Matt Malyon, MFA 2015

Matt Malyon, MFA 2015

Matt Malyon is the founding Director of Underground Writing, a literature-based creative writing program serving migrant, incarcerated, recovery, and other at-risk communities in Washington through literacy and personal transformation.  He is also a prison, jail, and juvenile detention chaplain, and the author of the poetry chapbook, During the Flood.  His poetry has received a Pushcart Prize nomination and has been featured in various journals— including the University of Iowa’s 100 Words, Rock & Sling, Measure, and The Stanza Project.  He serves as a Mentor in the PEN Prison Writing Program, and recently founded the One Year Writing in the Margins initiative.


www.undergroundwriting.org

www.oneyearwritinginthemargins.org

Publications:

Currently working on first poetry manuscript, fiction, and lyrics for two concept albums.

Gwen Goodkin, MFA 2011

Gwen Goodkin’s stories have been published by The Dublin Review, Witness, The Carolina Quarterly, Fiction, JMWW and others. Her short film Winnie, based on her own short story, won the Silver Prize for Short Script in the Beverly Hills Screenplay Contest. She is the recipient of the John Steinbeck AwardS and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.


 

GwenGoodkin.com

Publications:

Short stories & essays in:

The Dublin Review
Witness
The Carolina Quarterly
The Rumpus
Fiction jmww
Atticus Review
Split Lip Magazine
Reed Magazine

Laurel MacMillan, MFA 2015

Laurel MacMillan is a curator, writer, editor and translator based in Toronto. She graduated from the UBC Creative Writing Masters Program in 2015 with a thesis in literary translation.


 

 

Caroline Goodwin, MFA

Caroline Goodwin is currently serving as the first Poet Laureate of San Mateo County, California. She has published three poetry chapbooks and one full-length collection, Trapline. In 1999, she moved from Sitka, Alaska to the Bay Area to attend Stanford’s creative writing program as a Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry.

She currently lives in Montara, south of San Francisco, and teaches at California College of the Arts in both the MFA writing and BA Writing & Literature programs, as well as Stanford’s Writer’s Studio and occasionally UC Berkeley Extension.

www.carolinegoodw.com


Poetry Chapbooks:

Kodiak Herbal

Gora Verstovia

Peregrine

Poetry collection

Trapline


Chloe Rose, MFA

Chloe Rose is a Montreal-born screenwriter and producer. Her short films Big O (2015), Computer Creed (2014) and Dis Pleis (2014) have received multiple awards and festival screenings in Vancouver and abroad. She holds a DEC diploma in Film Production from Dawson College in Montreal and a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.

Chloe Rose – imdb

Linkedin


Short Films (writer):

Big O (2015)
Winner: Outstanding Original Screenplay (Persistence of Vision Film Festival 2015)
Official Selection at Whistler Film Festival 2015 and Ottawa International Film Festival 2015.
Selection: VIFF 2015

Computer Creed (2014)
Nominated: Best Student Production (Leo Awards 2015)

Dis Pleis (2014)
Official Selection: VILAFF 2015
Official Selection at Whister Film Festival 2015

Journey To She (Pre-Production)

A Canadian, a Mexican and an American (Pre-Production)

Web-series (co-writer/producer):

Green-ish (2015) Finalist (Storyhive 2015)


 

 

 


 

Jan Redford, MFA 2015

Jan Redford is a writer living in Squamish BC who has been climbing, mountain biking and skiing for thirty-odd years. She is a French Immersion teacher by profession, but gave up her grade three class in the interior of BC to move to the coast twelve years ago. She has studied at seven colleges and universities, including The University of Calgary (B.Ed.), The Writer’s Studio at SFU, and UBC, where she just completed a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (2015). She has attended Sage Hill Writing Program, Banff Mountain Writing, and Banff Wired. In November 2015, she participated on a panel called A Summit of One’s Own‚ to discuss mountain literature by and about women at the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

Jan has recently completed a memoir set in small mountain towns and climbing communities of the Canadian Rockies. End of the Rope: Mountains, Men and Me, is the story of her struggle to make her own way in the mountains and in life. To lead, not follow. Two chapters from her manuscript, Grant’s Lunch, and God or Boys, have placed in writing contests: in 2009 with the Vancouver International Writer’s Festival, and in Room‚ 2011 non-fiction contest, respectively. Her chapter, End of the Rope, was published in 2013 with the Banff Press in Rock, Paper, Fire: Best of Mountain and Wilderness Writing. An earlier version of this manuscript‚ under the title, Remember The Lilac, was long-listed in SFU’s 1st Book Competition in 2010. In addition, her work has been published in The Globe and Mail, The National Post, Mountain Life, Explore, several anthologies, and has won or been short- and long-listed in eight writing contests. In 2013, she was awarded a $6,000 scholarship from the BC Arts Council.

