The Vertigo Series Season Finale
Presented by Brown Communications Group
Mon. June 11th, 2012, 7:30pm
Hosted by:
Crave Kitchen + Wine Bar
1925 Victoria Ave
Readers:
Shelley A. Leedahl
Adam Pottle
Winter Fedyk
Murray Logan
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Open Mic for Writers
Hosted by Vertigo Series and the Cathedral Village Arts Fest
Mon. May 21, 2012
Literary Open Mic with Vertigo Series and CVAF Join the rain of words – bring your writing – share your work! The Vertigo Series and the CVAF Literary Committee team up for an open mic session at the Fainting Goat. More info in CVAF Guide.
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The Vertigo Series
Presented by Brown Communications Group
Mon. May 14th, 2012, 7:30pm
Hosted by:
Crave Kitchen + Wine Bar
1925 Victoria Ave
Jamella Hagen
Jamella Hagen’s first collection of poetry, Kerosene, was published by Nightwood Editions in fall 2011. Her poems have appeared in journals including Arc, Event and The Malahat Review as well as in the anthologies Unfurled, Ice Floe and The Best Canadian Poetry in English, 2010. Her work has won the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize and been shortlisted for a CBC Literary Award. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from UBC and is a former executive editor of PRISM international. She currently lives in Whitehorse, Yukon, and is an instructor at Yukon College.
Claire Tacon
Claire Tacon is the winner of the 2010 Metcalf-Rooke award for her first novel, In the Field. Her fiction has been short-listed for the Bronwen Wallace Award and the CBC Literary Awards and has appeared in journals such as The New Quarterly and sub-TERRAIN. Several of her works are anthologised in the current editions of Coming Attractions and Best Canadian Short Stories. She is a past fiction editor of PRISM international and is a lecturer at St. Jerome’s University.
Jen Kunlire
Jen Kunlire is a spoken word artist, singer and teller of stories. She has been known for her innovative lens in which she presents her work- ever refreshing, Jen is dynamic in everything she does. For the past five years, Jen Kunlire has been involved in the Slam & Spoken Word Community across CanadaPast festivals include, 2-time member of the Calgary Slam Team competing in the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word & SLAM, Calgary/08 & Victoria /09, a three time feature in the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival, High Performance Rodeo’s 10 Minute Play Festival (ETC), OFF-Fil festival in Montreal and was also the winner of the 2009 CBC Poetry Face-OFF in Calgary.
She has served on the board of directors for Writer’s Guild of Alberta as the Youth Representative and the Calgary Rep for Spoken Word Canada (SpoCan). She attended the Spoken Word Residency at the Banff Centre, is a current member of the Ink Spot Collective, who organizes monthly poetry slams in Calgary and is also the newly appointed Director of Communications for Ellipsis Tree Collective Theatre Company.
A vibrant presence in the community, Jen is currently facilitating Spoken Word workshops with Unity Charity’s afterschool programs in Calgary.
When she’s not touring about the country or cooking up a great invention; Jen can be found sitting in the corner at the coffee shop – writing poems.
Keith Foster
Keith Foster retired in 2008 after nearly 27 years as a transcriber and editor with the Hansard office of the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly Service. Keith has always had a keen interest in writing and Saskatchewan history, and earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Regina in 1978. He has won several awards for his non-fiction. He is Vice-president of the Wascana Writers Group and a former President of the Saskatchewan Poetry Society. He is also a member of the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild. In the spring of 2011, Regina Little Theatre produced the world premiere of Keith’s one-act comedy, “Domestic Bliss,” which he also directed. Keith has had material published in Folklore, Western People, Freelance, Saskatchewan History, Early Canadian Life, Skyview, Expressions, Prairie Messenger, The Nova, Regina Women’s Guide, and Gray Matters. Keith also has had stories, articles, and poems published in more than 30 anthologies, including Short Grass, From Roots to Wings, Prairie TaleWinds, The Saskatchewan Poetry Book, Wide Horizons, Prairie Bounty, Interlude, Between the Leaves, When the Wind Speaks, and Ensemble in Black Ink.
