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Calgary Herald
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
'It was exciting . . . but not a lot of sleep': Thirty years later, founding artistic director looks back on 'crazy' first year of Wordfest
Article content Anne Green sought out advice from a number of people while helping organize and run the first Wordfest 30 years ago. Article content Green had a background in performing arts and a knack for organizing events, although she had never worked directly in literary arts. She had founded Edmonton's Theatre 3 in 1970 and had spent nine years in Ottawa working for the Canada Council for the Arts. There was certainly support for a new literary festival. Modelled after the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival, there was a 12-person steering committee. There was involvement from the founding community partners, which included the Banff Centre, Calgary Public Library, Mount Royal University, and the Writers' Guild of Alberta. Green had plenty of writer friends to confer with and Calgarians whom she knew who had a background in business or were on national boards of directors. So, advisors were not in short supply. Article content Article content Still, some were more memorable than others. Article content Article content The first event established itself as a serious literary enterprise from the get-go. Wayson Choy, Lorna Crozier, Tomson Highway, Joy Fielding, Patrick Lane, Paul Quarrington and Guy Vanderhaeghe all showed up, as did CBC's Vicki Gabereau, Stuart McLean, Bill Richardson and Arthur Black. But it was scoring that first headliner, CanLit royalty Margaret Atwood, that was the major coup. This would not be a festival with humble beginnings. Article content 'It was pretty amazing,' Green says. 'She was so generous. She was and still is a serious trooper. I remember there was a little coffee shop on one side of the Uptown (Theatre) that served amazing coffee. Sitting there with her, she gave me advice that really saw me through the 15 years of the festival. She told me stuff that I kept with me all those years on how to treat authors, what they expected, what the stereotypes were and what was true about that and what wasn't true of that.' Article content Article content The festival launched in October 1996, with events in Calgary and Banff. The Calgary events were held at the old Uptown Theatre downtown. It was a bit of a blur for Green, who would stay on as artistic director for Wordfest's first 15 years. Article content 'It was just crazy,' she says. 'It was unbelievable that we had managed to do this. It was exciting… but not a lot of sleep.' Article content It was such a success that Year 2 saw an equally stellar lineup. Irish-lit superstar Roddy Doyle made his first appearance, despite not having a book to promote at the time. Green had managed to find his office number in Ireland and cold-called him with an invite. That was also the year that legendary Canadian short-story legend Mavis Gallant came from France. Wordfest's fax machine was at Green's home, and Gallant only communicated via fax, so Green remembers occasionally receiving missives from the formidable expat at 4 a.m. Gallant attended some events in Banff and became infamously disgusted by the elk roaming through town. She claimed a few had tried to run her off the sidewalk.
Hamilton Spectator
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Tse'K'wa Heritage Society names summer 2025 artist in residence
CHARLIE LAKE, B.C. — With the backdrop of the Tse'K'wa cave behind her, Adrienne Greyeyes works with dedication and intent below a canopy, the carcass of a moose stretched as she scrapes hair from its hide. Greyeyes, who works as an Indian day school coordinator with the Indian Residential School Survivors Society, has for a portion of the summer gone back to an undying passion: art. She has been announced as Tse'k'wa's artist in residence for the summer of 2025. Greyeyes holds a bachelor's degree in fine arts from Vancouver's Emily Carr University of Art and Design. According to a press release, Greyeyes will be incorporating 'combined teachings from Dane-zaa and Nehiyaw Elders to develop her hide-making skills' during eight weeks in May and July. The residency is fully funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. Greyeyes is of Nehiyaw ancestry from Bigstone Cree Nation in what is now Alberta, but was born and grew up in Fort St. John. 'Moose hide holds nostalgia and safety to a lot of people,' said Greyeyes during a break. '[It] brings so many people back to when they were younger. 'This is such a meditative practice where I find myself re-visiting a lot of those things and it just puts me in that kind of head space.' In traditional Indigenous cultures, preparing animal hides for purposes such as clothing, shelter and art requires a labour-intensive process. This involves hide cleaning; soaking; fleshing; scraping; softening using the animal's brains, known as 'braining'; and smoking to give it a tanned appearance. The finished hides will be utilized in Greyeyes' printmaking, artwork which she says will display 'the reciprocal relationship that we have with the land we grew on through using hides that were grown on the same territory that my body has also been nourished from,' and acknowledge 'our relationship is ever-changing and challenged due to colonial lifestyle impositions.' 'Not only is it sustaining us in being in clothing and being part of our ceremonies,' said Greyeyes. 'But it also teaches. You're really close to this animal the whole time you're working with [it] and you're really close to that spirit.' Greyeyes will hold open-studio hours at Tse'K'wa in Charlie Lake, where the public can view her work and ask questions. Greyeyes will be at the Tse'K'wa cave on May 14th, 15th, and 20th. The second half of her residency will be on July 7th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 16th and 17th, when people can learn more about her. The time for all days is between 11 a.m. and 12 noon, and admission is free. The Tse'K'wa cave is an Indigenous-owned national heritage site , owned by Doig River First Nation, West Moberly First Nations and Prophet River First Nation. Tse'K'wa, translating to 'Rock House,' is a cave with history tracing back some 12,000 years, and was used by Dane-zaa ancestors since the Ice Age. More information about Greyeyes' residency is available on the Tse'K'wa website .
