent Award.
Creative Writing MFA Alumna, Susan Olding, received the Reader's Choice Award at the Creative Non-Fiction Collective ceremony at the Banff Centre on April 24th, 2010 for her essays from Pathologies.
The Creative Writing Program would like to highlight the new anthology Darwin's Bastards, edited by Creative Writing Optional Residency's own Zsuzsi Gartner and features a collection of stories by Creative Writing students and alumni as well as other adventurous and distinguished writers. Creative Writing alumni contributors include Lee Henderson, Annabel Lyon and Matthew J. Trafford among many others.
Creative Writing MFA alumna, Claire Tacon, is one of three emerging Ontario writers that have been shortlisted for a literary award from the Writers' Trust of Canada.
The three young finalists are in the running for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, which celebrates up-and-coming authors under the age of 35. The prize alternates each year between short fiction and poetry.
Creative Writing Program Adjunct Instructor and MFA Creative Writing Alumni, Annabel Lyon was shortlisted for the BC Book Prize's Ethel Wilson Prize in Fiction
Creative Writing congratulates MFA Creative Writing Alumna Melanie Little on her new position at House of Anansi Press as Senior Editor of Canadian Fiction.
UBC Creative Writing alumni, Kathryn Mockler, Shana Myara and David Swanson shortlisted for the 2009 CBC Literary Awards.
MFA Creative Writing alumna, Elena Johnson, makes the shortlist for the Malahat Open Season Awards and the ARC Poem of the Year Contest.
Creative Writing Instructor, Annabel Lyon’s debut novel The Golden Mean was awarded the $25,000 Writer’s Trust Award for Fiction.
MFA Alumni, Lee Henderson wins the City of Vancouver Book Award
Oolichan Books and Palimpsest Press Launch Two New Books:
Sunday, November 8, 2009, 7:00 pm.
Chivana Restaurant and Lounge, 2340 West 4th Ave., Vancouver
In Aislinn Hunter’s A Peepshow with Views of the Interior: Paratexts, Hunter offers a guided tour through the gap between our everyday perception of things and the wonder of things themselves. This book is a call to see the world more attentively – a reminder of the importance of both the real, common, everyday thing and its power to shape and transform not only our lives and imaginations, but also our understanding.
Miranda Pearson’s latest collection of poetry, Harbour, looks at ways humans are driven to construct territory in whatever space is available, however borrowed or makeshift. Moving from hospitals to museums, the poems explore the tensions between antiquity and modernity, and how we collect and display artifacts. The poems illuminate the human drive to nest, gathering together ideas on how we seek refuge, a sanctuary, a keep. How we harbour.
Annabel Lyon, MFA Creative Writing Alumna and MFA Optional Residency Adjunct, scored a hat trick with her debut novel — with nominations for the Writers' Trust Award, the Giller (one of five on the shortlist) and the Governor General's Award for fiction.
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Creative Writing MFA alumna, Annabel Lyon is one of ten long-listed for the prestigious Giller with her first novel, The Golden Mean.
Creative Writing alumna, Terese Svoboda celebrates the arrival of a new book of poetry and book of short stories.
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MFA in Creative Writing student, Nicola Campbell, was announced as a finalist for the 2009 Canadian Children's Book Centre Awards for her second book Sin-chi's Canoe.
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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.
The Creative Writing Program congratulates 2004 BFA in Creative Writing Alumna, Karen Rebecca Black on the world premier of Get in the Van in New York City. Karen Rebecca Black directed, edited and produced the film.
Peg Campbell's MFA (Joint Film Production and Creative Writing 2008) "Your Mother Should Know" has been nominated for Best Documentary at this year's Leo Awards, (BC Film Awards).
A Synopsis of "Your Mother Should Know"
Creative Writing Alumni Terry Mile's feature film "When Life Was Good" has been nominated for Best Feature Length Drama as well as Lead Performance by a Male in a Feature Length Drama and Lead Performance by a Female in a Feature Length Drama.
"When Life Was Good" website
Read more about the Leo Awards
Writing MFA Alumni, Rob Weston's children's book, Zorgamazoo has been chosen by the Children’s Literature Assembly as a notable book for 2009.
MFA Creative Writing Alumni Stephen Gauer wins the Prairie Fire Fiction Contest.
Click here to read more about the Prairie Fire Fiction Contest.
Short story, “The Riot and a Girl” written by University of British Columbia MFA Creative Writing alumna Tsering Lama, was nominated by the Malahat Review to be published in The Journey Prize Stories 20, an anthology that showcases the best of Canada’s new writers.
Click here for more information on the Journey Prize.
Creative Writing MFA alumni Dave Deveau with President Stephen Toope at the President’s Blue and Gold Revue 2008.
UBC MFA in Creative Writing alumni Robert Paul Weston’s book, Zorgamazoo, named one of the Top 10 First Novels for Youth: 2008.
