Rob Taylor is the author of two poetry collections, The News (Gaspereau Press, 2016) and The Other Side of Ourselves (Cormorant Books, 2011). His poems, short stories and essays have been published in over fifty journals and anthologies, including The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, Geist and In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry.
In 2014 Rob was named one of the inaugural writers-in-residence at the Al Purdy A-frame, and in 2015 he received the City of Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award for the Literary Arts, as an emerging artist. The manuscript for his first poetry collection won the 2010 Alfred G. Bailey Prize.
Rob has co-founded two literary magazines and edited two others, including a stint as PRISM international poetry editor in 2014-15. He has run a blog, Roll of Nickels, devoted to Canadian (especially BC) poetry since 2006, and since 2011 has served as one of the coordinators of Vancouver’s Dead Poets Reading Series.
Cecilia Araneda has been working as a filmmaker, media art curator and arts administrator for close to two decades. As an independent filmmaker, her works have been selected for Visions du Réel, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, the Images Festival and Ann Arbor Festival, among others, and have been featured in a retrospective screening at the Canadian Film Centre in Ottawa, Canada. She is a founder of the WNDX Festival of Moving Image and has served as the Executive Director of the Winnipeg Film Group since 2006.
Betty Jane Hegerat is the author of three novels, a collection of short stories, and a book of creative non-fiction: Running Toward Home (NeWest Press 2006), A Crack in the Wall (Oolichan Books 2008) and most recent of her books, Delivery (Oolichan Books 2009), The Boy (Oolichan Books 2011), and Odd One Out,(Oolichan Books 2016) were all projects she worked on during her two years in the MFA Creative Writing Low-Residency Program. https://bettyjanehegerat.com/2016/01/17/my-ubc-hat-trick-2 /
She was the 2009 Writer in Residence for the Calgary Park Library and has taught and done presentations and readings in numerous venues.. Delivery was shortlisted for the George Bugnet Prize for Fiction in the 2010 Alberta Literary Awards. The Boy was shortlisted for the 2012 City of Calgary Book Prize, the Wilfrid Eggleston Prize for non-fiction in the 2012 Alberta Awards and was a finalist in the High Plains Awards in Billings, Montana in October 2012. Betty Jane is the recipient of the Writers Guild of Alberta 2015 Golden Pen Award for Lifelong Achievement in Writing.
Chelsea Rooney is an author and teacher living in Vancouver. Her debut novel Pedal was published in 2014 by Caitlin Press and was nominated for the 2015 Amazon First Novel Award and the 2015 ReLit Novel Award. She hosts a monthly episode of The Storytelling Show on Vancouver Co-op Radio.
“Julia Hoop, a twenty-five-year-old counselling psych student, is working on her thesis, exploring an idea which makes her graduate supervisor squirm. She is conducting interview after interview with a group of women she affectionately calls the Molestas’ women whose experience of childhood sexual abuse did not cause physical trauma. Julia is the expert, she claims, because she has the experience; her own father, Dirtbag, disappeared when she was eight leaving behind nothing but a legacy of addiction and violence.
When both her boyfriend and her graduate advisor break up with her on the same day, Julia leaves her city of Vancouver on a bicycle for a cross-Canada trip in search of her father, or so she tells people. Her unexpected travel partner is Smirks, a handsome athlete who also has a complicated history. Their travel days are marked by peaks of ecstatic physical exertion, and their nights by frustrated drinking and drugs. After an unsettling incident in rural Saskatchewan involving a trio of aggressive children, Julia wakes up in the morning to discover Smirks has disappeared. Everything, once again, falls apart.
Sometimes shocking in its candour, yet charmed with enigmatic characters, Pedal explores how we are shaped by accidents of timing, trauma and sex, brain chemistry and the landscape of our country, and challenges beliefs we hold dear about the nature of pedophilia, the essence of innocence and the idea that the past is something one runs from.”