www.janredford.com


Explore Magazine (Hot On Your Heels) 2014

Mountain Life Magazine (Profile: Melissa Sheridan) 2014

Rock, Paper, Fire: Best of Mountain and Wilderness Writing (End of the Rope)

Room, Issue 35.2 (God or Boys) 2012

Still Running: North Shore Writers’ Association Anthology (MMA Fighter Mom) 2010

Emerge, SFU Anthology (Canadian Pushover) 2007

Faith Lost and Found, The National Post (Who’s the Real Christian?) 2007

Facts & Arguments, The Globe & Mail (I Married a Stuntman) 2007

Writing From the Edge: North Shore Writers’ Association Anthology (The Big Sex Talk) 2006


 

Zac Hug, MFA 2015

Zac Hug is a television writer and essayist living in Los Angeles. Zac was a staff writer for season five of Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva. He is the creator and writer of These People, a web series with Jim Rash, Keith Powell, and Carolyn Hennesy. Zac has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and a BFA in Theatre from NYU. His short film All Kinds of Time recently won an audience award at the San Francisco Disposable Film Festival. Play productions include Freaking Out in the 2005 Breedingground New York Spring Fever Festival (directed by Evan Cabnet), and The Burden of Sunflowers in the 2000 New York Fringe Festival and the 2003 Williamstown Theatre Festival Workshop. Having spent many years as a Digital Media Executive for Bravo, The View, and ABC Family, Zac continues to work as a part time digital media consultant, and continues to take suggestions for any other word we can collectively get behind other than content. He lives in Los Angeles with an old-lady housecat named Katherine.

www.zachug.com


Co-Creator, Writer: These People.

Whatever It Is (essay) Event Magazine, December 2014.

Staff writer, Drop Dead Diva


 

Richard Stevenson, MFA 1984

Richard Stevenson was born in Victoria, B.C., in 1952 and has lived in western Canada and Nigeria. A college English teacher by profession, he has taught English, Canadian and African literature, Business Communication, Creative and Technical Writing, E.S.L., and humanities courses in high schools and colleges. A former Editor-in-Chief of Prism international, he has served in various editorial, jury, and writing/arts group executive capacities. His own reviews and poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, anthologies, e-zines, and journals published in Canada, the United States, and overseas. He performed with the jazz/ poetry group Naked Ear and rock music/YA verse troupe Sasquatch, and occasionally puts other ensembles together for book launches and performances and reviews books.


 

Publications

Driving Offensively ( Sono Nis Press, 1985 )
Suiting Up ( Third Eye Publications, 1986 )
Horizontal Hotel: A Nigerian Odyssey ( TSAR Publications, 1989 )
Whatever It Is Plants Dream … ( Goose Lane Editions, 1990 )
Learning To Breathe ( Cacanadadada Press, 1992 )
From The Mouths of Angels ( Ekstasis Editions, 1993 )
Flying Coffins ( Ekstasis Editions, 1994 )
Why Were All The Werewolves Men? ( Thistledown Press, 1994 )
Wiser Pills ( HMS Electronic Books, 1994 )
A Murder of Crows: New & Selected Poems ( Black Moss Press, 1998 )
Nothing Definite Yeti ( Ekstasis Editions, 1999 )
C4/4 Miles* ( a Muse ‘n’ Blues Production of Sound Gallery Enterprises, 1999)
with poetry/jazz troupe Naked Ear and composer Gordon Leigh
Live Evil: A Homage To Miles Davis (Thistledown Press, 2000 )
Hot Flashes: Maiduguri Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka ( Ekstasis Editions, 2001)
Take Me To Your Leader! ( Bayeux Arts Inc., 2003 )
A Charm of Finches (Ekstasis Editions, 2004)
Parrot With Tourette’s (Black Moss Press, Palm Poets Series, 2004)
Alex Anklebone & Andy the Dog (Bayeux Arts Inc., 2005)
Riding On a Magpie Riff ( Black Moss Press, memoir for their Settlements series, 2006)
Bye Bye Blackbird: An Elegiac Sequence for Miles Davis (Ekstasis Editions, 2007)
The Emerald Hour: Haiku, Senryu, Tanka, and Zappai , with photographs by Ellen McArthur
(Ekstasis Editions, 2008)
Tidings of Magpies: Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka ( Spotted Cow Press, 2008)
Wiser Pills (Revised Edition, Frontenac Editions, 2008)
Windfall Apples ( Athabasca University Press, 2010)
Casting Out Nines (Ekstasis Editions, 2011)
The Haunting of Amos Manor ( Palimpsest Press/ Magpie Books, 2011)
A Dog Named Normal (Ekstasis Editions, 2013)
Fruit Wedge Moon (Hidden Brook Press, forthcoming 2014)
Rock, Scissors, Paper: The Clifford Olson Murders (Grey Borders Press, forthcoming , 2015)

