The Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies invites accomplished novelists, essayists, poets, screenwriters, and playwrights present their work through the public FCCS Reading Series at the Okanagan Regional Library and other venues around the Okanagan. The Writer-in-Residence program promotes Canadian writing and literature to Okanagan residents and provides emerging writers with the opportunity to get feedback on their creative work.
Sharon Thesen was the first full professor in the Department of Creative Studies and is now professor emerita here at UBC. She is also a renowned Canadian poet and editor. The Creative Writing program at UBC intends for the Sharon Thesen lecture to acknowledge her contributions to British Columbian and Canadian literature and to the Creative Writing Program at UBC Okanagan. In her honor, a different writer each year will give a lecture that tackles key issues of contemporary writing, poetics, and Canadian literature. By recording each lecture, we will create a wonderful resource of contemporary thinking by writers.
Kevin Chong, professor of Creative Writing at UBC Okanagan gave the second Annual Sharon Thesen Lecture on Thursday April 29, 2021. The full lecture, Middle of it All: On Writing, Teaching, And Middles During A Pandemic can be viewed below.
Told as an auto-fictional story about the rivalry between two middle-aged, mid-career writers, this lecture looks at craft, ideological, technological issues faced by writers and writing teachers in the pandemic.
Kevin is the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently the novel The Plague. Those titles have been named books of the year by Globe and Mail, National Post, and Amazon.ca, listed for a CBC prize, a BC Book Prize, and a National Magazine Award, optioned for film and TV, and published in the US, Europe, and Australia. His creative nonfiction and journalism have recently appeared in the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, the Rumpus, and the South China Morning Post.
John Lent gave the first Annual Sharon Thesen lecture on November 19, 2020. Lent took us on a writer’s and teacher’s journey through the power and promise of modernism and the teaching of creative writing. View the lecture, Aspects of Poetics in Contemporary Fiction and Poetry: a practical logic of legacies, a working arc of continuance, via the link below.
First Annual Sharon Thesen Lecture
FCCS has also sponsored the Inspired Word Café to offer public readings, more information can be found on their web site, inspiredwordcafe.com.
Kim Senklip Harvey was the Fall 2020 Writer-in-Residence at UBC Okanagan. From October 13 to 23, she worked with students, faculty and the community. She read and offered feedback on manuscripts from local writers; and offered a free public lecture.
Kim Senklip Harvey is a proud Syilx, Tsilhqot’in, Ktunaxa and Dakelh woman and is a Fire Creator, Indigenous Theorist and Cultural Evolutionist.
More about Kim Senklip Harvey: kimsenklipharvey.com
The MOM Reading series is a collaboration of UBCO’s Creative Writing Program, Inspired Word Café, and Milkcrate Records.
The readings from invited local authors and from across Canada included: Laisha Rosnau (Book Launch) & Erin Scott; Darren Bifford (Book Launch) & Cole Mash; Liz Howard (Summer Intensive Artists-in-Residence); Richard Van Camp (FCCS Writer-in-Residence); Michael Turner & dia kabunda; Sharon Thesen & Penn Kemp; Suzette Mayr & Damien Rogers; Catherine Leroux; Dania Tomlinson & Ashley Little; Kelly Shepherd & John La Greca
The FCCS Reading Series featured writers from the Okanagan and beyond offering workshops, panels, and readings.
Events included Shifting CanLit, a panel with Juliane Okot Bitek, Karen Hofmann, Karis Shearer, Rob Budde; Stories Between: A conversation about Narrative and Voice, a panel with Margo Greenwood, Pauline Terbasket, Teresa Marshall, and Sarah de Leeuw; readings by authors Heidi Garnett, Sarah de Leeuw, Rob Budde, Juliane Okot Bitek, Clifton Joseph;editing poetry and spoken word workshops.
Reading the Valley welcomed a number of great writers and artists including:
Jeannette Armstrong, Corinna Chong, Joan Crate, Dina Del Bucchia, Sean Johnston, Jake Kennedy, John Lent, Evan Munday, Cecily Nicholson, Matt Rader, Harold Rhenisch, Renee Sarojini Saklikar, Moheb Soliman, Margo Tamez, Sharon Thesen, Caitlin Voth, and Daniel Zomparelli.
Various events were held on campus and in the community from February 7th to 10th, offering the chance to meet with writers, attend panels, expand your social network, and more.
The 2015-16 series included authors Kevin Chong, author of five books; Joanne Arnott ,a Métis/mixed-blood writer & arts activist; Ashley Little, author of five young adult novels; Garry Gottfriedson, a self- employed rancher from the Secwepemc Nation; Karen Hofmann, who has published fiction and poetry in several national literary magazines; Sean Johnston, author, co-edior of Ryga: A Journal of Provocations, and teachrs at Okanagan College.
