WordStorm MONDAY, January 30th, 2012

Featured Performers

Jude Neale

Jude Neale was born three months premature in Northern British Columbia. She is a twin and shared the early white cold memories of childhood with her beloved brother. Jude has had a life-long struggle with bipolar illness, and in her second book,Only The Fallen Can See, she writes of despair or longing like a lover, a dangerous friend. She has taken the journals she kept during her long battle and whittled them down to their essence, bringing a rare and moving glimpse into the emotional ravages of mental illness.
Jude has had strong support from journal, anthology and internet publishers, including “The Antigonish Review”, “Leaf Press”, and “Ascent Aspirations”, and has released one volume of poetry, The Perfect Word Collapses. A trained Mezzo-Soprano, her passion is making music, so she likes to write the song of a poem, exploring rhythm and colour in verse. Her unique voice can be heard in the textured beat of each carefully crafted poem, provoking both thought and the deep insight of a survivor.

Judy Millar

Judy Millar is a writer of humorous and serious short stories, essays, poems and song lyrics. She has won numerous awards for her writing including the 2009 John Kenneth Galbraith Literary Award, and the 2009 and 2010 Nanaimo Short Fiction contests.
She is currently readying a collection of her short stories for publication. She also enjoys performing her work solo—and as part of the writing/performing duo WordChickz. She moved to Nanaimo from Kitchener, Ontario in 2007.

Cathy Ford

Cathy Ford was born in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, and grew up in northern British Columbia. She has a B.F.A. and an M.F.A. from the University of British Columbia (1978). She now lives on Mayne Island, and in Sidney, B.C., working as poet and fictioniste, publisher, editor, and teacher. She was President of the League of Canadian Poets in 1985/86, and one of the founding members of the League's Feminist Caucus in 1982. From 1984 to 1986 she was a member of a national task force of Women and Words, working to create a draft constitution for a national association of PanCanadian Women and Words. She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Literary Storefront from 1980 to 1982, and is also a member of the Federation of British Columbia Writers and PEN.

“Ford’s poetry is dense, luminous, and almost trance-inducing”
“The collection is filled with images of nature, literary allusions, hope for peace, and dazzling word play.”
“Ford has mastered both the long line and the short one. The pacing demands close attention, and it rewards the reader with riches.”
“ The language is precise, and as usual, Ford creates splendid images…”
“ Lifting brief passages to include in a review seems like sacrilege. These poems need to be read and savoured and pondered in their entirety. The lines wash over the reader like an incoming tide, full of possibility and promise…”

-Room of One's Own, Summer 2011

“Her commitment to feminist politics underwrites this book that, at over twenty years in the making, has the feel of a life’s work.”
“…employing the long lines that recall Adrienne Rich’s reclamation of Whitman’s line in books like An Atlas of the Difficul t World, often begins with a political context…”
“the art of breathing underwater refuses Adorno’s famous contention that there can be no poetry after Auschwitz and instead holds a vital inquiry into the place for beauty after suffering and tragedy.”

- The Malahat Review- Summer, 2011

SPECIAL MENTIONS FROM THE PAT LOWTHER AWARD SUBMISSIONS
From the jurors of the 2011 Pat Lowther Memorial Award. “A few books we just have to tell you about”.
The Art of Breathing Underwater, Cathy Ford: Ford confronts life with sheer elegance and weaves a majestic mantle of language.

Future Featured Readers/Performers

February 27, 2012

Karen Enns

Karen Enns is from southern Ontario, where she was born and raised in a Mennonite farm community. Her poetry has appeared in The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Grain Magazine, PRISM international and The Malahat Review. She lives in Victoria, B.C. That Other Beauty is her first poetry collection.

Eve Joseph

Eve Joseph grew up in North Vancouver. As a young woman she traveled widely before moving to Victoria where she now lives with her family. Her first book, The Startled Heart, was shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. The Secret Signature of Things is her second poetry collection.

Patrick Friesen

Patrick Friesen, formerly of Winnipeg, now lives on Vancouver Island, writing and teaching part-time at the University of Victoria. He writes poetry, essays, drama, scripts, songs, and text for dance and music. Friesen has collaborated with various musicians including Big Dave McLean, Cate Friesen and Marilyn Lerner, and with choreographer/dancers Margie Gillis and Stephanie Ballard. Friesen has recorded two CDs of text and improv music with Marilyn Lerner, and with Lerner, cellist Peggy Lee and percussionist Niko Friesen. His most recent poetry book is Jumping in the Asylum (Quattro Press, 2011).