Friendly Folk
Friendly Folk is a brand new group featuring strings in a new setting, accompanied by brass and woodwinds no less. A diverse and culturally expansive repertoire is our hallmark. This “little” big band is home to a mixture of influences within the music and the people. We are sure you will enjoy the new blend!
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The Vertigo Series
Presented by Brown Communications Group
Mon. April 2, 2012, 7:30pm
Hosted by:
Crave Kitchen + Wine Bar
1925 Victoria Ave
Annette Bower
Annette Bower explores women in families, women in communities and women at the beginning and end of love and their quest for love. Her stories are published in magazines and anthologies in Canada, United States and in the UK. She pursues the writing craft in workshops through the SWG conferences, Writing with Style, Banff Centre for the Arts, Sage Hill Writing Experience, Surrey International Writers Conference, Romance Writers of America Conferences. Her first contemporary romance novel, Moving On: A Prairie Romance is published electronically by XoXo Publishers™. She is now on a steep learning curve to promote a virtual book.
Kelsey Mills
Kelsey Mills is an aspiring writer living in Regina. While she is fairly young, she already has 3 publications under her belt. Kelsey is currently taking psychology at the University of Regina. Kelsey loves animals and reading, and writes poetry and science fiction. If you want to see some of Kelsey’s work, please visit: www.castleshallott.weebly.com.
Norm Sacuta
Norm Sacuta had his first poetry collection, Garments of the Known, published by Nightwood Editions in 2001. His work has appeared in various magazines including Grain, Matrix, and New Quarterly. In 2005 his feature “The Gleaners” in Alberta Views Magazine won a Western Magazine Award for best article. He is currently completing his first novel ONE LAST THING ABOUT THE TITANIC, sits on the Board of CJTR radio, and works in Communications for the Petroleum Technology Research Centre.
Colby Nargang
Colby is a Regina, Saskatchewan based entertainer whose music pays tribute to Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. He has been singing since he was a child, however it was his performance of Roy Orbison’s “Running Scared” at Telemiracle 27 in 2003 that opened doors to many opportunities.
Colby is a well-known representative for people with disabilities as he was born with a rare disorder, Williams Syndrome. Unique to some individuals with this syndrome is an exceptional aptitude for music and the ability to mimic, which he was fortunate to be gifted with (for more information on Williams Syndrome please visit http://caws-can.org).
Colby decided on the title of this album, “If I Can Dream” because it has always been his dream to be an entertainer and songwriter. Though he has had some rough times in his life with his disability and bullying, he still has followed his dreams. Colby feels that if he can overcome the obstacles in his life to achieve his dreams, there is nothing that can stop anyone from achieving theirs.
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Vertigo Celebrates Irving Layton’s 100th Birthday!
Presented by Brown Communications Group
Mon. Mar. 12th, 2012, 7:30pm
Hosted by:
Crave Kitchen + Wine Bar
1925 Victoria Ave
Christian Drake
Three time National Poetry Slam Finalist Christian Drake is a contradiction: a professional naturalist and science teacher with a rockabilly flair and a penchant for both subtle writing and bombastic performance. Originally from New England, Christian has won an ardent fanship from coast to coast for his raunchy sense of humor, his bold confrontation of taboos, his finely-crafted writing and his unique poetic perspective on everything from the natural world to war, sex, cooking, music and American politics.
Gillian harding-russell
Gillian harding-russell was raised in St Jean Que., attended McGill (B.A. and M. A.) and completed her Ph.D at the University of Saskatchewan (her dissertation was on post-modern Canadian poetry, focussing on MacEwen’s and Ondaatje’s poetry). Between 1986 and 2005, she was poetry editor for Event. At present, she reviews books for Prairie Fire Review of Books, freelances and edits manuscripts.
I forgot to tell you (Thistledown, 2007) was her third full-length poetry collection. Maya: Poems for the Summer Solstice and “Stories of Snow” are chapbook or holm collections recently come out. Poems are forthcoming in two anthologies this spring: Poets on Poets (Guernica Press) and The Not Forgotten North (Hidden Brook Press).