Laura Trunkey’s writing has been published in journals and magazines across Canada. Her short fiction has been anthologized in the bestselling collection, Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow and her non-fiction has been anthologized in Hidden Lives. The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier, Laura’s children’s novel, was a starred selection in the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Best Books for Kids & Teens. Her short fiction collection, Double Dutch, was released in March 2016 by Anansi. Laura graduated from the UBC CRWR MFA program in 2009.
(Listen to Laura read from Double Dutch)
Hi, I’m Laura Trunkey. I’m originally from Victoria, BC and have called Vancouver Island home for most of my life. I entered UBC’s OptRes program in 2006‚ quite a departure from my Social Work degree, but a great decision. My first book, the children’s novel, The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier, was published in 2008. I began the book in 2005 with the intention to write a couple chapters for my UBC portfolio. I workshopped the entire book in my writing for children class my first year of the program, back when there were classes of only four students and lots of submission dates. My short story collection, Double Dutch took considerably longer to make its way into the world. The oldest story in the collection was written a decade ago.
Could you tell us a little about your short story collection?
Double Dutch¬†is a collection of nine stylistically varied short stories. In the title story, Ronald Reagan’s body double falls in love with the first lady. Topsy, the elephant on the book cover, relives her past during her Coney Island execution. In other stories biblical miracles are performed, animals communicate or share bodies with humans, and spirits tend to the souls of the dying. It was published by House of Anansi’s short story imprint, Astoria, in March, 2016.
What was the process of writing your collection?
About half of the stories were written during my time in the Optional Residency program and became part of my MFA thesis in 2009. In fact, the manuscript I submitted to Anansi didn’t look much different from my thesis collection. The book was accepted in December, 2013, but because it wasn’t slated for publication until 2016 I had over a year before starting work with my editor, Janice Zawerbny. I used that time to write new stories to replace ones I was no longer happy with.
Why did you choose to write about what you did?
Most of the stories are a result of my obsessiveness. When I discover something I consider fascinating, I usually attempt to learn everything I can about the subject. Then I feel the compulsion to share. Some obsessions that have made their way into Double Dutch¬†are political doubles, blastocysts, Edison’s animal experiments, xenoglossy, mountain goats, a trial held in Edmonton in 1917. A reviewer recently wrote about a thematic link between most of the stories in my collection, but I have to admit I didn’t plan for that, nor am I convinced it actually exists. My favourite short story collections are varied in both form and subject, and I consider Double Dutch to fit that description.
What is one of the most important lessons you’ve learned about writing?
The willingness to revise and revise and revise again is so much more important than the quality of a first draft. And while the act of writing is solitary, when it comes to revisions, help‚ at least for me, is so valuable. (One lesson I’m trying to learn is that eventually I have to stop revising. Every time I read through a draft I’ll find more things I want to change. It’s hard for me to just say: enough!)
How did the Creative Writing program help your writing practice?
The greatest gift the program gave me were the friends I made. I have a wonderful online writing group right now. Five of us were classmates our first summer at UBC in 2006, the sixth member‚ Matthew J Trafford, is a phenomenal writer I was put in contact with before I entered the program, when I was trying to decide whether to study on campus or go the optres route. He convinced me to choose the latter mostly by describing how the summer residencies are like adult summer camp, except with laptops rather than canoes. He’s now the first reader of all my fiction (and his book The Divinity Gene‚ is a must-read). Zsuzsi Gartner, my thesis advisor, is an incredible mentor and champion of short fiction. I was so privileged to learn from her, and to be pushed far out of my comfort zone. I didn’t have any writer friends before UBC. Writing was a lonely thing I dreamed about doing. At UBC, I found my tribe.
Is there something people may not know about you?
There’s a lot people don’t know about me. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter, and isn’t that how people get information these days? I played the cello from when I was three until when I was 19. I often considered building a life that revolved around that instrument, but I wasn’t obsessed enough. And though I love music, I’ve always loved books a little bit more.
