Don't miss the first reading of the season, September 24!

Play Chthonics: Contemporary Canadian Readings presents
poets Margaret Christakos and Nathalie Stephens

September 24, 2008
Green College Coach House

Doors open 7pm
Reading begins at 7:30
Cash Bar

Margaret Christakos is the author of six books and a novel, including Sooner (Coach House, 2005, nominated for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award), Excessive Love Prostheses (Coach House, 2002, winner of the ReLit Award), and Charisma (Pedlar, 2000, shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award). A new collection of poetry, What Stirs is forthcoming from Coach House this year. Christakos was Canada Council Writer in Residence at the University of Windsor on 2004-2005. She lives in Toronto where she has taught Creative Writing at the Ontario College of Art and Design (York University), with Writers in Electronic Residence, and at the University of Toronto.

Nathalie Stephens (Nathanaël) writes l'entre-genre in English and French. Recent works include The Sorrow and the Fast of It (2007), Paper City (2003), Je Nathanaël (2003 / 2006), L'Injure (2004), and the imminent essay of correspondence, Absence Where As (Claude Cahun and the Unopened Book), (2009). Translated into Basque and Slovene, with book-length translations in Bulgarian, Stephens has herself translated Édouard Glissant, Catherine Mavrikakis, and Gail Scott. Of late, she has been studying rooftops in
Chicago.


Play Chthonics is a reading series that showcases innovative Canadian poetry, narrative, and cross-genre experimental writing. It is designed to foreground creative, interdisciplinary conversations between students and faculty of multiple departments, while bridging current gaps between UBC and the wider community of writers, theorists, and the general public in Vancouver. We host joint readings that encourage conversations between writers and audience members at a moderated discussion following each reading. Play Chthonics pairs writers whose work speaks to one another in order to promote lively discussion about poetics, translation, media, identity, environment, globalization, textuality, performance, narrativity, and sound. The series is very grateful for funding and support from Green College, The Canada Council, Canadian Studies at UBC and the UBC English Department.