Posts tagged with “project space”

	Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most..
	Tracy Stefanucci is the Executive Director of OCW Arts & Publishing Foundation, which runs Project Space and puts on the Vancouver Art/Book Fair. She is also the Publications Coordinator at the Vancouver Art Gallery and teaches in the Master of Publishing program at Simon Fraser University.

What was the last book you read?

It Chooses You by Miranda July. I loved it. It was really amazing to hear about her process while creating her film The Future and to get a glimpse of her personality. It was the first thing I’ve read by her where she was just talking in her own personal voice. It was interesting how the photos in it come across as photo essays, and that the people she meets really come across as characters through the way she interviews them. Hearing her inner narrative, her inner dialogue as she meets theses people, is really fascinating.

Who is your favourite Vancouver writer?

It would be a tie between Amber Dawn and Cathleen With. Two of my favourite books are Sub Rosa and Having Faith in the Polar Girls’ Prison.

Where is your favourite place to read?

I started really loving getting short story books and reading them in the bath. Previously I wasn’t really satisfied by short stories, but I love that one short story is a good length of time to be in the bath. It’s a good therapeutic activity when I’m really stressed out.

In general, though, my favourite time to read is when I get to go on some sort of vacation, somewhere quiet, where I get to read in natural surroundings. …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

	ReVIEWS, preVIEWS, interVIEWS, and overVIEWS: here’s where you’ll find out what the Vancouver Book Club team thinks about the literary scene in Vancouver. What you should read, where you should go, who you should sit up and notice.

Vancouver steps up its game this weekend with the launch of the Vancouver Art/Book Fair at the Vancouver Art Gallery and locations throughout the city. Bringing in publishers, writers, artists and exhibitors from near and far, the VA/BF will highlight the work being done by those in the local art book publishing scene. Fair co-founder and OCW Magazine Executive Director Tracy Stefanucci talked about the origins of the fair, and what it means for Vancouver.

When did the idea of having an Art/Book Fair start?

A book fair has always been something OCW has talked about, long before we opened Project Space. The itch to start an art book fair as been increasing since 2010, reaching some sort of concrete status when I purchased the web domain in summer 2011 (it felt like the beginning of a commitment, though I had only told my partner Jaz Halloran about the idea; it takes a while to coax these kinds of ideas out of hiding). This reluctancy, coupled with just being incredibly busy, saw the art book fair idea getting a clumsy start around last fall after a research trip to the New York Art Book Fair.

Why now and why does Vancouver need this?

Vancouver has a really vibrant art publishing scene. We have three bookshops dedicated to artist books (how many bookshops, in general are left in Vancouver?): Project Space, Motto Books and READ Books. We have a number of artist-run centres who are also publishing books. Many local artists, designers and writers are creating books. Just last week a new publisher and distributor made up of local artists, Show & Tell Press (S/T Press), launched their first title, Made In Vancouver, and opened a month-long pop-up bookshop at Satellite Gallery. …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

The Vancouver Book Club’s recent meeting with Charlotte Gill was a cozy event on a rainy Vancouver Saturday (oxymoron?). Charlotte entertained almost 20 of us at the wonderful Project Space, reading from her book Eating Dirt and giving us some insight into why she wrote it and her writing process in general (“I find writing really hard….This book took six years to write, and 20 drafts.”) The former tree planters at the event shared their stories and Charlotte admitted she gets an email a week from people who write “You think you’ve got a story? Well, I’ve got a story for you!”

The event, gracefully hosted by Book Club team member Nikki Reimer, was a wonderful opportunity to talk to Charlotte about the book and her experiences, with a lively discussion ensuing from the attendees’ questions.
…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

	ReVIEWS, preVIEWS, interVIEWS, and overVIEWS: here’s where you’ll find out what the Vancouver Book Club team thinks about the literary scene in Vancouver. What you should read, where you should go, who you should sit up and notice.
	It’s literary overload as this week brings you the Shoot it! book launch, W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series, Mashed Poetics, and our own VBC Live with Charlotte Gill.

Sunday January 22 – Book Launch: David Spaner’s Shoot it!

Former Vancouver Province film critic David Spaner, has just released his second book, Shoot It!: Hollywood Inc. and the Rising of Independent Film and Arsenal Pulp Press is holding a book launch at People’s Co-op Bookstore. The location of the launch is fitting as the first half of Spaner’s book looks at the history of the the Hollywood movie studio system including the clashes, often physical and violent, between studios and union members.

The second half of the book is a look at the history of independent film scenes in seven different countries (including Canada, of course).

David Spaner will give a brief talk about his new book and take questions; book signing and refreshments to follow!

When: Sunday Jan. 22 • 2 – 5 pm
Where: People’s Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Dr., Vancouver
www.davidspaner.com
www.arsenalpulp.com

Tuesday January 24 – W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series

	Sean Cranbury & Co. are at it again, this time celebrating the 2nd anniversary of the W2 Real Vancouver Writers’ Series with a stellar line-up of established and up-and-coming writers.
	Featuring: Angie Abdou Zsuzsi Gartner David Lester Arley McNeney Garry Thomas Morse Jen Neale Ayelet Tsabari
	Books for sale by author. All proceeds go to the writers. Cash bar. Music. Live streaming. Conviviality. Jokes. Hosted by Sean Cranbury and Dina Del Bucchia
	If the last big literary event held at the W2 Performance Space (Giller Light Vancouver) was any indication, this is sure to be a great evening. And on a Tuesday!

