Join us for In/Verse on Saturday, April 8th at 2:00 pm by registering here (bcwriters.ca/events-for-writers) and a Zoom link for the event will be sent to you. When it’s time for the event you can click on the Zoom link to join the event.

Speakers:

Kayla Czaga is the author of three poetry collections—For Your Safety Please Hold On, Dunk Tank, and Midway (House of Anansi, forthcoming 2024). Her work has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Frequently anthologized in The Best Canadian Poetry in English series, her writing also appears in The Walrus, Grain, Event, The Fiddlehead, and elsewhere. She lives with her wife on the traditional territory of the Lekwungen people, also known as the Esquimalt and Songhees nations.

Junie Désil is a poet. Born of immigrant (Haitian) parents on the Traditional Territories of the Kanien’kehá:ka in the island known as Tiohtià:ke (Montréal), raised in Treaty 1 Territory (Winnipeg). Junie’s debut poetry collection Eat Salt|Gaze at the Ocean (TalonBooks, 2020) was a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Junie currently lives on the traditional territories of the Homalco, Tla’amin and Klahoose where she is currently working on a novel and a poetry manuscript.

Alex Leslie has published two collections of short stories – People Who Disappear, shortlisted for a Lambda Award for debut fiction, and We All Need to Eat, shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson BC Book Prize for fiction – and two collections of prose poetry – ‘The things I heard about you’ and Vancouver for Beginners, shortlisted for the City of Vancouver Book Prize and winner of the Western Canada Jewish book prize for poetry from the Lohn Foundation. Alex‘s fiction has been published in the Journey Prize anthology, Granta, Best Canadian Stories 2020, Catapult, and many journals. Alex recently finished writing their first novel, wants to give you unsolicited advice about training your rescue dog, and makes a great risotto

Host:

Neil Surkan was born in Penticton, BC. He is the author of two full-length poetry collections — Unbecoming (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021), which was selected as one of three finalists for the City of Calgary’s W.O. Mitchell Award, and On High (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018) — and the chapbooks Their Queer Tenderness (Knife-Fork-Book, 2020) and Super, Natural (Anstruther Press, 2017). His award-winning poems have appeared in numerous Canadian magazines. Neil currently lives and teaches in Nanaimo, on the traditional and unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation, with Luca, Edi, and Lloyd.

Digital Doors Open at 1:55, Event Starts at 2PM

*This event is not being recorded