March 26, 2012

Bill Levity

Missy Peters

Missie Peters is a spoken word artist from Victoria, B.C. She is the inagrual recipient of the M Award for Favourite Spoken Word Artist and a two-time Victoria Slam Champion. She is the director of Not Your Grandma's Poetry and the Victoria Spoken Word Festival. When not improvising with the spoken word duo SpeakEasy she is preparing for her new solo show The Secret Lives of Scientists.

Missie Peters Web Site

Cynthia Woodman Kerkham

Cynthia Woodman Kerkham was born in Toronto and raised in Hong Kong and Vancouver. She has a degree in Asian Studies and English literature from UBC and has worked as an au pair in France, a potter, a journalist and a teacher. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals including The Antigonish Review, Room, CV2, The New Quarterly, The Malahat Review, Passages North, Grain and Prairie Fire. In 2009 she won the Federation of BC Writers Literary Writes Competition, and in 2011 she won the Malahat Review's Open Season Award for poetry. Good Holding Ground, her debut collection of poems, was published in spring 2011 by Palimpsest Press. When not sailing the Westcoast, she lives with her family in Victoria in a constant state of renovation.

Monday April 16, 2012

Lorna Crozier - Featured Reader

Workshop April 17th, 2012 See Link for details.

Workshop Poster

Lorna Crozier was born in 1948 in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. As a child growing up in a prairie community where the local heroes were hockey players and curlers, she “never once thought of being a writer.” After university, Lorna went on to teach high school English and work as a guidance counsellor. During these years, Lorna published her first poem in Grain magazine, a publication that turned her life toward writing. Her first collection Inside in the Sky was published in 1976. Since then, she has authored 14 books of poetry, including The Garden Going on Without Us, Angels of Flesh, Angels of Silence, Inventing the Hawk, winner of the 1992 Governor-General’s Award, Everything Arrives at the Light, Apocrypha of Light, What the Living Won’t Let Go, and most recently Whetstone. Whether Lorna is writing about angels, aging, or Louis Armstrong’s trout sandwich, she continues to engage readers and writers across Canada and the world with her grace, wisdom and wit. She is, as Margaret Laurence wrote, “a poet to be grateful for.”

Since the beginning of her writing career, Lorna has been known for her inspired teaching and mentoring of other poets. In 1980 Lorna was the writer-in-residence at the Cypress Hills Community College in Swift Current; in 1983, at the Regina Public Library; and in 1989 at the University of Toronto. She has held short-term residencies at the Universities of Toronto and Lethbridge and at Douglas College. Presently she lives near Victoria, where she teaches and serves as Chair in the Writing Department at the University.

Beyond making poems, Lorna has also edited two non-fiction collections – Desire in Seven Voices and Addiction: Notes from the Belly of the Beast. Together with her husband and fellow poet Patrick Lane, she edited the 1994 landmark collection Breathing Fire: Canada’s New Poets; in 2004, they co-edited Breathing Fire 2, once again introducing over thirty new writers to the Canadian literary world.

Her poems continue to be widely anthologized, appearing in 15 Canadian Poets X 3, 20th Century Poetry and Poetics, Poetry International and most recently in Open Field: An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Poets, a collection designed for American readers.

Her reputation as a generous and inspiring artist extends from her passion for the craft of poetry to her teaching and through to her involvement in various social causes. In addition to leading poetry workshops across the globe, Lorna has given benefit readings for numerous organizations such as the SPCA, the BC Land Conservancy, the Victoria READ Society, and PEERS, a group committed to helping prostitutes get off the street. She has been a frequent guest on CBC radio where she once worked as a reviewer and arts show host. Wherever she reads she raises the profile and reputation of poetry.

Web Site

AGM Night

May 28, 2012

Martha Royea

Martha Royea lives in Gibsons, BC. Poetry is a major passion – reading, writing, hearing, speaking it and translating poems from the Spanish. Her poems appear intermittently in chapbooks and anthologies, including several Leaf Press publications edited by Patrick Lane. Her own chapbook, If I Could Pray, was published by "26 Leaves" in 2007 and reissued by request in 2011. Love Songs for Dead Mothers is still developing.

Liz McNally

Liz McNally is an émigré; part of a large, now distant, Irish family. True to her heritage, she is prone to melancholy and humour in equal measure and feels there’s nothing a great poem or a good song won’t fix.

