VMI Celebration Reading
We welcome you to the year-end celebration reading of the 2022 cohort including our two VMI Fellows and VMI Pro author! Join us for a Zoom event on Sat June 18, 4pm PST-5:15pm PST by RSVPing for a link to info AT vancouvermanuscriptintensive.com
This is a chance to hear the works-in-progress of our fantastic Six-Month Intensive cohort as introduced by their mentors:
VMI Fellow Brandon Wint is a poet, spoken word artist and multi-disciplinary collaborator based in western Canada. He is presently the artistic director of Tree Reading Series. Brandon is the author of one collection of poetry, Divine Animal (Write Bloody North 2020), and several albums, including the recently-released Freedom Journal: Antidotes to Violence.
Gareth Sirotnik is currently completing his first novel after a long career as a freelance writer and editor. Previous books include a biography of a prominent BC businessman and philanthropist and an art book. He founded and ran for twelve years an international journal on injury and healing, and consulted on communications to universities, government agencies, and private industry. A long-time practitioner of Zen, he currently serves as a volunteer Buddhist chaplain at UBC.
Janette Platana’s 2015 fiction collection, A Token of My Affliction, was a Finalist for the Ontario Trillium Award. Poems from her upcoming memoir, French Knot, appeared in 2022 in Arc and PRISM. A new collection of poetry, The Truth Fairy, is imminent. Janette recently completed the Writer’s Retreat at The Banff Centre for Creativity with Susan Holbrook and Madhur Anand. Janette is delighted to be part of VMI and to be mentored by Susan Olding.
Japhy Ryder began writing as a freelance journalist in London and the Middle East, with stories published in newspapers including the London Evening Standard and The Gulf Today. His short-form fiction can be found in publications including Commuter Lit, Emerge 19 and Blake Jones Review. His collection of short stories, The German Financier’s Daughter, was published this year by Freedom Press. He is currently seeking representation for his first novel, Hotel Amnesia.
VMI Pro writer Jennifer Bowering Delisle’s latest book is the poetry collection Deriving. She is also the author of two books of lyric nonfiction: The Bosun Chair and Micrographia (forthcoming in 2023). She frequently teaches creative writing and is a board member of NeWest Press. She is a settler in Amiskwaciwâskahikan/Edmonton in Treaty 6.
Joanne E. Betzler is grateful to Mark Winston and VMI for illuminating her path to memoir completion. She will redirect energies to dormant writing projects that never stop beckoning. A graduate of The Writers Studio, Joanne’s work has been published in Resonance: Essays on the Craft of Writing,Emerge, The Globe and Mail, and New West Writers Anthology. Connecting with writers through TWS Manuscript Consult program, online workshops, and creative sprints, makes her happy.
Kairn Savage lives and plays in Vancouver, BC with her husband, Greg, and cat, Raoul. Nicknamed “Librarian Girl” as a child, she has since transitioned from just reading to writing. She is finishing her second novel, “The Service,” which is about spies and matchmaking. Her work often explores family dynamics, ethical dilemmas, and human nature. Visit her blog: https://savagereadsca.wordpress.com/.
Leah Eichler launched her writing career as a journalist working for the Jerusalem Report. Her first break came when she found a Palestinian spy willing to go public with his story. Her success in the Middle East led to a thirteen-year career at Reuters. Leah spent seven years as a weekly, business columnist for the Globe and Mail. She is represented by Marilyn Biderman at Transatlantic and recently won the Gival Press Short Story Award.
Lindsay Carter is a forensic scientist and graduate of SFU’s Southbank Writer’s Program. She is writing a memoir detailing coastal childhood experiences and her time at the RCMP forensic laboratory.
Nancy Recant has been on a lifetime journey of creative expression, healing and self-discovery. This has taken many forms from making documentaries for National Geographic to practicing an ancient Japanese healing art called Jin Shin Jyutsu. From community building and running sacred circles to teaching self-help workshops, she is now focused on writing creative non-fiction and has joined VMI to bring to life the first draft of her memoir Dancing in the DNA.
Noreen Newton is an airline captain with more than forty years experience as a professional pilot, and an organizational communications consultant. She received her MA in Professional Communications from Royal Roads University, where she won two academic awards for her thesis on the culture and women’s experience in the aviation industry. Noreen is a mother of two. She lives in Victoria BC, on the traditional territories of the W̱SÁNEĆ and Lkwungen peoples.
VMI Fellow Salawu Olajide is the author of Preface for Leaving Homeland, published under African Poetry Book Fund. His poems have appeared in and are forthcoming in different literary journals such as, The Journal, Oxford Review of Books, Obsidian, Rattle, The Offing, Grain, Literary Review of Canada, Lolwe, and so on. He is the managing editor of Olongo Africa. He enjoys working on the themes of migration, nationhood, social injustice, home, culture, and so on.
Sarah Scott lives in Hamilton with her partner and two children. As a Featured Curator at HitRECord, an online production company, she has had the pleasure of working collaboratively with artists and writers from all around the world. Her work has been published in print and online. Sarah is currently working on review and revisions of her first Novel, an excerpt of which was published in Hamilton Arts and Letters RAVE.
Sasha Torchinsky is a queer, non-binary, anti-zionist Jewish poet born and raised on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueum), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. Their poems have appeared in the publications Filling Station, Storm Cellar and Contemporary Verse 2 among others. They were long listed for the 2020 PRISM International Creative Non-Fiction Prize and Runner-Up for the 2021 Red Hen Press Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award.
Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho writes short stories, personal essays, and memoir. Thrilled to be a part of the VMI 2022 cohort, she is in the throes of revising her book-length manuscript about growing up in a Taiwanese-Canadian “astronaut” family. Wiley’s short stories have appeared in anthologies and magazines. Based in North Vancouver, she is a freelance technical writer and blogger.
We look forward to seeing you and celebrating the accomplishments of this fine group!