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Play Chthonics Reading Series will host writers Lee Maracle and Wayde Compton December 3, 2007 at 7:30 PM followed by a reception and cash bar.

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

Lee Maracle is a member of the Sto:lo nation. She is the author of a number of works including Will's Garden (Theytus Books 2002), Daughters are Forever (Raincoast Books 2002), I am Woman (Press Gang 2000), Bent Box (Theytus Books 2000), Ravensong (Press Gang Publishers 1993), Sojourners and Sundogs (1991), Bobbi Lee (1975), and is co-editor of My Home as I Remember, Telling It: Women and Language Across Culture (1990) and Gatherings, Vol 1, 2, and 13. Maracle is currently Visiting Professor of Aboriginal Studies and English at the University of Toronto and Instructor at the University College of the Fraser Valley.

Wayde Compton is a Vancouver writer and editor whose books include 49th Parallel Psalm (Arsenal 1999), Performance Bond (Arsenal 2004) and Bluesprint: Black British Columbian Literature and Orature (Arsenal 2001). He and Jason de Couto perform turntable-based sound poetry as a duo called The Contact Zone Crew. Compton is also a co-founding member of the Hogan's Alley Memorial Project, an organization dedicated to preserving the public memory of Vancouver's original black community. Wayde Compton teaches in Simon Fraser University's Writing and Publishing Program, where he is a creative writing instructor in The Writer's Studio; he also teaches English composition and literature at Coquitlam College. He is the Writer-in-Residence at SFU for 2007-8.

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, and is in the midst of a six-reading season for 2007-8.

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

***Eden Robinson and Fred Booker will read October 16 at UBC***

Eden Robinson is the author of Traplines (Vintage Canada 1998), Monkey Beach (Knoph Canada 2000) and, most recently, Blood Sports (McClelland & Stewart2006). Traplines was awarded the Winifred Holtby Prize for the best first work of fiction in the Commonwealth, and was a New York Times Editor's Choice and Notable Book of the Year. Monkey Beach was nominated for both the Governor General's Award and the Giller Prize. She currently lives and works in KitamaatVillage, a small reserve on the central coast of British Columbia.

Fred Booker has been writing in Canada since 1966. His first book, a collection of short stories titled Adventures in Debt Collection, was published September 2006 by Commodore Books in Vancouver. Stories from the collection have appearedin Event, Windsor Review, Whetstone and West Coast Line and have been read onPeter Norman's show HEARSAY. He lives and writes in Burnaby.

PLACE: Thea's Lounge, Thea Koerner House Graduate Center, 6371 Crescent Road, UBC
MAP: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index_detail.php?locat1=408

WHEN:October 16, 2007
Reading 7:30
Cash bar 7:00

PLAY Chthonics Reading Series invites you to the first reading of our 2007-2008 season: Catriona Strang and Sina Queyras will read September 20th at UBC.

PLACE:
Thea’s Lounge, Thea Koerner Graduate Student Centre
6371 Crescent Road, UBC

WHEN:
Reading 7:30
Cash bar 7:00
MAP: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index_detail.php?locat1=408

Catriona Strang's latest book, Light Sweet Crude, co-authored with the late Nancy Shaw, is forthcoming from Line Books. Their other works include Busted (Coach House 2001) and Cold Trip (Nomados 1996). A former member of the Kootenay School of Writing, Catriona is also the author of TEM (Barscheit 1992), Low Fancy (ECW 1993), and Steep: A Performance Notebook (Seeing Eye 1997). She frequently collaborates with clarinetist François Houle, with whom she has two children. She lives in Vancouver and homeschools her kids.

Sina Queyras’ poetry collections include Lemon Hound (Coach House 2006), which won a 2007 Lambda Literary Award, Teeth Marks (Nightwood 2005) and Slip (ECW 2001). In 2005 she edited Open Field: 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets for Persea Books, and last fall edited Canadian Strange, a folio of contemporary Canadian writing for the journal Drunken Boat where she is a contributing editor. Queyras is co-curator of the *belladonna reading series in New York. She is currently working on a novel, Autobiography of Childhood, an excerpt from which appeared in translation in the French literary journal Siecle 21 out of Paris. In 2007-2008 she is writer-in-residence at the University of Calgary.

MORE INFO: “Play Chthonics” is a new reading series that showcases innovative poetry, narrative, and cross-genre writing. “Play Chthonics” encourages creative, interdisciplinary conversations between writers, students, faculty, theorists, and community members in Vancouver. The series is based in the English Department at UBC, and will host six readings in 2007-8. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the International Canadian Studies Centre and the UBC English Department for this reading.

A New Reading Series

UBC graduate students Brook Houglum, Travis Mason and Meliz Ergin, as well as out-going instructor Christine Stewart, have, with a little help from me, started a reading series at UBC. We just got a little pot of Canada Council funding! Support as well from Canadian Studies at UBC, the English Department and Green College.

We've had two inaugeral readings so far, one featuring Lisa Robertson last spring, and one earlier this summer with Meredith Quartermain, Dorothy Trujillo-Lusk and Hiromi Goto. Fred Booker was also supposed to read, but he unfortnately fell ill just before the event. Meliz Ergin read a little bit of Adventures in Debt Collection to call his presence into the room.

Line-up for the fall and winter to be announced soon, so stay tuned!