What are you working on now?
New short stories, a half-written mid-grade novel, a YA novel in the final stages of revision, an adult novel that’s just taking shape in my brain. My problem isn’t coming up with ideas, it’s choosing one to focus on and seeing it through to the end.
Are you doing any upcoming readings you would like to promo?
I’m doing a little Vancouver/ Victoria/ Nanaimo tour in July, and I’ll be reading at a short fiction event in Toronto in October but none of the details are firmed up yet. When they are, they’ll be up on my website. www.lauratrunkey.com
You can purchase Double Dutch from Anansi, Indigo, Amazon and your local bookstore.
Francine Cunningham is the social media executive for the UBC Creative Writing Alumni Association. What does that mean exactly? She is on the Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads accounts and our blog, posting information about our alumni, events and news. She also runs this interview series Featured Alumni and loves being able to get to know the people who make this association what it is. For more information about Francine and her writing find her at www.francinecunningham.ca.
Brent is the writer of Saints Unexpected, his work has appeared in Event, The Puritan , Prairie Fire and others.He is a graduate of the Humber School of Writers and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. Find him online at www.brentvans.com.
(Listen to Brent read from Saints Unexpected)
Could you tell us a little about yourself?
Hello. My name is Brent van Staalduinen, and I graduated from the UBC Creative Writing MFA in September 2015. In addition to writing, I work part-time at the Hamilton Public Library, and do my best to parent two amazing girls: Nora, aged 3, and Alida, aged 4 months. I’m a foreign-service brat, so my childhood was mobile: I was born in New Delhi, and raised in Ottawa and Chicago. I now live in Hamilton, Ontario, and consider it my home and the place that I find my voice.
Could you tell us a little about your novel?
SAINTS, UNEXPECTED was published in April 2016 by Invisible Publishing, and tells the story of Mutton, a woman who has decided to recount the life-changing events of her fifteenth summer, a summer of violence, heartbreak, grief, and magic.
What was the process of writing your novel?
It began years ago when Mutton wrote her way into a short story and then refused to leave my head. Although outlined, character-sketched, and brainstormed ahead of time, the novel was drafted first as part of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and then was subjected to about a year-and-a-half of editing.
Why did you choose to write about what you did?
Mutton is stubborn and wouldn’t let me forget her. I’m also intrigued by the supernatural, speculative, spiritual, and magical things that move beyond our perception of reality, which is how The Niche worked its way into the novel. I also really dig magical realism’s ability to make plain‚ the fantastical or supernatural.
What is one the most important lessons you’ve learned about writing?
One is too hard. Here are nine:
Keep reading.
Ass in chair. Write, write, write.
Revise.
Join a small writing group where everyone is better than you and pay attention to what they say.
Revise again.
Submit, submit, submit.
Don’t wait for anything too long, and always have another project on the go.
Become best friends with rejection.
Repeat.
How did the Creative Writing program help your writing practice?
In four ways. First, it created deadlines that demanded I write, and so I produced a pretty great body of work, from which a number of pieces have been published in literary journals and magazines here and abroad; second, it introduced me to a bevy of amazing writers‚ from faculty to student‚ from whom I draw inspiration and support; third, it has given me an MFA, which enables me to teach at Redeemer University (my alma mater) and forces me to keep writing to practice what I teach; finally, it has encouraged me to learn more about all the facets of the Canadian Literature scene, from drafting to publishing to promotion, and everything in between.
Something people may not know about you?
I was a gold level marksman in the Canadian Armed Forces. And I achieved this distinction as a medic, which pissed off all the guys (and yes, back then it was all men) in the combat trades, who figured shooting well was their God-given right.
What are you working on now?
As I write this, I’m in the middle of my book tour, so promotion and readings are occupying my energy right now. Writing-wise, my agent Olga Filina and I are also working on revisions to BOY, my thesis novel and the work she’ll be presenting (along with a short story collection and an outline for my next novel) to publishers later in the spring or early summer.
