Kelly Shorrocks, MFA 2014

How did your time in the Creative Writing Program influence your work?

My MFA at UBC helped me see I was a writer all along, even when I carried countless other roles within me. It was like being handed a tool to excavate those writing skills, polish them up and employ them creatively, in a style that could be all mine.

What’s your latest published/performed work?

Girls Need Not Apply: Field Notes from the Forces (McClelland & Stewart, Aug 2019)

What are your most recent awards?

-Memoir noted as top 100 Books of 2019 with Globe and Mail and instant National Bestseller

-2nd place in the 2019 Room Magazine Creative Non Fiction contest

-2018 Runner-up Feature Article of the Year with Professional Writers Association of Canada

-House of Anansi Press Golden Anniversary Prize for fiction

-Barbara Novak Award for Personal Essay, 2012 and 2017

Are you connected to any creative writing communities you’d like to mention (UBC alums, film and theatre communities, etc)?

-Writers’ Union of Canada

-Canadian Non Fiction Collective Society

-Canadian Freelance Guild

Is there anything else about your writing career you’d like to share?

Have taught at Trent University, Royal Roads University, and Loyalist College.

Kelly’s website: https://kellysthompson.com/

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Bren Simmers, MFA 2007

Bren Simmers’ first book of non-fiction, Pivot Point (Gaspereau Press, 2019), is a lyrical account of a nine-day wilderness canoe journey and a frank reflection on the roles friendship, mindfulness, and creativity play in the evolution of our lives. She is also the author of two books of poetry, Night Gears (Wolsak & Wynn, 2010) and Hastings-Sunrise (Nightwood Editions, 2015), which was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. A lifelong West Coaster, she now lives on PEI.

Bren’s Website: http://www.brensimmers.com

Mark Leiren-Young, MFA 2018

What’s your latest published/performed work?

Bar Mitzvah Boy – Playwrights Canada Press

What are your most recent awards?

2017 Writer’s Guild of Canada award for “best documentary” The Hundred-Year-Old Whale”

Mark’s Website: www.leiren-young.com

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Paula Jane Remlinger, MFA 2013

I graduated from the MFA program in 2013. I recently sent in my alumni profile. I also wanted to let you know that my book, This Hole Called January, just won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry. Announcement was made June 18, 2020.

Brooke Carter, MFA 2011

How did your time in the Creative Writing Program influence your work?

I produced a lot of work in Susan Juby’s Writing for Children class during my MFA, and many of those beginning pieces have turned into book-length works that have gone on to be published novels for youth.

What’s your latest published/performed work?

THE STONE OF SORROW (RUNECASTER BOOK ONE), April 7, 2020 from Orca Book Publishers. Young Adult Fantasy, the first in a three-book series.

What are your most recent awards?

Double or Nothing (forthcoming)–Junior Library Guild Gold Selection

Are you connected to any creative writing communities you’d like to mention (UBC alums, film and theatre communities, etc)?

CANSCAIP

SCBWI

Is there anything else about your writing career you’d like to share?

Brooke Carter is a Canadian novelist and poet and is the author of several books for teens, including the RUNECASTER fantasy series (THE STONE OF SORROW, THE SAGA OF LIES, and THE SISTERS OF WAR), as well as the contemporary young adult novels ANOTHER MISERABLE LOVE SONG, LEARNING SEVENTEEN, LUCKY BREAK, THE UNBROKEN HEARTS CLUB, and DOUBLE OR NOTHING.

Her poetry has appeared in EVENT and THE HUMBER LITERARY REVIEW and her debut chapbook, POCO LOCO, was published by Anstruther Press in 2016.

She has worked as a magazine editor, a freelance writer, an advertising copywriter, and a professor of marketing, communications, public relations writing, and creative writing at the college level.

She received her MFA from UBC in 2011.

Brooke Carter’s Website: http://brookecarter.com

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Shayne Morrow, MFA 1988

How did your time in the Creative Writing Program influence your work?