Cision Canada
08-05-2025
- Science
- Cision Canada
Canada Council for the Arts presents Picoplanktonics at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia Français
OTTAWA,ON, May 8, 2025 /CNW/ - The Canada Council for the Arts is pleased to present Picoplanktonics at the Canada Pavilion as part of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, from May 10 to November 23, 2025. Amidst the ongoing global climate crisis, the Living Room Collective has developed a ground-breaking exhibition that showcases the potential for collaboration between humans and nature. Comprised of 3D printed structures that contain live cyanobacteria capable of carbon sequestration, Picoplanktonics is an exploration of our potential to co-operate with living systems by co-constructing spaces that remediate the planet rather than exploit it. The Living Room Collective's exhibition is the culmination of four years of collaborative research by Andrea Shin Ling and various interdisciplinary contributors. It is focused on harnessing the design principles of living systems to develop sustainable, intelligent and resilient materials and technologies for the future. By leveraging ancient biological processes alongside emergent technologies, it proposes designing environments under an ecology-first ethos. When visitors enter the Canada Pavilion, they will encounter 3D printed structures that were originally fabricated in an ETH Zürich laboratory. These are the largest living material structures produced using a first-of-its-kind biofabrication platform capable of printing living structures at an architectural scale. The unique Picoplanktonics experience stems from adapting the Canada Pavilion to provide enough light, moisture, and warmth for the living cyanobacteria within the structures to grow, thrive and change. For the duration of the exhibition, caretakers will be onsite tending to the structures, emphasizing care and stewardship as essential elements of the design. As global carbon emissions continue to rise to untenable levels, Picoplanktonics presents a vision of how a regenerative system of construction could operate. It is an ongoing experiment centered on leveraging the reciprocal relationship between living structures, the built environment, and humans. In this way, the Living Room Collective is rethinking building principles and prioritizing ecological resilience beyond human species survival. "The Canada Council for the Arts is delighted to unveil Picoplanktonics by the Living Room Collective at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Through the lens of architecture, this year's Canadian exhibition brings technological innovation and ecological stewardship together. It is a unique exhibition, sure to inspire global audiences and to ignite important conversations, about how our built environment might better house and use natural systems for a more sustainable future." – Michelle Chawla, Director and CEO, Canada Council for the Arts "Picoplanktonics marks four years of research at ETH Zürich with international collaborators in material science, biology, robotics, and computational design. As we move these living prototypes into the Canada Pavilion, we are thrilled to invite the public into this open experiment and reveal all phases of the material's life, including growth, sickness, and death, while collectively imagining a regenerative design approach that seeks planetary remediation." –Andrea Shin Ling, The Living Room Collective Commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts, this year's exhibition, Picoplanktonics, curated by the Living Room Collective, was selected through a juried competition. The selection committee was comprised of: Aziza Chaouni (architect, principal, Aziza Chaouni Projects and associate professor, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto); David Garneau (Métis, painter, curator, critical art writer and professor, Visual Arts Department, University of Regina); Daniel Pearl (architect, principal, L'OEUF Architectes and professor, School of Architecture, Université