Are you doing any upcoming readings you would like to promo?
Yes! Guelph on April 27, Toronto on April 28, Stratford on April 29, and on the 30th I’ll be doing Authors for Indies at two local Hamilton bookstores.
I’ll also be in BC from July14-19, including launches in Victoria and Vancouver, as well as participating in a fiction panel at UBC for the MFA OptRes summer residency.
Finally, from November 4-6, I’ll be participating in The New Quarterly‚ Wild Writers festival.
There’s bound to be more happening as the season moves forward, so bookmark www.brentvanstaalduinen.com/events and watch for more details and specifics.
Francine Cunningham is the social media executive for the UBC Creative Writing Alumni Association. What does that mean exactly? She is on the Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads accounts and our blog, posting information about our alumni, events and news. She also runs this interview series Featured Alumni and loves being able to get to know the people who make this association what it is. For more information about Francine and her writing find her at www.francinecunningham.ca.
Emily Pohl-Weary is an award-winning author, editor, and creative writing instructor. Her latest books are Ghost Sick, a collection of poetry about tragedy and resilience in downtown Toronto, and Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl, a young adult fantasy novel. Her previous books include a Hugo Award-winning biography, a ghost love story, a female superhero anthology, a second poetry collection, and a girl pirate comic. She has been a writer-in-residence at Queen’s University, Pierre Berton House in Dawson City, University of the Fraser Valley (B.C.), and the Toronto Public Library. She’s currently a creative writing instructor at Dalhousie University and working on a new teen novel.
Brent van Staalduinen is an award-winning novelist and story writer from Hamilton, Ontario, and the author of the novels UNTHINKABLE, NOTHING BUT LIFE, BOY, and SAINTS, UNEXPECTED, as well as the short story collection CUT ROAD.
He has been nominated for a White Pine Award, won the Kerry Schooley Book Award and Bristol Short Story Prize, and has also won and been shortlisted for a number of other awards.
A former army medic and high school English teacher, Brent now teaches writing to university students and spends too much time watching the beautiful game.
He’s also the creator and co-host of Rejected Central, a podcast which seeks to elevate the rejection experience.
How did your time in the Creative Writing Program influence your work?
I credit much of my writing success to the intensity of the program, which allowed me to focus my energy and time, produce a lot of work, and develop a stable writing routine.
The community aspect of the program was also extremely rewarding. I was exposed to a wide range of wonderful writers, both faculty, staff, and students, many of whom I’m fortunate to now call my friends.
What works have you published?
UNTHINKABLE: a thriller
CUT ROAD: stories
NOTHING BUT LIFE: a novel
BOY: a novel
SAINTS, UNEXPECTED: a novel
What are your most recent awards?
The ReLit Award (shortlist) for CUT ROAD
The White Pine Award (nominated) for NOTHING BUT LIFE
The Kerry Schooley Book Award for BOY
The Bristol Short Story Prize for “A Week on the Water”
The Fiddlehead Best Short Fiction Prize
The Lush Triumphant Literary Award
The Writer Magazine’s “Our Darkest Hours” Prize
The Hamilton Public Library Freda Waldon Award for Fiction
The Alvin A. Lee Award for Creative Non-Fiction
The Short Works Prize
Are you connected to any creative writing communities you’d like to mention?
Andrew Gray is the author of a collection of short fiction, Small Accidents, which was shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Award at the BC Book Prizes and an IPPY Independent Publisher’s award in the US. He’s the co-author of the novella The Ghost Line (Tor.com). His speculative fiction has been published in magazines including Malahat Review, On Spec, Apex and Nature. He is currently completing a novel.
Leclerc is an editor of The Enpipe Line (Creekstone Press, 2012) and portfolio milieu (milieu press, 2004). She is also the author of Oilywood (Nomados Editions, 2013; bpNichol Chapbook Award, 2014) and Counterfeit (CUE, 2008). Leclerc holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC.
