Join us for a talk and reading with writer Anise Vance hosted by the School of Creative Writing, the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, the Department of Geography and St. John’s College.
Anise Vance is a writer from the African and Iranian diasporas. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University-Camden. As a Mitchell Scholar, he received an MPhil in Geography from Queen’s University Belfast. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and currently lives in North Carolina with his wife and two children.
Anise currently serves as the Assistant Director of the City of Durham’s Community Safety Department (DCSD), a department formed after the murder of George Floyd, and on a foundation set by years of community advocacy and building. In 2022, the Durham Community Safety Department (DCSD) launched four 911 crisis response programs—collectively known as HEART (Holistic Empathetic Assistance Response Teams)—to divert calls away from law enforcement and meet the needs of people in crisis with behavioral health expertise. In its first fifteen months of operation, and having responded to over 8,000 calls, HEART has become a leading national alternative response model. For more, please visit DCSD’s website and dashboard, watch this clip from CNN’s Sanjay Gupta, listen to this segment on NPR (WUNC), or read this piece from The Assembly to learn more.
This event is open to UBC alumni, students, faculty and staff. Registration is not required.
Visiting Writers Program
The School of Creative Writing’s Visiting Writers Program provides an opportunity for our students, alumni and faculty to connect with insightful writers in small group settings. We encourage everyone in Creative Writing to take advantage of this opportunity – it’s a unique benefit of being involved in the School.
This event is open to UBC alumni, students, faculty and staff. Registration is not required.