Allison Kydd
Though she began her life as a southeast Saskatchewan farm girl, Allison Kydd had spent her adult life in cities in other parts of Canada until she returned to Saskatchewan and country living four years ago. From her office in Indian Head, Allison is currently working on a historical novel set in Cannington Manor and awaiting the release of a novella this fall, part of Thistledown’s New Leaf series. Allison also works as an English instructor/tutor for Athabasca University, is on the board of the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild and has an extensive publications list of fiction, personal essays, journalism and magazine articles.
Shayna Stock
Shayna Stock is a writer, journalist and emerging performance poet based in Regina. Inspired by the interconnectedness of life on this planet, the content of her work ranges from heartache to social justice.
InfoRed and Thomas Roussin
InfoRed and Thomas Roussin are members of The Local Onlyz, a 4-piece hip-hop group from Regina combining members of the Nancy Ray-Guns with InfoRed (Brad Bellegarde) and hip-hop producer Merky Waters (Chris Merk). The group forges a fresh path for hip-hop with the song writing arrangements and powerhouse vocal hooks of Thomas Roussin (the Nancy Ray-Guns), the hip-hop savvy of Merky Waters, and the rich, deep voice and thought-provoking lyrical passages of InfoRed to create tracks ripe for rippin! The group is dedicated to using original instrumentation as much as possible – creating sounds with guitar, mandolin, bass, Rhodes piano and live drums with the recent addition of Nathaniel Bowen (the Nancy Ray-Guns). Their upcoming album, Kings Among Klowns will surely leave its mark on the Canadian music scene with its array of addicting, triumphant anthems.
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Vertigo Reading Series
Presented by Brown Communications Group
Mon. Feb. 13th, 2012, 7:30pm
Hosted by: Crave Kitchen + Wine Bar
1925 Victoria Ave
Suggested Donation – $5
Readers:
Ken Fox
Fionncara MacEoin
Caitlin Ward
Bernadette Wagner
Music:
Ryan Anderson
Vertigo Reading Series
Presented by Brown Communications Group
Mon. Jan. 23rd, 2012, 7:30pm
Hosted by:
Crave Kitchen + Wine Bar
1925 Victoria Ave
Free admission
Kathleen Wall
Kathleen Wall teaches at the University of Regina, where her specialties are Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, feminist theory, creative writing, modernism and postmodernism, and aesthetics. She is at work on her second book of literary criticism, Virginia Woolf’s Aesthetics of Engagement. She recently published ““Ethics, knowledge, and the need for beauty: Zadie Smith’s On Beauty and Ian McEwan’s Saturday” in the University of Toronto Quarterly. She has also published two books of poetry, Without Benefit of Words (Turnstone, 1991) and Time’s Body (Hagios, 2005). Her novel, Blue Duets, was published by Brindle & Glass in 2010 and was nominated in the Fiction category for a Saskatchewan Book Award.
She believes passionately in the conversations that connect, transform, and query. Since art is a culture’s way of thinking about and reflecting on ourselves and our world, it is one of the best inspirations to conversation we have.
Rolli
Rolli writes – and draws a little – for adults (Hayden’s Ferry Review, New York Tyrant, Rattle) and children (Ladybug, Spider, Highlights). He’s the author of God’s Autobio (short stories) and Plum Stuff (poems/drawings). Visit his blog (www.rolliwrites.wordpress.com), and follow his epic tweets @rolliwrites.
Nicole Pivovar
Nicole Pivovar, an unpublished writer, is sharing her passion for photography and poetry publically for the first time. Her education and career have allowed her a terrific journey as a communications professional, with a keen knack for sales. She deeply believes living should be the least of our hards, even though that’s not always the case. She credits her whole life to her Faith in God and seeks to know others the same way God knows her. Her curiosity for extraordinary people and experiences has inspired the collection she will share. When asked why she chose to write and photograph pieces of her life this past year; she explains simply “It makes my heart happy!” She is most often found outside with her sneakers on; running is her other favoured pass time. Humbled by this opportunity to share her hobby, she wishes to say Thank You to the Vertigo organizers for all they do to make Regina better.
Jack Walton
Singer, songwriter, guitarist and author Jack Walton offers an eclectic sampling of melody and words sautéed in melancholic sauces of jazz, blues, swing and roots. His songs, poetry and short stories are drawn from a well travelled Canadian landscape and the real and imaginary people he has met along the way. A New Brunswicker by birth, he has comfortably called himself a ‘prairie maritimer’ for half a life time.
