The Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies invites accomplished novelists, essayists, poets, screenwriters, and playwrights present their work to students and the public on campus as well as 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. Each year faculty from the Creative Writing program host the Annual Sharon Thesen Lecture, the Nancy Holmes Conversation Series, and invite writers into their classrooms.
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.
The 2025 Annual Sharon Thesen Lecture will be presented by Michael. V. Smith on Wednesday, September 24, 7:00pm.
Stay tuned for more details.
The series is named in honour of Nancy Holmes, an internationally recognized artist, scholar, editor, community builder, and Professor Emerita in Creative Writing.
Each year an alum of the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies working in the areas of ecological or socially engaged research is invited to present their work in conversation with current graduate students or faculty.
What: Inaugural Nancy Holmes Conversation Series Event featuring poet, Kelly Shepherd in conversation with Amy Wang, Tosh Sherkat, and Slava Bart
When: Tuesday, March 4, 7:30pm
Where: CCS 224, Creative and Critical Studies building, UBC Okanagan
This first iteration will happen the evening of Mar 4 and will feature Kelly Shepherd (MFA Alum 2014) who will be launching a new book, Dog and Moon, in conversation with second year MFA Creative Writing students, Amy Wang, Tosh Sherkat, and Slava Bart.
This event is free, accessible, and open to the public.
For more information: Matt Rader, matthew.rader@ubc.ca
Kelly Shepherd has been a construction worker in northern Alberta and a kindergarten teacher in South Korea. Dog and Moon, forthcoming in spring 2025 from Oskana Poetry & Poetics (University of Regina Press) is Kelly’s third poetry collection. He is currently part of The Land and Labour Poetry Collective, an editorial group currently working on the book I’ll Get Right On It: Poems on Working Life in the Climate Crisis (forthcoming from Fernwood Publishing). Kelly’s second poetry collection, Insomnia Bird (Thistledown Press, 2018) won the 2019 Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize. He has written eight chapbooks (most recently Sleep Is a Deep Pool with The Alfred Gustav Press, 2023), and he is a poetry editor for the environmental philosophy journal The Trumpeter. He has a Creative Writing MFA from UBC Okanagan (with a thesis on the intersections of ecopoetry and work poetry—supervised by Nancy Holmes), and an MA in Religious Studies from the University of Alberta (with a thesis on sacred geography). Originally from Smithers, BC, Kelly lives on Treaty 6 territory, in Edmonton, where he teaches in the English and Communications Department at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.
Slava Bart is an international MFA student at UBCO whose poetry reaches across borders and disciplines, incorporating elements of scifi and the fantastic. His thesis reinterprets the Hebrew Bible in serial lyric and prose poems, combining English, Hebrew and Japanese, to tell a personal story of domestic violence, the loss of home, and the discovery of “the ark,” a mysterious new dimension. His multilingual assemblage is forthcoming in the anthology Ice from Caitlin Press.
Amy Wang is a second-year UBCO MFA student whose work focuses on intersectionality within Chinese-Canadian experience. Funded by SSHRC and the BC Arts Council, you can find Amy’s writing in That’s What [We] Said, Paper Shell, The Goose, and more.
Tosh Sherkat is a Persian-Doukhobor settler-of-colour born in Nelson, BC, Sinixt Territory. Tosh is a poetry candidate in the MFA program at the University of British Columbia (Okanagan) on occupied Sylix territory. Their writing most recently appears in EVENT, Grain, and filling Station.
Nancy Holmes is the author of six critically acclaimed collections of poetry, most recently, Arborophobia (University of Alberta Press 2022) and the editor of the groundbreaking anthology, Open Wide a Wilderness: Canadian Nature Poems (Wilfrid Laurier Press 2009). Holmes is highly regarded in the areas of research-creation and interdisciplinary collaborations including two large-scale, federally-funded projects, the Eco Art Incubator (with UBC Associate Professor, Denise Kenney) and Border Free Bees (with Dr. Cameron Cartiere Emily Carr University of Art + Design). She has been recognized for her writing by The Malahat Review and Arc, and is the past winner of the Robert Kroetsch National Teaching Award. Holmes served in many roles at UBC including Head of Creative Studies, MFA Program Coordinator, and Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies.
Shelley Wood
The UBCO 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. Shelley Wood was the 2024 Writer-in-Residence, and spent two weeks on campus in March 2024 offering feedback to students and local writers and offering a public talk.
Originally from Vancouver, BC, Shelley Wood did her undergraduate degree in English Literature at McGill and her graduate degree in Journalism at UBC. Her short stories and creative nonfiction have been published in Grain, Room, Causeway Lit, Canadian Notes & Queries, Phoebe, the Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, Bath Flash Fiction, Freefall, and the Saturday Evening Post. Her debut novel, The Quintland Sisters (William Morrow, 2019), was an instant #1 Canadian bestsellerand her second novel, The Leap Year Gene, will be published in August 2024 by Harper Collins Canada and Union Square Press (US). She divides her time between her home in Kelowna, BC, and her work as a medical journalist and editorial director for the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York, NY.
Stay tuned for details on the 2025 Writer-in-Residence.
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.
A public talk was held on September 26, 2022 and was co-hosted by UBC Vancouver’s School of Creative Writing.
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.
