The Factory (West) Reading Series, April 15, 2008

a reading series lovingly hosted by rob mclennan during his tenure as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta (2007-8); the name "Factory (West)" refers to the fact that I have been running readings for years in Ottawa since 1995 that now exist under the title The Factory Reading Series, held regularly(ish) at the Ottawa Art Gallery;

a variety of poetry and fiction (etcetera) presented on the third Tuesday of every month from January to May, 2008 in (upstairs) at Cafe Select, upstairs, 8404-109th Street
doors 7pm; readings 7:30pm

The fourth reading will be happening on Tuesday, April 15

with readings by:

Kim Minkus (Vancouver)
Catherine Owen (Edmonton)
Christine Wiesenthal (Edmonton)
+ Myrna Kostash (Edmonton)

Kim Minkus is a Vancouver poet, Librarian and Ph.D. Candidate in the English Department at Simon Fraser University. In April 2006 she was awarded a fellowship at King's College London to research contemporary poetics. Part of her research lead to work that is now appears in 9 freight, her first book of poetry published by LINEbooks in 2007. She has published poems in Bywords, West Coast Line and ottawater. Her most recent review appears in Jacket 28.

Catherine Owen [see her 12 or 20 questions here] has been publishing and performing poetry since 1993. Her work has appeared in periodicals such as The Dalhousie Review and Poetry Salzburg. Titles include: Somatic – The Life and Work of Egon Schiele (Exile Editions 1998), nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award, The Wrecks of Eden (Wolsak and Wynn, 02), shortlisted for the BC Book Prize, and her new collections, Shall: ghazals (Wolsak and Wynn, 06) and Cusp/detritus (Anvil Press, 06), both longlisted for the Relit Prize, while the latter made the shortlist for the George Ryga award for socially conscious literature. A selection from Seeing Lessons, on the pioneer photographer, Mattie Gunterman was recently nominated for the CBC Literary Awards. Her poems have been translated into Italian (Caneide with Joe Rosenblatt, 05) and Korean. She has a Masters degree in English (Simon Fraser University, 01), collaborates with painters/dancers, practices photography, and plays bass/sings in the blackmetal band, INHUMAN.

Christine Wiesenthal [see her 12 or 20 questions here] is a poet, biographer, and literary critic whose most recent books include Instruments of Surrender (BuschekBooks, 2001) and The Half-Lives of Pat Lowther (UTP, 2005). Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary magazines including Fiddlehead, Geist and In Fine Form: Canadian Form Poetry (eds. Kate Braid and Sandy Shreve), and she has also contributed interviews to collections such as Tim Bowling's Where the Words Come From: Canadian Poets in Conversation (with P.K. Page). Instruments of Surrender was shortlisted for the Stephan G. Stephannson and Gerald Lampert Poetry Awards in 2001 and 2002; The Half-Lives of Pat Lowther was awarded the Canadian Historical Association's Clio Prize for British Columbia in 2005, and shortlisted for the 2006 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction.

Born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Myrna Kostash is a fulltime writer, author of All of Baba’s Children (1978) [see my piece on such here]; Long Way From Home: The Story of the Sixties Generation in Canada (1980); No Kidding: Inside the World of Teenage Girls (1987); Bloodlines: A Journey Into Eastern Europe (1993); The Doomed Bridegroom: A Memoir (1997); The Next Canada: Looking for the Future Nation (2000); Reading the River: A Traveller’s Companion to the North Saskatchewan River (2005). Memoirs of Byzantium is a work-in-progress. Besides writing for diverse magazines, from Chatelaine to Saturday Night to Border Crossings, to Canadian Geographic, Kostash has written radio drama and documentary, television documentary, and theatre cabaret. Her creative non-fiction has appeared in Brick, Border Crossings, Descant, The Camrose Review, Capilano Review, Prairie Fire, Geist, dandeLion, CV II, Literatura na swiecie (Warsaw), Stozher (Skopje), and Mostovi (Belgrade). Her essays and articles have appeared in anthologies such as Going Some Place: Creative Non-fiction Across Canada, Why Are You Telling Me This? Eleven Acts of Intimate Journalism, Fresh Tracks: Writing the Western Landscape, The Thinking Heart: Best Canadian Essays, Two Lands, Two Visions, Threshold: An Anthology of Contemporary Writing From Alberta, Wrestling with the Angel: Women Reclaiming Their Lives, The Vintage Book of Canadian Memoirs, and AWOL: Tales for Travel-Inspired Minds.

For further information, email rob mclennan at az421(at)freenet(dot)carleton(dot)ca

further readings:
May 20; readings by Laura Farina (Banff), Priscila Uppal and Christopher Doda (Toronto) + tba

previous readings: