‘Heartbreaking’ story wins 2016 Okanagan Short Story Contest

The winners of the 2016 Okanagan Short Story Contest were announced March 16 at a ceremony and reading at the Royal Anne Hotel in Kelowna.

UBC alumna Dania Tomlinson won first prize for her story “Badlands.”

Award-winning fiction writer and teacher Tamas Dobozy served as contest judge during his time as UBC Okanagan’s Writer in Residence. Of Tomlinson’s winning entry, Dobozy said, “The writer is totally in command of the narrative.”

“It’s very deeply felt, even heartbreaking (in the best sense of the word) in places. The last sentence is startling and beautiful and lifts the story beyond itself—as most good endings do.”

The accolades mean a lot to Tomlinson, an MFA graduate and current employee at UBC Okanagan. She also took part in the one-on-one writing workshop Tamas offered local writers during his residency.

“Writing can be an isolating activity,” Tomlinson says, “and after completing my MFA and leaving the writing community that came along with that experience, I sense that isolation more than ever.

“To have such an accomplished writer as Tamas Dobozy validate my work gives me a boost of confidence. I have benefitted enormously from this year’s Writer in

Award-winning writers Dania Tomlinson, left, and Bronwyn Berg at the 2016 Okanagan Short Story Contest event.

Residence.”

Second place was awarded to Kelowna writer Bronwyn Berg for “The Weight of Things,” which Dobozy called “really funny and beautifully restrained.” Bronwyn’s story wryly and tenderly chronicles the decline of a World War Two veteran and former railway accident photographer as he moves into old age and dementia.

Third prize went to another Kelowna writer and UBC alumna, Brittni Mackenzie-Dale, a graduate of the university’s Creative Writing program and a third-place winner in 2014. Her story, “That’s What They Call It, Anyways,” got the nod this time around.

Before introducing the winners and reading from his own work, Dobozy emphasized the importance of funding the arts and thanked the Central Okanagan Foundation for their longstanding financial support of the valley-wide contest.

The Okanagan Short Story Contest is an annual event sponsored by UBC’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, the Central Okanagan Foundation, and Kelowna’s Capital News. It is open to all residents of BC’s Southern Interior.

Who: John Greyson, FCCS Visiting Scholar

What: Documentary film screening: “Fig Trees”
When: Monday, March 21 at 7 p.m.
Where: University Theatre (ADM 026), UBC’s Okanagan campus, Kelowna
Admission: Free and open to the public

What: Public talk: “Narcissus in Cairo”
When: Thursday, March 24 at 7 p.m.
Where: Black Box Theatre, 1375 Water Street, Kelowna
Admission: Free and open to the public

He’s talented, outspoken, openly gay, and has spent months in a brutal Egyptian prison, held without charges.

Human-rights activist John Greyson is also a Toronto film/video artist and professor at York University, who will spend a week at UBC’s Okanagan campus working with students and faculty. Also during his March 21-25 visit, Greyson presents a film screening and a public lecture.

Greyson was invited to be one of 2016’s Visiting Scholars by UBC’s Michael V. Smith, associate professor of Creative Writing, and Daniel Keyes, associate professor of Cultural Studies, both in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (FCCS).

“John Greyson isn’t just one of the most influential independent filmmakers in Canada, nor just a world-class artist-activist, he was also a cause célèbre for his illegal incarceration in Egypt,” says Smith. “Artists around the world denounced his seizure. His Okanagan visit will be inspiring, as he brings together filmmaking, politics and global responsibility.”

Greyson’s film shorts, features and installations include: Fig Trees, Proteus the Law of Enclosures, Lilies, Un©ut, Zero Patience, The Making of Monsters and Urinal.

During his visit to UBC Okanagan, Greyson will screen Fig Trees, a feature-length documentary opera about the struggles of AIDS activists Tim McCaskell of Toronto and Zackie Achmat of Cape Town, as they fight for access to drug treatment. The free screening is Monday, March 21 at 7 p.m. in the University Theatre (ADM 026) at UBC’s Okanagan campus.

Greyson also presents a free public lecture, titled “Narcissus in Cairo,” on Thursday, March 24 at the Black Box Theatre, 1375 Water St., downtown Kelowna, 7 p.m. Detailing his self-named “Egyptian spa vacation,” the talk is a queer reading of his internationally-denounced detainment in an Egyptian prison sell with 38 other prisoners, without charges, for seven weeks in 2013.

An Associate Professor in Film Production at York University, and a PhD candidate in Sexual Diversity/Drama at U of T, Greyson was awarded the Toronto Arts Award for Film/Video (2000), the Bell Canada Video Art Award (2007), and the Alanis Obamsawin Cinema Politica Award (2011).

Beyond traditional feature and documentary filmmaking, Greyson has created a number of activist new-media projects, including a 40-webisode murder mystery he created for the Toronto Transit Commission to be broadcast on their subway platforms (2014).

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Contact: Dan Keyes, daniel.keyes@ubc.ca, 250-807-9320

The Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies is now accepting applications for the Undergraduate Research Award. This award provides undergraduate students support to engage in research and creation activities over the summer months. The deadline for this award for a research project over the summer of 2016 is March 15th at 4pm.

scene from 22 Sins to Salvation

In 2013, Dean Krawchuk (Interdisciplinary Performance major) used the award to create a theatre piece based on the life of the Russian monk, Grigori Rasputin. “My purpose in creating 22 Sins to Salvation was to give myself the opportunity to devise my own show enabling me to enter my fourth year of University with a more refined set of skills that I can apply to my graduation work.” says Dean.