My biggest influence was Bob Harlow, who, early on, encouraged me to focus on non-fiction. (I didn’t for a long time).

What’s your latest published/performed work?

The Bulldog and the Helix – DNA and the pursuit of justice in a frontier town

Is there anything else about your writing career you’d like to share?

I call it my “accidental” journalism career. I landed in the newsroom of the Alberni Valley Times in 1996 and found out what I should have been doing in the first place. Didn’t try to move up because I knew the newspaper business was going to hit some hard times.

Tom Neuhoff, MFA 1984

What’s your latest published/performed work?

Humor column at Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Press.

How did your time in the Creative Writing Program influence your work?

I learned that Canadian beer is better than anything we have in America.

Is there anything else about your writing career you’d like to share?

I would jump through fire to work in Canada. You hear about the beautiful scenery but it’s the Canadian people that are truly spectacular.

Aaron Chan, BFA 2014

Aaron Chan is a musician, filmmaker, and writer born and raised on unceded Coast Salish territories (Vancouver). He holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and his writing has been published in literary magazines and publications including Plenitude, filling Station, Polychrome Ink, and Xtra. His piece “A Case of Jeff” won subTerrain‘s Lush Triumphant Literary Award in Creative Non-Fiction, and he has published a poetry chapbook, ROMANTIC HOPELESS. His first book, THIS CITY IS A MINEFIELD (Signal 8 Press), is a collection of memoir and personal essays.

How did your time in the Creative Writing Program influence your work?

Some of the memoir and personal essay pieces in THIS CITY IS A MINEFIELD were written and workshopped during my time in the Creative Writing Program. Moreover, Andreas Schroeder and his creative nonfiction class directly inspired me to write a memoir that eventually became THIS CITY IS A MINEFIELD.

What’s your latest published/performed work?

My debut book, a memoir collection about growing up gay and Chinese in Vancouver titled THIS CITY IS A MINEFIELD (Signal 8 Press).

What are your most recent awards?

subTerrain magazine’s Lush Triumphant Literary Award for “A Case of Jeff”.

Are you connected to any creative writing communities you’d like to mention (UBC alums, film and theatre communities, etc)?

I am connected to some other BFA alums.

Aaron’s Website: http://www.theaaronchan.com

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Meg Stainsby, MFA 2015

How did your time in the Creative Writing Program influence your work?

It deepened my appreciation for the need for precise and concrete detail

It compelled me to try poetry (finally!) — which then led me to swift success in terms of winning the first poetry contest I’ve ever entered. Lesson learn — write fearward!

The summer residencies (OptRes MFA) were rich opportunities to dive into a community; I especially appreciated the coaching and experimenting with reading at the mic to other writers

What’s your latest published/performed work?

-Two poems (titles below) in the RCLAS e-zine (fall 2019)

-Latest book review (on two Canadian memoirs) published by EVENT Magazine (spring 2019)

-“Writing My Father” (cnf) is to be published imminently by The Ormsby Review (online)

What are your most recent awards?

-“Tillie’s Colander” (poem) won 1st place in the Royal City Literary Arts Society’s (RCLAS’) WriteOn! contest, 2019

-“Late Comfort” (poem) was given honourable mention (same contest/year

Are you connected to any creative writing communities you’d like to mention (UBC alums, film and theatre communities, etc)?

Member of the EVENT Magazine advisory board since 2010

Contributed a cnf piece to local poet Bonnie Nash’s (ed) collection, Concussion and Mild Head Injury: Not Just Another Headline (2016)

Is there anything else about your writing career you’d like to share?

Currently enrolled in a PhD in CRWR at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (that whole mouthful is the institution’s name, otherwise UWTSD) in Lampeter, Wales

Thesis: a memoir of intergenerational trauma and living with posttraumatic stress disorder

Well into the writing; expected completion June 2021