Chapbooks

Hierarchy At The Feeder (dollarpoem editions, 1984)
Twelve Houseplants (dollarpoem editions, 1985)
Dick and Jane Have Sex (greensleeve editions, 1990)
Fuzzy Dice ( Cubicle Press, 2004)\
Frank’s Aquarium (Cubicle Press, 2004)
Flicker At The Fascia (Serengeti Press, 2005)
Tempus Fugit (Laurel Reed Books, 2005)
Jazz Pops for Jack ( Laurel Reed Books, 2011)
Neon Headband ( Leaf Press, 2012)

   

John Vigna, MFA 2007

John Vigna’s first book of fiction, Bull Head, was published to critical acclaim in Canada and the US in 2012 (forthcoming in France by Éditions Albin Michel in 2015). It was selected by Quill & Quire as an editor’s pick of the year and was a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award. John was named one of 10 writers to watch by CBC Books.

His fiction and literary non-fiction has appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines, and anthologies is the recipient of many grants, fellowships, and awards including the Dave Greber Award for Freelance Writers, winner of the sub-Terrain Lush Triumphant fiction contest and finalist for a Western Magazine Award, the Event creative non-fiction contest, and the CBC literary non-fiction contest.

He received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and is an alumnus of the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. He is a Lecturer in UBC’s Creative Writing Program.

www.johnvignaink.ca


Nancy Lee, MFA

Hailed by The Toronto Star as a pure and fearless writer, Nancy Lee is the author of two books. Dead Girls, a collection of short stories, earned the VanCity Book Prize and was named book of the year by Now Magazine. The Age, a novel, garnered equal praise, described by the Globe and Mail as “a daring, ambitious and original novel whose atmosphere lingers long after the story ends.” Nancy has judged numerous literary prizes. She served as Visiting Canadian Fellow at the University of East Anglia and as Writer-in-Residence for Historic Joy Kogawa House, the City of Richmond and the City of Vincennes, France. She has taught creative writing to students of all ages and backgrounds in Canada, the U.K. and France, and now holds the position of Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia.

www.nancyleeauthor.com


 

Dead Girls

 

Infused with eroticism, poignancy, and insight that cuts to the bone, these stories lead us into a tipping world of emotional wagers, loss and discovery, power and impulse. A marriage is tested as a mother struggles to cope with the disappearance of her prostitute daughter. Two angry women in a minivan act out their frustrations as they rampage through the night. A pill-dependent nurse juggles neuroses, infatuation, and exhaustion while supervising a high school dance-a-thon. A quiet tattoo artist takes in a homeless woman, and stumbles upon the true nature of beauty, jealousy, and love. Written in taut, unflinching prose, these stories are edgy and dark, sharply observed and uniquely imagined. As provocative as it is brilliant, Dead Girls introduces Nancy Lee as an astonishing and original new literary talent.

 


 

The Age

“The Age, Nancy Lee’s electrifying debut novel, follows her celebrated story collection Dead Girls.

Set in Vancouver in 1984 as Soviet warships swarm the Atlantic, The Age tells the story of Gerry, a troubled teenager whose life is suddenly and strangely catapulted into adulthood.

Confronted by her mother’s newest relationship, confusion about her father’s abandonment, and anxieties about a looming nuclear incident, Gerry finds a kind of belonging with a group of misfits planning a subversive protest at the city’s upcoming peace march, but her fascination with their leader and her struggle with sexual identity create a rift between Gerry and her best friend, Ian. Bolstered by her grandfather, an eccentric news anchor in the throes of a bitter divorce, Gerry tries to put herself at the centre of the group’s violent plot. As the days leading up to the rally accelerate, Gerry finds herself escaping into a post-nuclear dystopia of her own creation. Her real life and fantasy life alternate until a collision of events and consequences forces her towards life or death decisions in both worlds.

At the heart of the novel is Gerry’s combative yet tender relationship with the older Ian, as she both yearns for and rejects his protectiveness towards her until it’s too late. Stubborn, tough, and unaware of her vulnerability until tragedy occurs, Gerry navigates a razor’s edge of emotion and events.

The Age is at once a heartbreaking journey through adolescent recklessness and desire and a portrait of a generation shaped by nuclear anxiety. Bold, original, told with piercing observation, mordant wit, and the same fearlessness that earned Dead Girls international acclaim, its arrival confirms Nancy Lee as one of Canadian literature’s most thrilling and compelling voices.”