Liz is an observer. She takes her notebook everywhere to capture the extraordinary poetry of people’s lives in ordinary moments. She has enjoyed the company of other poets in a handful of Chapbooks and dreams of a time when she can say the words “my recently published book of poems”.

Savannah Featherstone

When Savannah Featherstone is not running the contracting business that she and her husband own, you can find her upholstering old chairs or in her art studio combining paper, glue, and paint on different types of canvas. Although she has written poetry off and on since an early age, it has only been in the last few years that poetry has taken a significant and defined place in her creative practice. Savannah lives in North Saanich with her husband, a loyal and neurotic Border Collie and two extremely spoiled felines.

Dan Lundine - Double Lightning Reader Book Launch for Signpost - A Prairie Town

Dan Lundine was born and raised on Vancouver Island. When high schools had tired of him, he joined the RCMP in January of 1962 and was immediately sent to Regina, Saskatchewan to train. After seven years of service, Dan left the force and obtained a teaching degree at the University of Regina. He then taught school for thirty years in Regina, West Germany, and Langley, BC. Upon leaving the classroom, Dan and his wife, Carol, moved to French Creek on Vancouver Island and operated a bed and breakfast for a number of years. They are now retired and living in Qualicum Beach, BC.

September 24, 2012

Pearl Luke

Yvonne Blomer

Naomi Beth Wakan



Naomi Beth Wakan has published over forty books including Sex After 70 and other poems and the ALA selection, Haiku – one breath poetry. Her books of essays from Wolsak and Wynn, are Late Bloomer-on writing later in life, Compositions – notes on the written word, Bookends – a year between the covers, and A Roller-coaster ride – thoughts on aging. Her poetry and essays have appeared in many magazines including Geist, Resurgence, Senior Living, Still Point Quarterly and Room. She is a member of The League of Canadian Poets, Haiku Canada and Tanka Canada. She lives on Gabriola Island with her husband, the sculptor, Elias Wakan. Web Site.

Email

WordStorm is an on-going reading series that focuses on all types of the spoken word: poetry, short fiction, storytelling, improv, music, song. There are two components of WordStorm - a prearranged reading series, and an excitingly competitive spoken word competition. (Reserve a ticket and ask to be an open mike reader or sign up at the door.) The readings will always be a mix of genres, and the sign-up for WordStorm can be either poetry and prose. The key elements will be quality writing and entertainment. Material read must be the reader's own work, and be read without props or instruments. Three judges will be chosen from the audience for each WordStorm, and audience participation is encouraged. The sign-up for WordStorm Open Mike can be in advance, by email, and also between 6:30 and 7:00 at the door. Admission is $5.00 at the door. The money collected will go entirely to prize winners and towards mimimal operating costs. Acme Food Co. has a capacity of about 50 people, so don't be disappointed, reserve ahead by email, or take your chances at the door. All reservations must be picked up before 6:30 or they will become void, and spaces will be given out on a first come, first served basis. No refunds. You can reserve with payment for future events at the reservation table on any night of WordStorm. Come out to just listen and be entertained, or sign up to be part of the entertainment. Everyone is welcome!

From its beginning WordStorm has played to packed houses with a full slate of readers-some coming from as far away as Seattle, Vancouver, Victoria, Courtenay, Comox, Bowen Island, Saltspring Island, Qualicum Beach, Duncan, Ladysmith, Prince Rupert (via Shawnigan Lake), Protection Island, Gabriola Island, Port Alberni, Ucluelet, Lasqueti Island, Saskatoon, Errington, Yellow Point, Sooke, P.E.I., Penticton, The Yukon, and Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia.

Joe Rosenblatt January 2011	Kendal Patrick and Alex January 2011
John Lent at the Nanaimo Centre Stage, October 2009	Richard Arnold at the Mermaid's Mug

Come on out to WordStorm and set the writing/performing world of Vancouver Island on FIRE!

Everyone is welcome to get involved and participate.

Sheri-d Performance Photos

Open Mike Sign-up
(Guidelines: You have three minutes to read one piece. It is all in good fun, so bring out your new or old stuff and try it out on our audience. You must sign-up before the program begins or you will not be on the sheet.)

Prizes for first, second and third-place winners will be awarded based on:

quality of content

inspiration and/or entertainment value

delivery.

Our esteemed panel of judges will be chosen at random from the audience.

We are always looking for local talent to read/perform as lightning readers for 5 minutes maximum, unless are featuring a recent publication of a book.

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