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Visit the Zorgamazoo web site
Short story, “Whale Stories,” written by University of British Columbia MFA Creative Writing alumna Théodora Armstrong, is published in The Journey Prize Stories 20, an anthology that showcases the best of Canada’s new writers.Click here for more information on the Journey Prize.
Creative Writing MFA Alumna, Clea Young was recently nominated for the $10,000 McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her short story Chaperone, published in Grain Magazine. This prize recognizes excellence in an emerging writer who has published a short story from an in-progress novel in a Canadian literary journal.
Read more about the Writers’ Trust of Canada and the McClelland and Stewart Journey Prize.
Creative Writing MFA alumnus, Lee Henderson, received a nomination for the 2008 Writers’ Trust Awards for his novel The Man Game. Henderson, who will be competing with award winning authors for this $25,000 fiction prize won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for The Broken Record Technique.
Read more about the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize
University of British Columbia MFA in Creative Writing alumna Melanie Little forges ahead with new Calgary literary imprint in challenging times.
Read more in the Calgary Herald.
UBC Creative Writing is well-known for producing graduates who go on to llustrious careers including Hart Hanson (MFA, 1987) creator of Fox syndicated hit Bones, and Andrew Wreggitt (MFA, 1982), Mayerthorpe, Shades of Black: The Conrad Black Story, and One Dead Indian.
Three of our recent alumni--Jesse McKeown, Sarah Dodd, and Abigail Kinch--have found exceptional success writing for prime-time television. We caught up with all three of them to chat about their time at UBC and their lives since graduation.
Interview conducted by Sandra Pettman
How did you find the instructors at UBC; were there any who were particularly influential for you?
"I was lucky enough to spend a couple years in Peggy Thompson's screenwriting workshop. She stood back and allowed everybody to try and find their voice and - like a great story editor - only chimed in when we poor students were veering far off-course. To this day, whenever I steer into trouble script-wise, I think back to those workshops and try to recall those invaluable nuggets of good craft she would quietly toss out."
Have you been able to use the actual writing you did while at UBC in your career since?
"As a writing sample, I used a short script that was written and workshopped in Peggy's class. On the basis of that sample I was hired into the story department of Da Vinci's Inquest and I've been happily working ever since."
How did you find the workshop format?
"The workshop format is invaluable because it closely mirrors the day-to-day reality of a functioning story department . Reading, responding, analyzing, defending, pitching, editing....these are the fundaments of a real story department."
Bio: Jesse McKeown is an award-winning writer and director based in Vancouver. After studying creative writing at the University of British Columbia, Jesse went on to write for such television dramas as "Da Vinci's Inquest", "Robson Arms" and "Da Vinci's City Hall". He has also written and directed award-winning short films, including "The Big Charade" which was awarded the short film prize at the Vancouver International Film Festival, and "Vancouver", which also premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and continues to screen at film festivals around the world. He is the winner of two Leo awards and the Best Young Western Canadian Director Award (2003), and has been nominated for two Geminis for his television writing. Jesse is represented by Harrison Artist Management.
How does an MFA workshop, and writing for TV, compare to working on a television script?
I think it's just a different kind of creativity. Creating an outline for TV is the hard, hard work, where you figure out the turning points of your story…once this is sorted out, it becomes very freeing. You sit down and you're able to be really creative.
Being prepared, being organized, being open to hearing other peoples' ideas are the same in [both workshop forms]. In the MFA, it's about how much you feel inclined to take the advice and how much stock you put in the notes being given. I was very fortunate, as the people in my class gave me great notes.
This year, as Dodd is returning for season two of The Border, she will write three episodes herself with the title of consulting producer. This means she'll be banking longer hours in shepherding the episodes she writes through to post-production. The stories Dodd writes will be workshopped by a team of four other writers and a script coordinator in settings infused with "creative debate".
"I think the more the debate, the better the show. We're all full of ideas about what the characters should do and what kinds of stories we want to tell, but ultimately, we all feed [show co-creator] Janet MacLean's vision."
Dodd studied Writing for Children with Allison Acheson—both years, because she connected so well with the course—fiction with Steven Galloway, and Writing for TV with Peggy Thompson. I asked her: how did your writing evolve when you entered the MFA?
"What intimated me going back to school after all those years was prose. How am I going to write longer sentences? How am I going to write something that sounds literary or articulate? When you write screenplay, it's its own unique form. But Allison was really encouraging in using the skills I'd been working with over the past ten years and applying them to this new form. "I felt so safe and supported I actually started writing a little bit of poetry for kids. I think that's another one of the great things about the MFA—it really gives you a safe place to experiment and push your own boundaries."