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Vertigo Reading Series
Presented by Brown Communications Group
Tuesday, Nov. 8th, 2011, 7:30 pm
Crave Kitchen + Wine Bar
1925 Victoria Ave
Britt Holmström
Britt Holmström was born in Malmö, Sweden, and came to Canada in 1970. She completed a visual arts degree at Sheridan College in Ontario, and has a B. Sc and M Sc in Microbiology from University of Regina. She published her first novel in Sweden in her teens and has since published three acclaimed novels in Canada: The Man Next Door (1998) which won a Saskatchewan Book Award, The Wrong Madonna (2002), and Claudia (2008) both shortlisted for the Saskatchewan Book Awards. She lives in Regina.
Sue Sorensen
A Large Harmonium is Sue Sorensen’s first novel. As an Associate Professor of English literature, Sue’s research interests extend from 19th and 20th century British literature – her core area of specialization – to film adaptations of literature and the examination of popular song lyrics as poetry. She is the editor of West of Eden, a collection of essays on western Canadian literature. Sue was born in Imperial, Saskatchewan, and attended the Universities of Regina and of British Columbia. She lives in Winnipeg.
Ian Ferrier
Ian Ferrier is one of the core writer/performers in the North American performance literature scene. His work is well-known across Canada, New York and Europe. Rooted in poetry, his live performances are a haunting blend of acoustic guitar, choir; whispered voice, and the trancelike music of a band called Pharmakon. His signature is the quiet, compelling voice at the centre of every piece.
His first CD/book, Exploding Head Man, received national acclaim. Rooted in the spellbound winters of his childhood, it took a passionate look at love, sex and death against a background of the falling snow; representing the best of three years of collaborations with musicians from Montreal and New York. Canada’s National Post called it “an insistence on the music of words that acknowledges the unique possibilities of language.” Said the Montreal Gazette: “Even without instrumentation, the poetry of Exploding Head Man-heady, impassioned, sometimes hallucinogenic stuff that regularly makes nods to the Beat work he grew up on-has sonic power. Dreamy words soothe, lusty sentences steam, and with a delivery that’s often more gentle that the imagery it yields (even at its most volatile, Ferrier’s vocalizations, with their warm, cushiony and almost child-like diction, scream pseudo-innocence) his spoken word is a complex song in and of itself.”
What is this Place? features two collaborations with the trance/improv band PHARMAKON, two solo works, and nine collaborations between Ferrier and a star-studded list of top Quebec musicians. Recently his work featured on Australia’s Going Down Slow CD and literature anthology, in Canadian Theatre Review and in the Review of the Americas special issue on Canadian Literature. Stories of his can be found in Telling Stories and the anthology You and Your Bright Ideas (both Vehicule Press). Impure-Reinventing the Word is a book from Conundrum Press that documents the literary scene of which he is a part, and you can find his poems and music in the Short Fuse anthology from Rattapallax Press and the Poetry Nation anthology from Vehicule. He currently collaborates with sax player Bryan Highbloom, voice artist Kathy Kennedy, singer/ poet Valerie Khayat, and the musicians of Pharmakon.
Ian Ferrier also co-founded the poetry/music label Wired on Words-which won public radio’s Standard Broadcasting Award in its first year. Pieces by Mr. Ferrier can be heard on CBC-Canada’s national radio station, as well as on public radio stations in the USA and Canada. He resides in Montreal, where he hosts the city’s monthly Words & Music literature series, and remains on the board of the Quebec Writers’ Federation as their past president.
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Vertigo Reading Series
Presented by Brown Communications Group
Monday, Oct. 3rd, 2011, 7:30 pm
Crave Kitchen + Wine Bar
1925 Victoria Ave
Wes Funk
The success of his chapbook Humble Beginnings inspired Wes to keep plugging away at his sort-of-memoir Dead Rock Stars. Shortly after being released, his novel was a subject on numerous radio and TV shows. It was short-listed in the Readers’ Choice category of the Saskatchewan Book Awards and received an Honourable Mention in Writers’ Digest’s International Self- Published Book Competition. Currently in its third printing, the book has now sold over a thousand copies and has also had success in e-book and audio book form.