When: Tuesday January 24, 7 – 10 pm
Where: W2 Media Café, 111 W. Hastings St., Vancouver (enter through the Woodwards Atrium)
Cost: $5 (no one turned away for lack of funds)

Real Vancouver Writers’ Series is 100% volunteer-driven. All proceeds go toward supporting future W2 programming and the writers who participate.

Friday January 27 – Mashed Poetics: Gordon

Mashed Poetics is back! An evening of music and poetry as selected writers read the results of the musical influence of a particular song. This time ’round sees The Barenaked Ladies’ album Gordon acting as muse.

BNL cover band ENID will be playing all of the songs on the album GORDON, interspersed with very cool poems by 15 different and talented writers.

Poets and their songs include…

1. “Hello City” -Matt Hogan
2. “Enid” -Laurie Bricker-Cherry
3. “Grade 9″ -Roger Blenman
4. “Brian Wilson” -Chris Gilpin
5. “Be My Yoko Ono” -Diane Tucker
6. “Wrap Your Arms Around Me” -Magpie Ulysses
7. “What a Good Boy” -Chris Masson
8. “The King of Bedside Manor” -RC Weslowski

Intermission

9. “Box Set” -Duncan Shields
10. “I Love You” -Wilhelmina Salmi
11. “New Kid (On the Block)” -Sean McGarragle
12. “Blame It on Me” -Johnny Scoop
13. “The Flag” -Alberto Cristoffanini
14. “If I Had $1000000″ -Sonja Littlejohn
15. “Crazy” -Laurel Albina

When: Friday January 27,  8 – 11 pm
Where: The Kozmik Zoo, 53 W. Broadway
Cost: $10 at the door.
Doors at 8:00 Show at 8:30

Saturday January 28 – VBC Live: An Intimate Chat with Charlotte Gill

Come join us, Vancouver is Awesome’s very own Vancouver Book Club, for an afternoon with Charlotte Gill, author of Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe. We (that is, us and you) will be chatting with Charlotte about the book and her experiences.

This book has been getting a lot of buzz over the past few months and was recently shortlisted for the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.

Read our review of Eating Dirt and visit the Event page.

When: Saturday February 28, 2-4 pm (doors at 1:30 pm)
Where: Project Space, 222 E. Georgia St., Vancouver

There will be books and refreshments for sale.

www.charlottegill.com
www.dmpibooks.com
www.projectspace.ca

Print Matters is a celebration of the printed form and all the awesome local people who bring it to you: literary journals, publishers, magazines, hand presses, and independent booksellers.  This week we look at PRISM international, published by the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia. A quarterly magazine, its mandate is to publish the best in contemporary writing and translation from Canada and around the world.

At the time of its founding in 1959, PRISM was the only literary journal west of Toronto, making it Vancouver’s oldest literary journal. But there is nothing old about this publication. Focused on contemporary writing and with a change in the editorial mandate every year, focus and content is continuously in shift and current. Connected with the UBC Creative Writing MFA program, the editors rotate annually, but the dedication to contemporary literature hasn’t changed since its first issue. I spoke with andrea bennett, current Executive Editor (Circulation and Promotions) and former Poetry Editor, about their content selections, Vancouver’s literary scene and the current direction of PRISM International.

Has PRISM always been focused on contemporary writing?
Yes. Our mandate is to publish contemporary writing from Canada and around the world. Our content varies from year to year, depending on our slush pile, but we are focused on publishing a mix of contemporary Canadian and international work.

You feature mostly fiction and poetry, but you also feature creative non-fiction.
We’re certainly open to other forms, like translation and playwriting, but we typically receive mostly fiction and poetry, with some non-fiction. We hold three annual contests: fiction, non-fiction and poetry — so for our non-fiction contests, we’ll get a lot of entries. Throughout the year, we find we don’t receive a ton of non-fiction.

Why do you think?
Well, we do get some of what has been characterized as “Old Lady Cat Memoir.” We’re looking for something a bit different — that contemplative tea-drinking Canadian writing is not really our thing. Our editorial mandate changes a bit from year to year according to our editors, but we’re generally all starting our careers, and we’re all pretty familiar with the terrain of literary magazines in Canada, and we’re not looking for something we’ve read 100 times before. Memoir and personal essay are difficult to write. I think there’s a current resurgence in the popularity of non-fiction, though, and hopefully we’ll see that translate into more non-fiction submissions throughout the year.

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

The Vancouver Book Club is pleased to announce that our January 2012 selection is Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill!

Charlotte Gill spent nearly twenty years as a tree planter in the forests across Canada. In her latest book Eating Dirt she explores the subculture of the tree-planting tribe, recounts the geological and geopolitical history of forests, and questions the effectiveness of conifer plantations.

This loamy piece of non-fiction was published by Douglas & McIntyre  in partnership with the David Suzuki Foundation, chosen as Globe 100 Best Book of the year in 2011, and short listed for the Hilary Weston Writer’s Trust Prize and the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

Charlotte’s previous book, the short story collection Ladykiller, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction and winner of the Danuta Gleed Award and the B.C. Book Prize for fiction.

Get down to your local bookseller and grab a copy of Eating Dirt, or if you’ve been nice maybe Santa will bring you one, and join us on January 28th for an intimate chat with Charlotte Gill and other readers. Let us know you’re coming by joining our Facebook event. Read more about the Vancouver Book Club and our past selections.