New publications from Creative Writing faculty expand our ideas on belonging and connection
Over the last year, Creative Writing faculty published fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid works that see the world through collaborative acts of art-making—with family, ancestors and communities, and with illustrators, teachers and screenwriters.
Writer and educator Noor Naga to visit UBC Creative Writing
We’re pleased to welcome poet, novelist and essayist Noor Naga to UBC in July for the Geoffrey and Margaret Andrew Fellowship in Creative and Performing Arts. Naga will engage with Creative Writing students, while working on a collection of essays about home, citizenship and (be)longing in the Arabian Gulf.
Alum ’20 Jasmine Sealy discusses debut novel The Island of Forgetting
Jasmine Sealy’s debut novel The Island of Forgetting released in Canada on April 26. Sealy’s novel is based on her manuscript “A Fair Wind to Take You Home” that won the Prize for Best New Fiction in 2020. We interviewed Sealy about her experience taking The Island of Forgetting from draft to published novel.
Award-winning speculative fiction author Nalo Hopkinson joins UBC
Award-winning speculative fiction author Nalo Hopkinson has joined the School of Creative Writing as a professor. She will teach courses in speculative fiction and will also work to establish a centre for the Black Speculative Imagination.
Alum interview with Jessica Johns, MFA ’19
Jessica Johns is a nehiyaw aunty and member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta. Her short story “Bad Cree” won the 2020 Writers’ Trust Journey Prize and won silver at the 2020 National Magazine Awards.
Michelle Good wins major awards for novel Five Little Indians
We’re pleased to announce that Michelle Good, MFA alum ’14, has won the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Amazon First Novel Award for her novel, Five Little Indians.
Alum interview with Michael Christie, MFA ’08
Meet MFA Creative Writing alum Michael Christie. Greenwood, Michael’s most recent novel, was a national bestseller and was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Globe & Mail.
Two faculty and five alumni finalists for 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes
We’re proud to announce that members of the UBC School of Creative Writing are finalists for the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes. Two faculty members and five alumni have been selected for this year’s shortlist.
Writers’ Trust Award Winners
Congratulations to our award-winning MFA alumni! Jessica Johns, winner of the 2020 Journey Prize. Jessica won the award for her story “Bad Cree”, originally published in Grain Magazine. The story explores the truth inside a dream and the relationship between memory and grief. Where do you store a moment stuck on repeat? The $10,000 Writers’ […]
Winner Announcement – the 2020 HarperCollins/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction
We’re pleased to announce that this year’s winner of the HarperCollins/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction is Jasmine Sealy for “A Fair Wind to Take You Home.” The two runner-up titles are “Ursula,” by Tammy Armstrong, and “Gladys Owen,” by Clea Roberts.