Wes’s second novel Baggage, a tale of a group of Saskatoon misfits, has also become a Saskatchewan Bestseller and a pick-of-the-month of several book clubs around the world.
Besides participating in author readings and signings in many parts of Canada, Wes has conducted numerous independent publishing workshops in and around the prairies. A love of Saskatchewan, a strong belief in diversity, and a passion for rock ‘n’ roll, are all strong themes in Wes’ books. Currently, he is the host of the Saskatoon Shaw weekly TV Program, Lit’ Hap- pens. Cherry Blossoms, his most powerful novel yet, is set for release in 2012.
Jacqueline Moore
Jacqueline Moore is a freelance writer who grew up in Regina, went on to live in Vancouver and Montreal, and these days calls Saskatoon home. The Saskatchewan Secret: Folk Healers, Diviners, and Mystics of the Prairies is Jacqueline’s first book. In it, she takes us out into the prairies, the villages, the forests and the suburbs to introduce us to thirteen of the province’s folk medicine practitioners. These are rare and gifted individuals; each of them utilizing their unique form of organic chemistry or subtle energies, each of them quietly making a remarkable difference in the lives of others. For the author, the quest becomes a personal one which candidly explores life, death, and most everything in between. This book is an homage to these healers, and an offering to share in the wisdom they have gathered about the natural world and our place in it.
Chris Triffo
Chris Triffo has developed original television programs for Discovery Channel, History Television, National Geographic, HBO, A&E and many more broadcasters around the world. His shows are enjoyed in over 160 countries. Chris’s work has received dozens of awards including an Emmy® Award two Gemini’s awards and a New York Film Festival Award.
Chris founded Partners in Motion in 1993. Partners quickly became one of the top non-fiction production companies in Western Canada. Chris also manages Gyro Productions, which produces TV commercials with offices in Saskatoon, Regina and Vancouver.
He has a wife of 24 years, four wonderful children and a cat Bella.
C.R. Avery
Outlaw Hip-Hop Harmonica Player
Beatbox Poet
Punk Piano Player
String Quartet Raconteur
Rock & Roll Matador
Playwright
Whether performing to thousands at the Royal Albert Hall or the lucky few who made it inside the packed past capacity speakeasy, C.R. Avery is a unique, raw and dynamic performer. His genius lies in many genres – blues, hip-hop, spoken word and rock & roll. He is a one-man band, but one for this generation; with the rare ability to sing poetic verse while beatboxing simultaneously while pounding the piano and adding harmonica like a plot twist. A multi-talented front man for his Legal Tender String Quartet; a crazed lead singer/harp player for his rock & roll band The Special Interest Group; a lyrical dynamo & the musical backbone of the spoken word trio Tons of Fun University.
From musical beginnings in his late teens, C.R. Avery has recorded over fifteen albums as well as writing & directing six hip-hop operas, which were mounted and performed from New York’s Bowery to L.A.’s South Central. He has toured throughout Canada (including almost every major folk festival) the USA and Europe (headlining or opening for Billy Bragg, Buck 65, and Sage Francis) and garnered the attention of music peers the likes of Tom Waits (“…he’s blowin’ my mind”); blues harp trail blazer Charlie Musselwhite (“…no one plays harmonica like him… no one…”); and folk legend Utah Phillips (“…raw talent”).
His incredible live performances have been described as Bob Dylan in the body of Iggy Pop; colliding with Little Walter, the Beastie Boys and Allen Ginsberg. Every show is all or nothing and his fearless approach to all genres of music both on stage and in the studio proves the longevity of this talented, astonishing creator has so much more to come.
For more information – http://www.cravery.com
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Vertigo Reading Series
Presented by Brown Communications Group
Monday, Sept. 12th, 2011, 7:30 pm
Crave Kitchen + Wine Bar
1925 Victoria Ave
Anne Campbell (Sept. 2011)
Anne Campbell was born in northern Saskatchewan in a Red Cross Outpost Hospital, the first in the British Empire. She is an award winning writer of five collections of poetry – she was one of the first to receive the City of Regina Writing Award. Her poetry and prose are included in magazines, journals and anthologies published internationally and her most recent poetry collection, Soul to Touch, was short listed for a Saskatchewan Book Award in 2009. Her music, with composer Tom Schudel, has been performed world wide.
