Archive | March, 2015

Kicking Off Poetry Month in Style–With “The Cinnamon Peeler”

  By Ceilidh Hart My Poetry Month choice: “The Cinnamon Peeler” by Michael Ondaatje I didn’t know I liked Ondaatje (still haven’t made it through Anil’s Ghost) until I encountered this poem, randomly, in a Canadian poetry anthology when I was doing my undergrad. I’m skeptical of love poetry generally: quick to nose out cliché […]

Everything a Seminar Should Be–And More

  By Heather McAlpine   The scene in this classroom is significantly louder and more intense than you might expect: passionate, rapid-fire discussion; challenging commentary; soul-searching questions; uproarious laughter. “Is it always like this in here?” I ask. The class erupts into shouts and applause. “Well,” says John, “yes.” Professor John Carroll’s Seminar in Creative […]

Book Art: Sacrilege or Savior?

  It’s Spring Cleaning time. For many book worms, that means clearing out the shelves to make room for summer reading. But what do you do with all those dusty old tomes you never read anymore? Do you banish them to a thrift shop, hoping someone falls in love with them? Will anybody ever fall […]

Mission Festival, Fraser Valley Literatures, East Coast Vs. West Coast, and True Lies

  Your friend neighbourhood writer-in-residence Emily PW’s finally back at this whole blog thing. I’ve had some of the busiest few weeks of my life… UFV’s inaugural Literatures of the Fraser Valley Conference was an infusion of brilliant scholarly thought. Speakers represented many of the region’s diverse communities—a testament to the organizers, who really gave […]

East Coast Vs. West Coast Literary Showdown

This interactive literary event pits B.C. authors against Ontario authors in the ultimate literary challenge.  Come out and help us guess which iconic East or West Coast authors wrote famous literary passages. If the authors are stumped, they get to call on the audience for help, so we need life lines!   The four writers […]

A Book Launch, Class Visits, and Professional Writers

Hey, hey! Emily P-W, your local writer-in-residence, back with an update. What a week! Just seconds ago, I sent off my introduction to the 2015 Louden Singletree, which I’m thrilled to reveal is a fantastic new collection of poetry, fiction, and visual art by UFV students. This issue has a little of something for everyone: […]

Reading Writers’ Minds

If you consider yourself a writer, then you’ve noticed your mind works differently from others’. You already know you see the world through a different lens. But did you ever wonder whether your brain responds uniquely to the task of writing? New research tentatively theorizes that it does—if you’re beyond the novice stage. Together with […]