Sunday, March 9, 2008

Souvankham Thammavongsa and Garry Gottfriedson

For the final reading in our 2007-2008 series, Play Chthonics Reading Series will host writers Souvankham Thammavongsa and Garry Gottfriedson. Please join us!

When: March 18, 2008 at 7:30 PM.
Cash bar at 7:00 PM.

Where: Coach House, Green College, 6201 Cecil Green Park Road, UBC.

Map: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index_detail.php?show=y,n,n,n,n,y&bldg2Search=n&locat1=412

Souvankham Thammavongsa was born in 1978, in Nong Khai, Thailand. She is the author of Small Arguments (Pedlar Press 2003); the poems in Small Arguments were first self published over a series of handmade chapbooks. Her work has garnered praise for its "quiet, beautiful, jeweler's-eye lyrics" and has won the national Relit prize for poetry. Her chapbook Residual (greenboathouse 2006) and book Found (Pedlar Press 2007) follow this award-winning debut. Thammavongsa has presented her poems at the Emily Carr Institute, Mercer Union, and Harbor Front's Premiere Dance Theatre.

Garry Gottfriedson, a member of the Secwepemc First Nation, lives in Kamloops, B.C. He is a self-employed rancher with a Masters degree in Education from Simon Fraser University. His published works include Cowboy and Indian Heritage Poems (Ronsdale Press 2006), In Honor of Our Grandmothers: Imprints of Cultural Survival (Theytus Books 1994), 100 Years of Contact (Secwepemc Cultural Education Society 1990), Glass Tepee (Thistledown Press 2002), which was nominated for a First People's Publishing Award in 2004, and Painted Pony (Partners in Publishing 2005), his first children's story. He has read from his work across North America and Europe, and in Taiwan.

Play Chthonics reading series showcases innovative poetry, narrative, and cross-genre writing. We encourage creative, interdisciplinary conversations between writers, students, faculty, theorists, and community members in Vancouver. The series is based in the English Department at UBC.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Green College, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Institute for Canadian Studies at UBC, and the Department of English at UBC.