WordStorm April 16th with Lorna Crozier

Lorna Crozier - Featured Reader
Web Site
Diners Rendezvous
489 Wallace Street, Nanaimo, BC
Phone: 250.753.0042
Bring your friends. Give them a ride. This is an event not to be missed.

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.

AGM Night

WordStorm would like to thank the Inn on Long Lake, 4700 North Island Highway, V9T 1W6 Nanaimo for providing the accommodation for Lorna Crozier while she is in Nanaimo for her reading and for her workshop.

Inn on Long Lake Web Site.
The Inn on Long Lake is the Jewel of Nanaimo hotels on Vancouver Island. Located on picturesque Long Lake, travelers are drawn to its doors with the promise of beautiful sunrises and the feel of having nature at their own front door.

Poetry Aloud - National Poetry Month Reading

POETRY ALOUD
Hosted by Greg Skala

Wellington Public Library,
3032 Barons Road, Nanaimo
April 5th, 2012
7:00 to 8:00 P.M.







Vancouver Island Poets,











Mary Ann Moore, Kim Goldberg and David Fraser,
will perform their work on the theme of

Balance

The poets will explore the theme of balance in life, love, the human body and the natural world in this special
National Poetry Month presentation.

WordStorm March 26th - Diners Rendezvous 489 Wallace, Nanaimo 7:00 pm

Bill Levity



Bill Levity is the genial host of, 'For The love of Words'; a monthly spoken word night at the Duncan Garage Showroom that is in its fifth year and going strong. He has also parlayed his particular form of word Schtick at the Islands Folk Festival and Poetry Festival Gabriola. Bill's other artistic loves are MCing, songwriting and acting. He's been active with the Shawnigan Players for over twenty years in such groundbreaking roles as Jim Keegstra in 'Ilsa, Queen of the Nazi Love Camp', and David in 'Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love'. A good panto is never far away; his favourite roles being , Griselda, The Ugly Stepsister, and The Evil Queen in Snow White. Bill's poetry usually trends towards sex, wit and beer; tho nature is usually tightly woven through all three.

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.

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.

WordStorm

Now at
Diners Rendezvous
489 Wallace Street, Nanaimo, BC
Phone: 250.753.0042


MONDAY, February 27th, 2012

Doors Open at 6:15 for reservations. Come early for dinner, if you like.

Program starts at 7:00 with the open mic

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).

Ascent Aspirations Magazine News February Issue
Ascent Aspirations Current Issue February 2012
February Issue


Yearly Anthology Contest (Publishing Date 2012)
Theme: Disorders January 31 Deadline
Disorders Anthology

Special Anthology of Art and Children's Stories Contest
Extended Deadline
Children's Stories




Archived Copies of Ascent Aspirations Print Magazine
Inexpensive but Impressive and Interesting Xmas Gifts
We are no longer publishing a print magazine so these copies are becoming collector's items. Special offer. See details.
Back Issues

Caught in My Throat, David Fraser's fourth collection available on-line
Caught in My Throat

What's New
What's New

Submissions
Submissions
We accept submissions year round and decide on placement of accepted submissions for issues forthcoming or as far away as four months.


On Poetry
Poetry and Poetics with Naomi Beth Wakan and David Fraser
On Poetry

WordStorm Nov. 28 Diners Rendezvous 489 Wallace, Nanaimo 7:00 pm

WordStorm, November 28th, 2011

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.

Richard Osler

Richard Osler writes poetry when he isn’t watching the poetics of the stock market’s rise and fall as a specialty money manager. His poems have been accepted in numerous journals including the Malahat review, Prarie Fire, Antigonish Review and CV2 which published a feature interview with him in its Winter 2011 issue. He also leads weekend writing retreats for poets and conducts poetry workshops in drug and alcohol recovery centres. The Cowichan Valley in B.C. has claimed him as one of its own since 2010.



Joy Huebert, Gisela Ruebsaat, and Katrin Horowitz will be reading from their collaborative book, Pathways Not Posted

Joy Huebert is a Victoria writer and winner of the 2008 Short Grain Postcard Story Competition.
She has been published in several literary magazines and three chapbooks
produced by the Root Cellar Press. She is an editor of the short story
collection, Magic Night, and placed second in the Vancouver Story Slam.

Gisela Ruebsaat is a Victoria poet who has been published in Island Writer. Her work
explores the intersection of music, spoken word and song. She has worked as a speechwriter
for governments in Ontario and BC and currently acts as Legal Analyst for the Ending Violence Association.

Katrin Horowitz published her first novel, Power Failures, in 2007. Last year she was a winner
in Victoria's Night on the Town prose competition for her story, Blues for a Bridge.
She is finalizing a new novel, Convenient Lies, and is also working on more short stories.
Kim Clark - Book Launch









Kim Clark lives on Vancouver Island. Disease and desire, mothering and the mundane propel her ongoing journey between poetry and prose. Her work can be found in e-zines and other publications in Canada and the U.S.. Kim holds a BA in Creative Writing from VIU. She won the 2005 Cecilia Lamont prize for fiction and her story “Solitaire” was shortlisted in the Malahat Review’s 2010 Novella Contest.

Kim’s first book, Attemptations, published by Caitlin Press, is a collection of short, long and longer fiction.



The book hook—
a peek into Attemptations:

Imagine you’re given the startling news that your body is only capable of having six more orgasms . . .

Vancouver Public Library, Writer in Residence Call

Vancouver Public Library, Writer in Residence Call for Expressions of Interest
Publishers might want to pass on this information to your authors. More information is in the attached doc:

From August 13 to December 7, 2012, the Vancouver Public Library will host a resident author. The Writer-in-Residence program, now entering its eighth year, promotes Canadian writing and literature to Vancouver citizens. The aims of the residency are to foster greater appreciation for Canadian writing, provide opportunities to interact with the resident author and to provide the space, time and resources for a Canadian author to write.

The Writer in Residence will provide advice to emerging writers through one-to-one consultations, workshops and seminars as well as outreach to targeted communities. This full-time position (35 hours/week) requires 25% of the author’s time be spent on Library programs or projects, leaving 75% of the work week available for creative writing.

Applicants must identify in their cover letter the innovative ways their residency would foster an appreciation for Canadian writing. Residencies that involve communities not typically exposed to Canadian literature are particularly encouraged. Application deadline is January 13, 2012.