Elizabeth Bachinsky is the author of three collections of poetry, Curio (BookThug, 2005), Home of Sudden Service (Nightwood Editions, 2006), and God of Missed Connections (Nightwood Editions, 2009). Her work has been nominated for many awards including the Kobzar Literary Award (2009), the Governor General's Award for Poetry (2006), the Bronwen Wallace Award (2004), and a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in literary journals, anthologies, and on film in Canada, the United States, France, Ireland, England, and China. She lives in East Vancouver where she is an instructor of creative writing and Poetry Editor for Event magazine. Find out more about Elizabeth at her blog
Ted Barris Ted Barris has published 16 non-fiction books. His work has been shortlisted for several non-fiction prizes. Perhaps more important, readers admire his knack for getting the story. A reviewer of his 2009 bestseller, Breaking the Silence, commented that he is "arguably Canada's pre-eminent chronicler of the ordinary and extraordinary experiences of soldiers in wartime. . ." Another said, "The stories of individual Canadians and their extraordinary achievements will never be lost if they're in his hands." As a journalist and broadcaster, Barris--10 years ago--came to teaching at Centennial College in Toronto. This summer he welcomes the challenge of assisting fellow writers in his chosen genre of non-fiction.
Facilitator - Non-Fiction Workshop
John Barton has published nine books of poetry and five chapbooks, including Sweet Ellipsis (1998), Hypothesis (2001), and Hymn, which was published in August 2009. A bilingual edition of his third book, West of Darkness: Emily Carr, a Self-Portrait was published in 2006. Coeditor of Seminal: Canada's Gay Male Poets, he has won third Archibald Lampman Awards, an Ottawa Book Award, a 2003 CBC Literary Award, and a 2006 National Magazine Award. The former editor of Ottawa's Arc, he lives in Victoria, where he edits The Malahat Review.
Guest Writer - Spring Poetry Colloquium
Catherine Bush is the author of three novels. Minus Time (HarperCollins,1993), her first novel, was shortlisted for the SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the City of Toronto Book Award. Claire's Head (M&S, 2004) was chosen as a Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail. The Rules of Engagement (HarperCollins, 2000), a national bestseller, was shortlisted for the City of Toronto Book Award, and chosen as a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by the LA Times and the Globe and Mail. She has been Writer-in-Residence and taught fiction at universities in Canada and the U.S., including Concordia, the University of Florida, and the University of Alberta. She is currently Associate Coordinator of the Creative Writing MFA at the University of Guelph, and adjunct faculty with UBC's low-residency MFA program. She is completing work on a fourth novel, The Thief.
Facilitator - Fiction Colloquium
Terry Jordan is an award-winning fiction writer, essayist and dramatist whose stage plays have been produced across the country. His book of stories It's a Hard Cow won a Saskatchewan Book Award and was nominated for the Commonwealth Book Prize. His first novel, Beneath That Starry Place was published internationally and was nominated for two Saskatchewan Book Awards, and the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel award. The Toronto Globe & Mail called it "an achingly beautiful book." Jordan received the first fellowship to live and write in the Wallace Stegner House in Eastend and was the first Margaret Laurence Fellow at Trent University, acting as Writer in Residence in both places. He taught both English and Creative writing at Concordia University in Montreal.
Facilitator - Fiction Workshop
Barbara Klar is a well-known Canadian poet whose first book, The Night You Called Me a Shadow, won the Gerald Lampert Award. Her latest collection is Cypress (Brick Books, 2008), a finalist for Saskatchewan Book of the Year. She has been a faculty member of the Banff Centre's Wired Writing Studio, and has also worked as a tree planter, camp cook, editor, mentor, workshop leader, and non-fiction writer for both print and radio. She lives and writes in rural west-central Saskatchewan.
Guest Writer - Spring Poetry Colloquium
John Lent has been publishing poetry, fiction and non-fiction nationally and internationally for the past thirty years. He has published eight books of poetry and fiction. His last novel, So It Won't Go Away, was short-listed for the BC Book Prizes in 2005. Lent has completed a volume of poems called Cantilevered Songs, and is completing a novel called Oh, Hear The Angel Voices. A book of conversations with Robert Kroetsch about the writing life, called Abundance, was published by Kalamalka Press (of which Lent is one of the founders) in 2007. He lives in Vernon, BC, where he is active as a writer, teacher, and musician. John has also edited over twenty books of poetry and fiction and is a member of The Editors Association of Canada and The Writers Union of Canada.
Facilitator - Introduction to Writing Fiction and Poetry
Vancouver writer Daphne Marlatt is known for her formally innovative and feminist poetry, including Steveston, Touch to my Tongue, Salvage, and more recently, This Tremor Love Is which was short-listed for several awards. She is also a novelist, her first novel, Ana Historic, having received wide critical acclaim. Spring 2006 saw full production by Pangaea Arts ofThe Gull, her contemporary Noh play about Steveston's Japanese-Canadian fishing community. The play will be published in 2009 by Talon Books. A 2003 chapbook, Seven Glass Bowls, comprises the first movement of The Given, a long poem in prose fragments, forthcoming from McClelland & Stewart in 2008. Recently appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, she was the Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Calgary in January-February 2007. She is currently co-director, along with Greg Hollingshead, of the prose/fiction section of the Banff Writing Studio.
Facilitator - Poetry Colloquium
Susan Stenson's work has appeared in every Canadian literary magazine. She has recently won: Readers' Choice Poem of the Year 2008, ARC; Best Book of Poetry in Victoria, 2007, Monday Magazine; and three first prizes in 2004: The ARC Poem of the Year Contest, subTerrain's Lush Triumphant contest and The Rona Murray Prize for Literature. Sono Nis Press published her first book of poems, Could Love a Man, and her latest, a book of elegies, My Mother Agrees With the Dead (2007), was published by Wolsak and Wyn. Her new manuscript, Lollygag, is forthcoming. She lives ecstatically in Victoria with her family where she co-publishes The Claremont Review, a literary magazine for writers aged 13 to 19. Susan teaches English and creative writing in Saanich School District.
Facilitator - Introduction to Writing Fiction and Poetry