As a Research Fellow a the Uof R’s Canadian Plains Research Centre, Anne co-edited, with Jeannie Mah and Lorne Beug, the award winning Regina’s Secret Spaces: love and lore of local geography. And with Jeannie Mah and Susan Birley, she is presently working on a near completed history of the Regina Public Library. After that she’ll return to her “life work,” a biography of beloved Regina Five visual artist, Arthur McKay. She loves seeing movies, even after she learned to call them films, and she always writes poetry.
Jim Aho (Sept. 2011)
Jim Aho is Executive Vice-President and a partner with Brown Communications Group in Regina. Born and raised in rural Manitoba, Jim has been drawn to writing since he could hold a pencil. Trained at one of the great advertising schools in western Canada, Jim how has over 30 years of experience as a professional writer, marketer and senior communicator. He is recognized as one of the most successful creative directors in the west. With a broad base of experience in television, radio, print and internet marketing, Jim has amassed an impressive collection of industry awards for his clients.
InfoRed (Sept. 2011)
Brad Bellegarde, aka InfoRed, started writing rhymes in 1992 and began doing live performances around 1998. He has been recording music since 2000 and has worked with artists from across Canada and the United States, collaborating on and off stage. In 2009 InfoRed was a guest artist in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics as part of the Cultural Olympiad which featured hundreds of artists from across Canada.
Andre Prefontaine (Sept. 2011)
Andre Prefontaine is a Spoken Word artist from Calgary, Alberta. He was on the 2011 Calgary SLAM team and competed on a national level. He represented Calgary at the Individual slam last April. He attended the Banff Centre two week Spoken Word Workshop in April 2011. Andre was invited to Montreal in June to perform at the Montreal Fringe Festival.
Yanina Bilyk
(Sept. 2011 – Musician)
Yanina is a musician/singer/songwriter from Netishyn, Ukraine, who moved to Regina in 2010. Yanina’s music consists of Ukrainian traditional songs as well as nu-jazz, pop, and lounge styles. She plays piano, guitar, and cello. Yanina has generously performed at several regional cultural events. Most recently, a group project involving Tara Dawn Solheim, Dennis Ficor and Yanina Bilyk made it to the top 6 finalists in the 2011 Regina Folk Festival’s “SaskSampler” competition!
Yanina’s talent is not only known locally. Prior to coming to Canada, Yanina wrote and recorded the song “Endless” with the German lounge/nu-jazz band “Venus International”. The song has been released on the cd “SYLT: Finest Lounge Music, No.8” and has been recently picked up on CBC Radio 2. She is currently recording a CD with the same band. Her music can be enjoyed at www.myspace.com/yaninabilyk.
Photo Credit: Amber Slonski
Jarrett Rusnak is President and CEO of Dacian Productions Inc. He concentrates his efforts on writing, producing and directing, though you will also find him behind a camera capturing images, or in an edit suite pushing buttons. When not developing TV projects, Jarrett indulges his love of theatre at the University of Regina, taking the odd directing or performance class to improve his writing and directing chops.
As a playwright at war with himself, Robert has only 95 minutes to figure out the ‘non- decision’ to end his marriage. To this end he manifests his younger self on stage and proceeds to wage a high stakes dissection of every key moment of his life. Every scene is BOTH a win and a loss as the women of his past and present come back to haunt him. In the final scene he finds himself hovering a pen over his divorce papers. Sign or not sign?
Photo Credit: Ellen Lohans Gross
Alison Lohans is an award-winning writer who lives and works in Regina. Writing since childhood, she has published twenty books for children and young adults with Canadian and international publishers. The past couple of years have been incredibly busy. Three books have been published in New Zealand by Pearson Education – of which This Land We Call Home won the 2008 Saskatchewan Book Award for Young Adult Literature. Her first speculative fiction novel, Collapse of the Veil, was released by Bundoran Press in October 2010. Two popular out-of-print titles, Don’t Think Twice and Germy Johnson’s Secret Plan, were re-released in 2008 and 2009; spring 2010 brought the publication of Germy Johnson’s Piano War and Doppelganger.Alison has given hundreds of readings and writing workshops across Canada. She has taught writing off and on over the years, and served as Writer-in-Residence at Regina Public Library in 2002-2003. Three more books will be out in 2011: Crossings (Bundoran Press, sequel to Collapse of the Veil); Dog Alert (Pearson Education New Zealand); and Picturing Alyssa (Dundurn).