de Montréal); Siamak Hariri (architect, founding partner, Hariri Pontarini Architects); and Sepake Angiama (curator, educator, and artistic director, Institute for International Visual Art). About the Commissioner, The Canada Council for the Arts The Canada Council for the Arts is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts. The Council champions and invests in artistic excellence through a broad range of grants, services, prizes and payments to professional Canadian artists and arts organizations. Its work ensures that unique, vibrant and diverse art and literature engages persons from across Canada, enriches their communities and reaches markets around the world. The Council also raises public awareness and appreciation of the arts through its communication, research and arts promotion activities. About the Living Room Collective The Living Room Collective is a group of architects, scientists, artists and educators who work at the intersection of architecture, biology and digital fabrication technologies—led by Canadian architect and biodesigner Andrea Shin Ling. Alongside core team members Nicholas Hoban, Vincent Hui and Clayton Lee, the collective seeks to move society away from exploitative systems of production to regenerative ones by inventing design methods and processes that center on natural systems. They see the Biennale Architettura 2025 as a platform to generate national and international conversations that ask: How does one fabricate a biological architecture? What are the conditions of stewardship? What are the strategies to instigate this at scale, regionally and globally? Biographies of the Living Room Collective members are available online from the Canada Council's website. Contributors and Collaborators Research and Development: ETH Zurich-: Andrea Shin Ling, Yo-Cheng Jerry Lee, Nijat Mahamaliyev, Hamid Peiro, Dalia Dranseike, Yifan Cui, Pok Yin Victor Leung, Barrak Darweesh │ Production: ETH Zurich: Huang Su, Wenqian Yang, Che-Wei Lin, Sukhdevsinh Parmar; Tobias Hartmann, Michael Lyrenmann, Luca Petrus, Jonathan Leu, Philippe Fleischmann, Oliver Zgraggen, Paul Fischlin, Mario Hebing, Franklin Füchslin; Hao Wu, Nicola Piccioli-Cappelli, Roberto Innocenti, Sigurd Rinde, Börte Emiroglu, Stéphane Bernhard, Carlo Pasini, Apoorv Singh, Paul Jaeggi; Mario Guala, Isabella Longoni; Toronto Metropolitan University: Venessa Chan, Minh Ton, Daniel Wolinski, Marko Jovanovic, Santino D'Angelo Rozas, Rachel Kim, Alexandra Waxman, Richard McCulloch, Stephen Waldman, Tina Smith, Andrea Skyers, Randy Ragan, Emma Grant, Shira Gellman, Mariska Espinet, Suzanne Porter, Stacey Park, Amanda Wood, Lisa Landrum, Dorothy Johns, Cedric Ortiz; University of Toronto: Daniel Lewycky, Philipp Cop; Additive Tectonics GmbH | Visualisation: Adrian Yu. Nazanin Kazemi, Ariel Weiss│ Structural Advisors: Andrea Menardo, Kam-Ming Mark Tam | Graphic Design: Shannon Lin │ Website: Sigurd Rinde, Shannon Lin │ Local Project Logistics: Tamara Andruszkiewicz │ Project Advisors: ETH Zurich: Benjamin Dillenburger, Mark Tibbitt Partners and Sponsors Picoplanktonics is made possible by the generous support from the Canada Council, Digital Building Technologies, Institute of Technology & Architecture, D-ARCH, ETH Zurich; Department of Architectural Science, Toronto Metropolitan University; and John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto. As well, acknowledges the important additional support of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada; Advanced Engineering with Living Materials (ALIVE) Initiative, ETH Zurich; Additive Tectonics GmbH; ABB Switzerland; Vestacon Limited and NEUF Architect(e)s. KEY DATES May 8 at 12:00 p.m. CET, the Canada Council for the Arts will host an inauguration of Picoplanktonics at the Canada Pavilion with remarks by the Canada Council, Embassy of Canada to Italy and the Living Room Collective. May 10 at 10:00 a.m. CET, the Picoplanktonics will open to the public for the duration of the 19 th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, from May 10 to November 26, 2025.
