Matthew Rader, MFA

Associate Professor

Creative Studies, Creative Writing

Other Titles: Creative Writing Program Coordinator
Office: CCS 350
Phone: 250.807.8092
Email: matthew.rader@ubc.ca

Research Summary

Poetic Genres and Forms, Poetics of Collaboration, Community engaged poetics, Creative Nonfiction, Short Fiction, Community Engaged Writing, Literary Aesthetics, Literary History, Interdisciplinary Art Practices, Embodied Poetics, Disability Aesthetics.

Courses & Teaching

Creative writing, poetry, short story, non-fiction, writing and community learning.

Degrees

MFA, Creative Writing, University of Oregon, United States, Oregon, Academic, 2006-2008, Bachelor of Fine Arts (with Distinction), Creative Writing, University of Victoria, Canada, British Columbia, Academic, 1996-2000

Research Interests & Projects

My primary area of interest is the writing of lyric poetry. Guided by poetic history, tradition, form, and genre, my poems engage specifically with the post-colonial imaginaries and eco-cultures of Vancouver Island and the central Okanagan. Since 2014, my research has also included a significant interest in embodied poetics, disability aesthetics, and access, which I’ve explored through social practice art and creative nonfiction. I also work in short fiction, the primary theme being working-class history and lives.

Areas of Special Interest

Poetic Genres and Forms, Poetics of Collaboration, Community engaged poetics, Creative Nonfiction, Short Fiction, Community Engaged Writing, Literary Aesthetics, Literary History, Interdisciplinary Art Practices, Embodied Poetics, Disability Aesthetics.

Teaching Philosophy: I strive for a learner-centred environment in which the classroom is an “emergent, collectively-held space” and where we acknowledge that “each participant carries a body of local knowledge.”[1]

Teaching Awards

I received an I Am Accessible Teaching Award from the Disability Resource Centre in 2015 and 2017, for creating accessible classrooms and course content for students.

Summer Indigenous Art Intensive (SIAI): For three years, I have designed and taught innovative courses in conjunction with the SIAI. In 2016, I offered a two-week undergraduate and graduate course which explored embodied poetics in literary compositions. In 2017 and 2018, I offered a four-week undergraduate and graduate course called The Collaboratory. Please see my teaching dossier for explanation of course philosophies and the influence of these course on my teaching.

[1] Papalia, Carmen. “An Accessibility Manifesto for the Arts.” Canadian Art, 2 Jan. 2018, canadianart.ca/features/access-revived/.

 

Selected Grants & Awards

SSHRC Partnership Engage: Open Works: An arts-based collaboration exploring intersectional access and community values, 2018

Arts Council of Central Okanagan Project Grant for visiting speakers, 2017

SSHRC Connections Grant: Where is Here? (culture mapping on Vancouver Island), 2016

British Columbia Arts Council Project Grant: Wolves (book of poems based on immunology); forthcoming as the creative nonfiction book Visual Inspection, 2015-2016

Hampton Fund: Visual Inspection, 2015-2017

Canada Council for the Arts: Travel Grant: Cork International Short Story Festival, Cork, Ireland, 2014

Canada Council for The Arts: Individual Project Grant for Writers: Winter Horses (book of poems exploring masculinity and HIV); published as Desecrations, 2014-2015

British Columbia Arts Council: Individual Project Grant for Writers: Winter Horses; published as Desecrations,2014-2015

Access Copyright Foundation: Individual Research Grant: Perseverance Creek Heritage Society (book of poems exploring labour history on Vancouver Island); published as What I Want to Tell Goes Like This, 2013

Canada Council for The Arts: Individual Project Grant for Writers: Perseverance Creek Heritage Society; What I Want to Tell Goes Like This, 2012-2013

British Columbia Arts Council: Individual Project Grant for Writers: Perseverance Creek Heritage Society; What I Want to Tell Goes Like This, 2012-2013

Canada Council for The Arts: Individual Project Grant for Writers: Human Nature (books of poems exploring the lynching of a Sto:lo boy in 1884); published as The Doctor Pedalled Her Bicycle over the River Arno, 2009-2010

British Columbia Arts Council: Individual Project Grant for Writers: Human Nature; published as The Doctor Pedalled Her Bicycle over the River Arno,2009-2010

Canada Council for The Arts: Individual Project Grant for Writers: Miraculous Hours (first book of poems), 2005-2008

Awards & Distinctions

I Am Accessible (Teaching Award) – Disability Resource Centre, UBCO. Awarded to an instructor identified by a student with a disability for efforts to create an accessible learning environment, 2017 and 201,

Okanagan Arts Award for Literature, for “Desecrations”, 2017

Shortlist, Re-Lit Award for Short Stories, “What I Want to Tell Goes Like This”, 2016

Winner, Charles Lillard Founders Award for Creative Nonfiction from The Malahat Review, for “From The Lives of North American Horses”, 2016

Longlist Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, Munster Literature, for What I Want to Tell Goes Like This, 2015

Shortlist, b. p. Nichol Chapbook Award from Meet the Press, for “I Don’t Want to Die Like Frank O’Hara”, 2015

Winner, Joseph S. Stauffer Prize for Literature from The Canada Council for the Arts, 2014

Winner, Jack Hodgins Founders Award for Fiction from The Malahat Review, for “All That Was a Long Time Ago”, 2014

Winner Best Screenwriting, Short Circuits, Victoria Video Festival, for “Wolf Lake”, 2013

Winner, Last Poems Contestfrom sub-Terrain, 2002

Professional Services/Affiliations/Committees

Writers Union of Canada Member
Inspired Word Café Board of Directors

Graduate Supervisions

Cristalle Smith, MFA Creative Writing, 2017 to present
Victoria Alvarez, MFA Creative Writing, 2017 to present