Richard Stevenson, MFA 1984

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.”

 

Miranda Pearson, MFA 1998

Miranda is the author of four poetry collections and completed her MFA at UBC in 1998, where she was poetry editor for Prism International. She has taught at UBC and at SFU. She is originally from England and currently in lives in Vancouver.

 

Publications:

Prime

The Aviary

Harbour

The Fire Extinguisher

Winona Kent, MFA 1985

Winona Kent was born in London, England. She immigrated to Canada with her parents at age 3, and grew up in Regina, where she received her BA in English from the University of Regina. After settling in Vancouver, she graduated from UBC with an MFA in Creative Writing. More recently, she received her diploma in Writing for Screen and TV from Vancouver Film School.

Winona has been a temporary secretary, a travel agent and the Managing Editor of a literary magazine. Her writing breakthrough came many years ago when she won First Prize in the Flare Magazine Fiction Contest with her short story about an all-night radio newsman, Tower of Power. Her spy novel Skywatcher was a finalist in the Seal Books First Novel Competition, and was published in 1989 by Seal in Canada, and Bantam in the US. The sequel, The Cilla Rose Affair, was first published in 2001 and was reprinted as an e-book in 2011.

Her third novel, Cold Play, which takes place aboard a cruise ship in Alaska, was published in 2012.

Winona’s fourth novel, Persistence of Memory, was published by Fable Press as an e-book and trade paperback in September 2013, and is the first in The Memory Books series featuring time-traveller Charlie Duran and her companion, Shaun Deeley.

All four of the above novels were re-issued by New York’s Diversion Books in July 2015. The second novel in Winona’s Memory Books series, In Loving Memory, will be published by Diversion Books in July 2016.

Winona currently lives in Burnaby and works as a Graduate Programs Assistant at the University of British Columbia.

www.winonakent.com

Publications:

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Will Clarke, MFA 2015

Will is the author of two novels from Simon & Schuster: Lord Vishnu‘s Love Handles and The Worthy. He was named by Rolling Stone as the Hot Pop Prophet and is The New York Times Editor’s Choice. Will is also an active member of the TED community: an Audience Choice TEDx Speaker with over 130,000+ views. Will lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife and family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brenda Leifso, MFA 2005

Brenda Leifso’s poetry has been published in magazines and anthologies across Canada. Her first book, Daughters of Men, was published by Brick Books in 2008 and was shortlisted for Ottawa’s Archibald Lampman award for best book of poetry. She lives in Kingston, Ontario, with her family of five.

Publications:

Daughters of Men, 2008,

Barren the Fury 2015

 

Kevin Chong, MFA 1997

Kevin Chong was born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver. He’s the author of five books of fiction and non-fiction. As a journalist, his work has appeared in a range of publications, including Taddle Creek, Chatelaine, Maclean’s, Maisonneuve, Vancouver Magazine, and The Walrus. He teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia and SFU’s The Writer’s Studio, co-edits Joyland Magazine, and lives in Vancouver with his wife, Holly, and her son, Joe.

 

www.kevinchong.ca

Novels
Beauty Plus Pity
Baroque-a-Nova

Non-Fiction
Neil Young Nation
My Year of the Racehorse
Northern Dancer

 

Michelle Deines, MFA 2011

Michelle Deines is an award-winning writer who works in multiple genres, including poetry, non-fiction, and drama.  Her poetry has been published in several magazines, including Artis Natura, The Writer’s Cafe Magazine, Event, and Contemporary Verse 2.  Her non-fiction has appeared such publications as Understorey and Maisonneuve.  Michelle’s plays include an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense & Sensibility, I am the Bastard Daughter of Engelbert Humperdinck (co-written with Kathryn Kirkpatrick) and Ghosts in Baghdad, which won the Special Merit Prize in Theatre BC’s National Playwriting Competition in 2013.  Michelle is a faculty member of the Theatre Department at Capilano University, and graduated with an MFA from UBC in 2011.  She lives in Vancouver.

 

https://www.michelledeines.com/

Publications

Various magazines, incuding The Malahat Review, and Canadian Dimension

Matthew J. Trafford, MFA 2008

Matthew J. Trafford is the author of The Divinity Gene: Stories. His fiction has appeared in The Malahat Review and Matrix and has been anthologized in I.V. Lounge Nights and Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow, among others. He has won the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction and an honourable mention at the National Magazine Awards and has twice been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Prize. He lives in Toronto, where he works with Deaf college students.

 

Publications