Jessica Bonney

With this award from FCCS in 2014, Jessica Bonney (Creative Writing major) worked with Briar Craig in the print studio learning to use the letter press, and creating a chapbook called Genesis. The final book is a collection of 12 poems that explore change and the human experience, using fish as a metaphor for the complexity and fecundity of life, abundance, and coming of age. The project was an exercise in creating a book that was cohesive in its visual elements as well as the text within it.

Brandon Taylor

Brandon Taylor (English major) was a recipient in 2014. His research project involved a critical investigation of how contemporary American commercial television programming creates empathetic routes toward sociopaths and what this relationship implies. He immersed himself in the relevant literature of Television Studies (Fiske, Mittel, Kellner, Feuer, etc.) and on Breaking Bad, exploring how it shifts the white male psychopath paradigm (Martin’s Difficult Men, Sepinwall’s The Revolution was Televised).

Meghan Hunter

Megan Hunter (Creative Writing major) worked on an interactive performance in 2015. Meghan created a script and invited and worked with performers (vocalists or soundmakers in the community) as well as current and graduated BFA students in Interdisciplinary Performance. The performance was called Murmurations and it was presented at the Brent’s Grist Mill Heritage Park. The performance was one of four artist presentations at the site in the summer of 2015 organized under the umbrella of a community public art initiative called Bee Central.

Trystan Carter

Trystan Carter (Creative Writing/English major) proposed to go stay at the Best Western in Osoyoos in 2015, where the movie Gunslinger was shot, and write “The Best Western.” The final novel is a funny, endearing, self-reflexive, critically-minded Western. The account starts out reading like non-fiction; there is a narrator named Trystan, who has won this grant from UBCO to go the Best Western in Osoyoos and write “The Best Western.”
He gets himself a cowboy hat and heads on down to Osoyoos.

The award is meant to encourage undergraduate students who are enrolled in a major in FCCS B.A. or B.F.A. programs (English, Cultural Studies, Art History and Visual Culture, French, Spanish, Creative Writing, Visual Arts and Interdisciplinary Performance, or Combined Majors) to pursue innovative and original research under the supervision of one or more FCCS faculty members.

Two $2500 awards will be given out this year. The deadline for this award for a research project over the summer of 2016 is March 15th at 4pm. For more information on this award and the application process, visit fccs.ok.ubc.ca/students.html (under the Funding and Awards heading).

It’s that time of year! Let the Public Art Pollinator Pasture Project at UBC and the Okanagan Regional Library help you plot and plan your garden so that it is a local haven for pollinators. A trio of talks will be held on Monday February 29, Thursday March 3, and Monday March 7 to help both experienced and new gardeners learn how to create pollinator habitats to support the irreplaceable role played by bees and other pollinating insects.

Brian Campbell, seeding

On February 29th, Brian Campbell, the seed master of West Coast Seeds of Delta BC will talk about “The Relationship Between Bees and Plants: Stresses, Problems, and Solutions.” Campbell is a member of the Master Gardener Association of BC, a Certified Bee Master, and has an International Certificate in Permaculture Design. He teaches traditional farm-based skills and sustainable garden design. Immensely knowledgeable about native pollinators, Brian is passionate about sharing his knowledge and skills with others.

Gwen Steele

On March 3rd, local gardener and xeriscape expert Gwen Steele will talk about “Tips and Plants for Creating a Water-Wise Pollinator Garden.” Steele, a life-long Kelowna gardener, is co-founder and executive director of the Okanagan Xeriscape Association (OXA). For over 20 years she has studied, practiced and taught xeriscaping. She was instrumental in the creation of the UnH2O Demonstration Garden on Gordon Road.

Tracey Kim Bonneau

On March 7th, Tracey Kim Bonneau, President of Of the Land Productions Inc., will give a talk called “Traditional Ecological Knowledge – Local Plant Foods and Bees.” Bonneau, a Syilx woman born and raised on the Penticton Indian Reserve, is on a pursuit to love and care for wild food knowledge systems. Her vision to share stories came to fruition as a 13-part television documentary series, Quest OutWest Wild Food which aired on prime-time on the Aboriginal People’s Television Network in the fall of 2015.

And if that’s not enough inspiration for the upcoming spring, Brian Campbell will be back on Sunday March 13th to hold an afternoon workshop on how to grow native plants. This workshop will be held at the Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre. All the other talks take place at 7 PM at the downtown Kelowna branch of the Okanagan Regional Library, 1380 Ellis St. Kelowna. Admission is free but people are encouraged to pre-register. Go onto this website to register: blogs.ubc.ca/theecoartincubator/the-pollinizing-sessions/

This series is part of “The Pollinizing Sessions: A Series of Talks and Workshops to Learn About Pollinators in Our Community.” The Pollinizing Sessions is a partnership with Okanagan Regional Library and UBC Okanagan’s research project, the Public Art Pollinator Pasture. UBC Okanagan and Emily Carr University have teamed up for a three-year partnership project with the City of Kelowna and the City Richmond to create community and public art projects around bees. The Pollinizing Sessions will host a series of eight talks and three workshops in 2016. Find out more information by contacting Nancy Holmes at 250-764-9666.