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.
The Creative Writing program is pleased to welcome Matthew Salesses as the first visiting author for the 2022/23 academic year.
Matthew Salesses is a novelist, scholar, and Korean adoptee who has written and spoken widely about adoption, race, and parenting for many national venues including NPR’s Code Switch, The New York Times’ Motherlode, VICE, Salon, The Rumpus, The Kenyon Review, the Center for Asian American Media, and The Good Men Project, on PBS, at Brown University, the Texas State, and Our Lady of the Lakes MFA programs; he has also spoken at adoption events and conferences, and at the Tin House, Kundiman, Writers @ Work, and Boldface writing conferences.
His acclaimed first novel The Hundred-Year Flood was an Amazon Bestseller, an Amazon Best Book of September, and a Kindle First pick; an Adoptive Families Best Book of 2015; a Millions Most Anticipated of 2015; a Thought Catalog Essential Contemporary Book by an Asian American Writer; and a Best Book of the season at Buzzfeed, Refinery29, and Gawker, among others. Buzzfeed also named him one of 32 Essential Asian American Writers in 2015. His latest works are Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear and Craft in the Real World.
Matthew is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Columbia University.
Date: September 26, 2022
Time: 2-3:00 pm
Location: Virtual via zoom, or live-stream in ART 104.
This event is free and open to all, but we request that people register for either option below.
This talk is co-hosted by UBC Vancouver’s School of Creative Writing.
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.
2021 Writer in Residence
Naben Ruthnum joined us as the 2022 Writer in Residence, spending two weeks on campus from March 28 to April 5. He read and offered feedback on manuscripts from local writers, offered a free public lecture, and judged the Okanagan Short Story Contest while at UBCO.
Naben Ruthnum lives in Toronto, and is the author of the essay book Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race and the novel A Hero of Our Time. As Nathan Ripley, he is the author of two thrillers, Find You In the Dark and Your Life is Mine. His short fiction has won the Journey Prize and a National Magazine Award. He also writes for film and television, and has film and television projects in development at Oddfellows Entertainment.
Anti-racist Reading Series
The Anti-Racist Book Club and Reading Series presented a public reading with Katherena Vermette, a celebrated author of poetry, novels, children’s fiction and film. This wass the second in the book-club series, and readers discussed Vermette’s book, The Strangers.
This series was organized by Creative Writing professor Kevin Chong and presented with support from UBC’s Anti-Racism Initiatives Fund.
Creative Writing professor Matt Rader launched his new book, Ghosthawk on December 9th at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art. This event was hosted and organized by the Inspired Word Café, sponsored by FCCS.
Ghosthawk is a guidebook of imagination from grasslands to star fields to the weather of the poet’s body, and was published by Nightwood Editions.
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.