Dodd's MFA thesis, a feature film with Peggy Thompson as her advisor, was the script selected for the National Film Institute Features First program for ten months of training. The team, including Dodd's husband, emerging director Corey Kinney, and their producer, Susan Derkson, gets funding to acquire skills and knowledge to make the film. For example, Sarah and Corey recently attended Robert Mackey's horror film story seminar in Las Vegas. Her future success unknown, Dodd says she began the MFA to open the door to teaching— and didn't expect any plot twists.
"When I went to UBC I never would have guessed that the work I was doing would translate into direct work or funding. I had it in my head that it was more about practicing my craft and honing my skills…it turns out the work I was doing at UBC was very useful for my career. I found is that a lot of the work I was doing in television already applied to the work I was doing for my novel in Allison's class, in terms of being able to visualize a scene, being able to show instead of tell, of developing dialogue."
But when writing for a fast-paced drama series, Dodd explained, structure is key. Writers typically produce 20-25 page outlines before going to draft. To help the process, Dodd has arranged index cards along her living room table.
I asked her—how is a typical episode for The Border put together?
"Writers compose highly detailed outlines for their television episodes. They follow a five-act structure, and the series is rapidly shot and edited. For forty-three minutes of television—that's the show's length minus commercials—we need about a sixty-page script. "It would be futile to jump in and just start to write. You need to map it out and know what the episode is going to be. Each [index] card then becomes a scene."
Next season on The Border, Dodd says we can expect new relationships for some cast members, while some will be taken to "some pretty dark places", picking up from some shocking revelations that left viewers in suspense at the end of season one.
"All of us on the story team are, first and foremost, committed to making an entertaining drama with interesting characters and lots of action and excitement. We deal with lots of interesting subject matter, but sometimes there's the tendency to want to explore the issue too much. We really have to make sure that what we do is entertaining to the audience."
While Dodd maintains that she'll always be writing for TV, as it's something she loves because it reaches a tremendous audience, she hopes to see cameras rolling for her feature film in a few years—and perhaps, one day, have time to write a novel.
Bio: Sarah Dodd (MFA '07) is an award-winning screenwriter who currently works as a writer and consulting producer for CBC's top-rated new show The Border, a drama that explores the elite Immigration and Customs Security squad. After studying creative writing and art history at the University of Victoria, Dodd launched her TV career, writing for a variety of youth, science fiction and fantasy shows, before earning her MFA at UBC. Her film, The Sparkle Lite Motel, which she co-wrote with her husband Cory Kinney, was nominated for seven Leo awards, and her TV writing has also earned accolades. Dodd's MFA thesis, Extinction, a horror film to be directed by Cory Kinney, earned her a place in the National Screen Institute's Features First program.
Interview with Abigail Kinch, conducted by Elizabeth Mason
How did you start off in your screenwriting career?
I did my MFA at UBC in screenplay. This was a pivotal shift in my writing career — I had entered the program planning to be a novelist and editor — and it lead me to work closely with both Maureen Medved and Peggy Thompson. Both helped my writing enormously and encouraged me to apply to the Canadian Film Centre after completing my MFA. I did this and was accepted.
You said that your main interest was initially in fiction. What was it about screenwriting that led you to change direction and finally shift your thesis genre away from the novel?
I'm a collaborative writer, which I didn't know at the time. I was writing a feature with Peggy Thompson, and that was really satisfying and very exciting, and I was just having a great time. I was discovering that it was a medium I really enjoyed working in. The thing about screen — and even more so with television — is that there's an awful lot of problem-solving. I found that really challenging and fun, so I started working on my novel as though it were a feature, and I found that really liberating.
Why did you decide on the MFA?
I decided to go into the UBC Masters program so that I could prioritize my writing over my survival. It was my dream and goal to make a living off of my writing as opposed to relegating my writing to the margins of my life in order to make a living -- in this system, I simply never wrote and was miserable. I wanted to be a career writer, and now I am one. I write every day. It's simply what I do. It's my first priority. I know that I am truly blessed to be able to say that, and I am grateful for it every day.
Bio: While working toward her Masters in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, Abigail Kinch was the Editor of both Prism International and Fugue: UBC's anthology of literary non-fiction. After graduating in 2002, she attended The Canadian Film Centre's Film Residency Program (Writers Lab) and Screenwriters Bootcamp. She followed-up by co-writing a CFC Short Dramatic Film Program short film, WHITE OUT, with Director Matthew Sinclair-Foreman. She received a CTV Fellowship to attend the Banff Television Festival with her project BRIGHT FUTURES and participated in the BC Film Internship Program as a Junior Story Editor and Script Coordinator on CHUM's one-hour drama, GODIVA'S. After completing her second season on GODIVA'S as a Writer and Story Editor, she moved on to the second season of CTV's one-hour drama WHISTLER before joining Global's THE GUARD. Abigail is currently working on a new radio drama series for CBC Radio II, SWIMMING TO CHINA, which is due to air the week leading up to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Abigail has been twice nominated for a Leo Award in the Best Screenwriting category: WHITE OUT (2005), and GODIVA'S (2006).
