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.
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)?
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
Sonal Champsee’s short fiction and essays have been published by magazines such as The New Quarterly, Ricepaper, and Literary Mama. She was a finalist for the Writer’s Union of Canada’s 2017 Emerging Writers Short Prose contest, and has had a play produced by Prathidhwani Drama Wing in Seattle. Sonal holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC, and has studied writers such as with Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Sarah Selecky, Zsuzsi Gartner and Jessica Westhead. She served on the prose editorial board for PRISM International for five years, and is a creative writing instructor for Sarah Selecky’s Writing School. Sonal lives in Toronto.
Marie Powell is the author of more than 40 published children’s books, including the young adult fantasy Last of the Gifted: Spirit Sight (Summer 2020) and Water Sight (Fall 2020). She holds a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Her award-winning short stories and poetry appear in such literary magazines as Sunlight Press, SubTerrain, Room, and Transition. She has been fiction-nonfiction editor of the literary magazine Spring, has edited Windscript for teen authors twice, and is judging the 2020 Exporting Alberta award for the Canadian Author’s Association–Alberta branch. Marie lives on Treaty 4 land in Regina, Saskatchewan, and her writing workshops and readings are popular across the province.
John Mavin has taught creative writing at Capilano University, Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia, with New Shoots (through the Vancouver School Board), and at the Learning Exchange in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. A past nominee for both the Aurora Award and the Journey Prize, his short fiction has been translated, studied, and published internationally. His new book, Rage, will release with Thistledown Press this fall.
Rage, Thistledown Press (Fall, 2017)