Dear Writers,
We have some great news: Evelyn Lau, acclaimed author of twelve books, has joined Vancouver Manuscript Intensive as our new poetry and creative non-fiction mentor. We’re very excited to offer you the opportunity to work with this award-winning author.
Dear Readers and Writers,
Are your working on a memoir? Does your intuition tell you that your life experiences have narrative–and perhaps even poetic–potential?
If you have three Saturdays to spare this fall, consider signing up for Betsy’s upcoming course, Memoir of Inquiry, at SFU Harbour Centre, Continuing Studies.
Thanks to everyone who came out to VMI’s 2016 alumni reading last Sunday afternoon at Britannia Library in East Vancouver.
This diverse group of poets, fiction and non-fiction writers regaled the audience with writing about a cariboo queen, a traveller on the Camino de Santiago, a reluctant American, environmentalism, and much more.
Hello to all those planning to attend the reading by Vancouver Manuscript Intensive grads this Sunday, June 5th: there has been a location change. The new details of the reading are as follows:
*NEW location*: Lower Level of the Britannia Library, 1661 Napier Street.
Join us for our Vancouver Manuscript Intensive 2016 Reading on June 5th at 3PM and hear eight diverse and dynamic nonfiction and fiction writers read from their manuscripts.
Penny Allport
Rachel Grav
Jodi Lundgren
Marie Maccagno
Margaret Macpherson
Anuradha Rao
Elana Scraba
DG Thiel
Every year, VMI audiences have commented that this is one of the most enjoyable readings they’ve attended so do mark it on your calendar.
I have miles of writing in my journals and notebooks and over the years, I return again and again to themes and issues––is that catharsis, compost or content?
I guess my real question is how to break out of habitual approaches, find new energy in this content, and discern what belongs in poetic voice and form?
I am hoping to contact publishers with a query letter. I have 22 short stories; 11 have been published in literary journals. Are 22 tales too many? Should I cut some or wait and let the editor do so?
A question I wrangle with often is how to deal with the heaviness of my manuscript’s beginning. To make sense of the story, the ‘heavy stuff’ needs to be shared up front. It’s the catalyst for action.
WHEN: April 2nd from 7pm until Midnight
WHERE: Lost + Found Cafe, 33 West Hastings St. Vancouver, BC
RSVP at https://daggereditions.eventbrite.ca/
You’re invited to the book launch of both Oscar of Between: A Memoir of Identity & Ideas by Betsy Warland and Flight Instructions for the Commitment Impaired by Nicola Harwood, as we celebrate the launch of Caitlin Press’ new imprint, Dagger Editions.
The workshop is currently full but we are accepting wait list requests. You will be notified if a space becomes available or if a new workshop is scheduled in the near future.
Five Tuesdays, 7–9 PM, April 5th— May 3rd
West End, Vancouver
Register: Contact us at betsywarland.com
Tuition: $290 + GST
Given that writing memoir is an arduous, often isolating experience, I am offering five evenings that will be part workshop, part instruction, part conversation, part Q & A.
I have a current manuscript that I keep abandoning because the subject is so deeply personal and traumatic. In the process of writing this story these experiences are intensely relived, with the result that I become overwhelmed and too emotionally vulnerable to stay the course.