CBC
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Halifax writer Dorian McNamara wins 2025 CBC Short Story Prize for story about trans man on Toronto streetcar
Social Sharing Halifax writer Dorian McNamara has won the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize for his story You (Streetcar at Night). He will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. McNamara's story was published on CBC Books. McNamara will also be interviewed by Mattea Roach on an upcoming episode of Bookends. You can read You (Streetcar at Night) here. If you're interested in other writing competitions, the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is currently accepting submissions. You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems from April 1-June 1. Dorian McNamara is a queer transgender writer currently living in Halifax. Originally from Toronto, he graduated with a BA in psychology from Dalhousie University. He is currently working on his first novel as well as publishing the creative newsletter Dear You. This year's winner and finalists were selected by a jury composed of Conor Kerr, Kudakwashe Rutendo and Michael Christie. "From its opening lines, we were captivated by the deft and corporeal imagery of You (Streetcar at Night), with its lush descriptions of travelling via streetcar, and all the rhythm and music that one becomes enmeshed in along the way. But beyond its flowing narrative and lyrical writing, lay the story, and that is what called to us. You (Streetcar at Night) follows a trans man's recollection of his first relationship, the narrative establishing itself as an address to his former partner, taking a novel route through aspects of transition," the jury said in a statement. "Highlighting the nuanced duality of a Before and After, connected through a frank and vulnerable interiority. It is a requiem of sorts, a call to the past, that simultaneously grounds itself in a present of acceptance and true belonging. Where one can look at a stranger on a streetcar and see a whole history in their eyes. This story resoundingly illustrates — at a time when it could not be more needed — that within everyone, outside of all our external features and presentations, is a prevailing interiority and humanity, and that trans people are not a threat. "This story resoundingly illustrates — at a time when it could not be more needed — that within everyone, outside of all our external features and presentations, is a prevailing interiority and humanity, and that trans people are not a threat." You (Streetcar at Night) tells the story of the before and after of a trans person. The protagonist reflects on his first relationship as he and his fellow riders roll through the Toronto streets at night. "Growing up in Toronto, I've always loved the streetcars. When I come home to visit my family, I find I am often on the streetcar. There's always a lot of memories tied to them, but after coming out, I got anxious that people who knew me before would recognize me then. Part of me wanted them to remember me and see me now, but another part of me was afraid of how people I used to know would react," McNamara said. McNamara joins a long list of writers who have won CBC Literary Prizes, such as David Bergen, Michael Ondaatje, Carol Shields and Michael Winter. The CBC Literary Prizes have been recognizing Canadian writers since 1979. To be given the opportunity to share my writing with others and to be understood and to even perhaps have my writing understand others is an incredible gift. "Winning the CBC Short Story Prize is a monumental honour, one that still feels beyond me. Getting the news, I felt all the joy in my body well up in my throat and I did not know whether I was laughing or crying. Writing for me is a practice of trying to understand and often making peace with my inability to do so, be it regarding myself or others," said McNamara. "To be given the opportunity to share my writing with others and to be understood and to even perhaps have my writing understand others is an incredible gift. I am so grateful for being given the chance to further my process and dedicate myself to my practice." The other four finalists are Vincent Anioke of Waterloo, Ont. for Love is the Enemy; Trent Lewin of Waterloo, Ont. for Ghostworlds; Emi Sasagawa of Vancouver for Lessons from a peach and Zeina Sleiman of Edmonton for My Father's Soil. They will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts. The longlist was compiled by a group of qualified editors and writers from across Canada from more than 2,300 submissions. The readers come up with a preliminary list of approximately 100 submissions that are then forwarded to a second reading committee. It is this committee who will decide upon the 30ish entries that comprise the longlist that is forwarded to the jury. The jury selects the shortlist and the eventual winner from the readers' longlisted selections.
CBC
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Canadian writers Chanel Sutherland and Damhnait Monaghan shortlisted for 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize
Canadian writers Chanel Sutherland and Damhnait Monaghan are on the shortlist for the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. The Commonwealth Short Story Prize annually recognizes the best piece of unpublished short fiction from one of the Commonwealth's 56 member states. The winner is chosen from the five winners of the annual regional competitions in the categories of Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, Caribbean and Pacific. As Canadians, Sutherland and Monaghan are shortlisted in the Canada and Europe regional category. Sutherland is recognized for her story Descend, about a sinking ship of enslaved Africans with powerful stories to tell. Sutherland, who is from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. She won the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize and the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2021. Her debut short story collection, Layaway Child, will be released in spring 2026 and will include the story that won the CBC Short Story Prize. She lives in Montreal. If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the CBC Poetry Prize is open now until June 1. The winner receives $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and their work will be published on CBC Books. You can learn more here. Monaghan is shortlisted for her story Nualu Nu, about a 1970s schoolgirl who immigrated to Canada from Ireland with her widowed mother. Monaghan is a Canadian writer who spent 25 years living in England and grew up in Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador. She is the author of New Girl in the Little Cove, which won the 2022 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Award for romance. A former teacher and lawyer, her writing has been published in many different publications. The complete list of shortlisted authors for all five regions is available here. They were chosen from 7,920 entries by judges Vilsoni Hereniko, chair, Nsah Mala, Saras Manickam, Anita Sethi, Lisa Allen-Agostini and Apirana Taylor and are published in the online magazine adda. The regional winners will be announced on May 14 and the overall winner will be revealed June 25.
