Oct. 6, 2009

John Lent

John Lent has been publishing poetry, fiction, and non-fiction nationally and internationally for the past thirty years. His work has appeared in various literary journals including Matrix, This Magazine, Grain, and The Malahat Review. He recently published a book of conversations with Robert Kroetsch about the writing life (Abundance, Kalamalka Press). Lent’s last novel, So It Won’t Go Away (Thistledown Press), was short-listed for a 2005 BC Book Prize. In his thirty-year writing career, Lent has presented his work across Canada, in the United States, and in numerous Western European countries. He is one of the founders of Kalamalka Press and the Kalamalka Institute for Working Writers, and currently serves as the Regional Dean at North Okanagan College. Lent lives in Vernon, BC, with his wife, artist Jude Clarke, and plays in The Lent/Fraser/Wall Trio, a jazz and roots group.

Cassidy McFadzean

Cassidy McFadzean is a creative writing student at the University of Regina. In 2009, she won first place in the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre 24-Hour Playwriting Competition, student category. She also received Honourable Mention in the fiction category of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild Short Manuscript Awards.

Location:
Aegean Coast Coffee & Tea
1901 Hamilton St Regina, SK S4P 2C7
7pm

SEPT 28, 2009

Sheri Benning

Sheri Benning grew up on a small farm near Burr, Saskatchewan. Her second book of poetry, Thin Moon Psalm, came out with Brick Books in 2007. Thin Moon Psalm won the Saskatchewan Book Award’s Anne Szumigalski Poetry Award and The City of Saskatoon Book Award. An earlier version of Thin Moon Psalm won the Alfred G. Bailey Award. Her first book of poetry, Earth After Rain, Thistledown Press, 2001, also won two Saskatchewan Book Awards. Her writing has appeared in numerous Canadian and UK literary journals and anthologies.

Bernadette Wagner

Bernadette Wagner’s poetry is infused with a love of land, a commitment to grassroots activism and the spirit of the prairies. Her poems have appeared in journals, anthologies, chapbooks and magazines, on radio, television and film, in schools, on stages, in the streets and on the web. She is a product of various Saskatchewan Writers Guild programs, the Sage Hill Writing Experience, as well as the Saskatchewan Arts Board grants program. Her first collection of poetry, This hot place, will be available from Thistledown Press in Spring 2010.

Randy Lundy

Randy Lundy has published poems and essays in a number of literary periodicals and scholarly journals. Randy resides and reclines in Pense, Sk., where he sometimes reads and writes but mostly hangs out in the backyard with his Pyrenean Mountain dogs, Alex & Mabel.

David Sealy

David Sealy has been published in magazines, literary journals, and anthologies. He is a former board member of the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre. His plays “Life’s Like That” and “Runaway Barbies” have been workshopped and presented at Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre Spring Festival in Saskatoon and at the Petro- Canada Stage One Series at Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary. His new play, “The Bob Shivery Show,” will be part of PlayWorks Ink in Calgary in October 2009.

May 26, 2009

(Photo-Kate Waters)
Anne Simpson

Anne Simpson’s most recent book is The Marram Grass: Poetry and Otherness, a collection of essays to be published in spring ’09 by Gaspereau Press. She has written three books of poetry, Light Falls Through You (2000), Loop (2003), and Quick (2007). Loop was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, and it won the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2004. She has also written two novels, Canterbury Beach (2001) and Falling(2008). She has been a writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton and an artist-in-residence at the Medical Humanities Program at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Linda Frank

Linda Frank lives in Hamilton Ontario. Her first collection of poetry, Cobalt Moon Embrace was released in 2002 from BuschekBooks. Her second, Kahlo: The World Split Open was published by Buschek in the fall of 2008 and is a poetic reflection on the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. She won the Bliss Carmen Award this year (2008) for a poem from her third collection Insomnie Blues, a book of poetry structured on the twelve bar blues just about to seek a publisher. She is working on a fourth collection called Tribe.

Ross Belot

Ross Belot is a Hamilton Ontario poet whose first collection, Swimming in the Dark, was just published by Black Moss Press. This book was developed under the Banff Centre’s Wired Writing Studio. Ross has had work published in local literary journals, was profiled last year in two Mexican literary journals and recently was asked to read at the Windsor Bookfest. He is a member of Hamilton Poetry Centre executive. Ross’s poetry helps him deal with his day job working deep in the bowels of a multinational oil company.

Natalie Thompson

Natalie Thompson is a hunter-gatherer of poetry and prose. Throughout her English Honours degree she fished poems out of a nearby stream, apprenticed to great writer-warriors, and workshopped in the brush. Her first piece published was the winner for Grain Magazine’s Short Grain contest in the prose poem category. Natalie is a soon to be resident of the UBC campus as she’ll be taking a master’s in Creative Writing there. She likes long walks on the beach and cheesecake – not necessarily in that order.

April 26, 2009

SANDRA BIRDSELL

(photo Don Hall)

Sandra Birdsell has published three collections of short fiction, four novels and a novel for young readers. In 2001, her bestselling novel, The Russländer, was nominated for the Giller Prize. She was awarded the Marion Engel Award in 1993, and has twice been nominated for The Governor General Award for a novel, The Chrome Suite and for the short story collection, The Two-Headed Calf.

Sandra has attended conferences and readings in Italy, Poland, England and the United States. She is founding member of the Manitoba Writers Guild and has served on numerous volunteer arts related boards engaged in the advancement and funding of the arts in Canada.. Her most recent novel, Children of the Day, is published by Random House Canada. She lives in Regina.

IAN LETOURNEAU

Ian LeTourneau’s poetry has appeared in The Fiddlehead, Arc, Event, and The Malahat Review. His work has twice won CBC’s Alberta Anthology, in 2005 and 2006. He works at Athabasca University and edits reviews for PoetryReviews.ca. His first book Terminal Moraine was published by Thistledown Press in 2008. A transplanted Maritimer, he now lives in Athabasca, Alberta with his wife, son and cat.

KELLY-ANNE RIESS

Kelly-Anne Riess is the author of the poetry collection To End a Conversation and the bestselling Saskatchewan Book of Everything. Her work has appeared in magazines and newspapers across the country and on CBC, the A&E Biography Channel and History Television. In 2008, she was short-listed for a Lieutenant Governor’s Arts Award.

Kris Brandhagen

Kris Brandhagen lives and works in Regina, Saskatchewan. Her work has appeared in such publications as Contemporary Verse 2, Ramble Underground, PoetryReviews.ca, Cahoots Magazine, Carousel Magazine, TransVerse Journal, In Medias Res and Spring.

Also featuring local emerging writer Shane Arbuthnott.

Located at:

Aegean Coast Coffee & Tea
1901 Hamilton St
Regina, SK S4P 2C7
7-9pm