MELISSA RICHARDSON
Photo Credit: Ryan Wilker
Melissa was born in Alberta, spent her childhood in BC, and her adolescence in Georgia. She has been writing since she could hold a pen and has recently embarked on compiling an anthology called ‘Oh, Canada’, a collection of her poems showcasing the sights, sounds and people of the great white north. An abstract free-verse poet, Melissa focuses on using powerful and contrasting imagery to engage her readers and stir the imagination. Her poetry is published on Storm-Artists and deviantART and she recently recieved a ‘Daily Deviation’ for her poem dedicated to her grandparents.
http://onyxabrasion.deviantart.com
http://sweetened.storm-artists.net
http://apoetgardener.blogspot.com
ROLLI
Photo Credit: Kathleen Nameth
Cover Art: Rolli
Hailing from Southey, Saskatchewan, Rolli writes – and draws a little – for adults (Rattle, Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, subTerrain) and children (Ladybug, Spider, Highlights). He’s the author/illustrator of the tasty poetry/art book Plum Stuff (Montreal: 8th House Publishing), and the forthcoming collections God’s Autobio (short stories), and Mavor’s Bones (poems). Visit his blog (www.rolliwrites.wordpress.com), and follow his epic tweets @rolliwrites.
April 24, 2011
STEVEN ROSS SMITH
Photo Credit: James Tworow
Steven Ross Smith, writer and sound poet, has published eleven books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and has appeared on more than ten recordings in group and solo contexts. He has been creating and performing sound poetry for three decades in collaborative and solo contexts. His poetry book fluttertongue book 3: disarray, won the 2005 Saskatchewan Books Awards Book of the Year Award. The chapbook Pliny’s Knickers, a collaboration between Smith, poet Hilary Clark and artist Betsy Rosenwald, won the 2006 bpNichol Chapbook Award. His new work – fluttertongue 5: everything appears to shine with mossy splendour – will be published in 2011. Smith has performed his work and/or been published in England, Holland, Russia, Portugal, USA, and Canada. He is currently the Director of Literary Arts at The Banff Centre.
BETTY JANE HEGERAT
Betty Jane Hegerat is the author of two novels, and a collection of short stories. Delivery, the novel from which Betty Jane was delighted to read with Vertigo in fall 2009, was shortlisted for the George Bugnet Fiction Prize in the Alberta Book Awards.
Betty Jane is coming back to Vertigo with a new book, The Boy, which fuses memoir, fiction, journal writing and investigative journalism around the infamous slaying of an Alberta family in 1959.
RHONA MCADAM
Photo Credit: Alexis Yobbagy
Rhona McAdam is a poet and food writer who currently lives, writes and cooks in Victoria. Her fifth full-length poetry collection, Cartography, was published by Oolichan in 2006, and she launched Sunday Dinners, a JackPine chapbook, with Calgary artist Colleen Philippi last June. This spring another delectable chapbook of her food poems, The Earth’s Kitchen, is published by Leaf Press.
KEITH FOSTER
Keith Foster retired from the Saskatchewan Hansard office in 2008. He has a keen interest in Saskatchewan history, with a Master’s degree in history from the University of Regina, 1978. A member of the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild, Saskatchewan Poetry Society, and Wascana Writers Group, he has won several awards for non-fiction. Keith had material published in Folklore, Western People, Freelance, Early Canadian Life, The Saskatchewan Poetry Book, and six anthologies by Wascana Writers. He has lived in Regina since 1948.
May 23, 2011 Cathedral Village Arts Festival
Tara Dawn Solheim performing to open the event.
Please note that this is a literary open mic and Queen Victoria Costume contest!
Prizes for best costume, so donne a crown and a frilly dress and bring some original written work to perform!
Queen Victoria Images from assorted websites.
Very neat article. Cool.