Double Lives & Lovely Afternoons: Kevin Chong & Patti Flather with Guests
2023-11-02 18:00 - 18:30 (America/Vancouver) | British Columbia
On Thursday, November 2nd at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books, Simon & Schuster, and Inanna Publications for ‘Double Lives & Lovely Afternoons: Kevin Chong & Patti Flather with Marcus Youssef and Christine Quintana’.
The Double Life of Bensen Yu was just shortlisted for a Scotiabank Giller Prize and Kevin Chong will be joining this event remotely from the Maritimes.
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site. Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the books:
The Double Life of Benson Yu (Simon & Schuster, 2023)
This fresh and unique work of metafiction follows a graphic novelist losing control of his own narrative as he attempts to write a polished retelling of his fraught upbringing in 1980s Chinatown.
In a Chinatown housing project lives twelve-year-old Benny, his ailing grandmother, and his strange neighbor Constantine, a man who believes he’s a reincarnated medieval samurai. When his grandmother is hospitalized, Benny manages to survive on his own until a social worker comes snooping. With no other family, he is reluctantly taken in by Constantine and soon, an unlikely bond forms between the two.
At least, that’s what Yu, the narrator of the story, wants to write.
The creator of a bestselling comic book, Yu is struggling with continuing the poignant tale of Benny and Constantine and can’t help but interject from the present day, slowly revealing a darker backstory. Can Yu confront the demons he’s spent his adult life avoiding or risk his own life…and Benny’s?
Such A Lovely Afternoon (Inanna Publications, 2022)
Such a Lovely Afternoon is a dazzling debut collection from award-winning Yukon writer Patti Flather.
A feisty young tomboy grapples with gender roles with sometimes hilarious results, a refugee single dad struggles for dignity in his northern community, and a malfunctioning compost toilet and wacky neighbours upturn a woman’s island cabin life, among other tales.
Against vivid landscapes from Canada’s West Coast to Hong Kong to the Yukon, Flather reveals poignant beauty, compassion and humour in everyday lives, with characters searching for identity and belonging, delving into their resilience and humanity. Published by Inanna Publications.
“Fall into Such a Lovely Afternoon in the middle of the night. These take-no-prisoners, let-your-hair-down stories are a heart-to-heart with your BFF about love, loss, and the lives of women making themselves up in the late 20th century, choice by choice, at the edge of the world. Patti Flather’s stories are literary lightning.” – Linda Svendsen, Guggenheim winner and author of Marine Life and Sussex Drive
About the authors:
Kevin Chong is the author of seven books of fiction and nonfiction, including the new novel The Double Life of Benson Yu. Those titles have been named books of the year by Globe and Mail, National Post, and Amazon.ca, listed for a CBC prize, a BC Book Prize, and a National Magazine Award, optioned for film and TV, and published in the US, Europe, and Australia. His creative nonfiction and journalism have recently appeared in the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, the Rumpus, and the South China Morning Post. An Associate Professor at the UBC Okanagan, he lives in Vancouver with his family.
Patti Flather is an award-winning author. Her plays Paradise and Sixty Below have been shared on stages across Canada and published. Where the River Meets the Sea won the Canadian National Playwriting Competition, her radio play West Edmonton Mall was nominated for a Canadian Screenwriting Award, and her stories have appeared in literary magazines. A winner of the Borealis Prize for Yukon literary contribution, Patti has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of BC. She grew up in North Vancouver, BC, and lives in Kwanlin Dün First Nation and Ta’an Kwäch’än territory in Whitehorse, Yukon. www.pattiflather.com
About the guests:
Marcus Youssef’s fifteen or so plays all investigate some aspect of difference and belonging. They have been produced in multiple languages in in twenty countries across North America, Europe and Asia, from Seattle to New York to Reykjavik, London, Venice, Hong Kong, Vienna, Athens, Frankfurt and Berlin. He is the recipient of Canada’s largest theatre award, the Siminovitch Prize for Theatre, for his body of work as a playwright, as well as Berlin, Germany’s Ikarus Prize, the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award, the Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, the Chalmers’ Canadian Play Award, the Seattle Times Footlight award, the Vancouver Critics’ Innovation award (three times) and the Canada Council Staunch-Lynton Award.
Christine Quintana Born in Los Angeles to a Mexican-American father and a Dutch-British-Canadian mother, Christine is now a grateful visitor to the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh people. Christine is an actor, playwright, co-Artistic Producer of Delinquent Theatre, and artistic associate of Neworld Theatre. Winner of a LA Drama Critic’s Circle Award, Dora Mavor Moore Award, Jessie Richardson Theatre Award, Tom Hendry Award, a Governor General’s Award nomination, and the Siminovitch Protégée Prize for Playwriting, Christine’s works have been translated and performed in Spanish, French, German, and ASL. As a performer, she’s acted on stages big and small, in a camper van, in neighbourhoods across East Vancouver, and on a farm. She is currently working on a commission for the Manhattan Theatre Club, and will premiere 4 new works next year across Canada. She is a graduate of UBC’s BFA Acting Program. christinequintana.ca

Double Lives & Lovely Afternoons: Kevin Chong & Patti Flather with Marcus Youssef & Christine Quintana
2023-11-02 18:00 - 20:00 | Massy Arts, 23 East Pender, Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Your Body Is a Revolution by Tara Teng
2023-11-04 14:00 - 17:00 | British Columbia
On Saturday, November 4th at 2pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and Dundurn Press in celebrating Tara Teng’s Your Body is a Revolution: Healing Our Relationships with Our Bodies, Each Other and the Earth.
Tara will be joined by guests (to be announced) and the event will feature some gentle forms of movement in the gallery space.
“Highly recommended to anybody searching to decolonize their life through embodiment. A must-read to gain the insight and inspiration that’s needed in today’s world. Having hard conversations is something we need to move forward in a good way as a collective of human beings on Mother Earth.” — Dakota Bear, Indigenous rights activist, and cofounder of Decolonial Clothing
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site. Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the book:
Your Body is a Revolution: Healing Our Relationships with Our Bodies, Each Other and the Earth (Dundurn Press, 2023)
It’s time to fully inhabit our lives, to reclaim what has been stolen from us, and to embrace the wisdom our bodies long to share.
Too many of us are living disconnected from our bodies, chasing a constantly moving target of ideal, and accepting the societal narrative about which bodies are deserving of safety and protection. In an effort to keep ourselves safe, we shame, push aside, and assimilate parts of ourselves that don’t align with the cultural norm. In turn, we are disconnected from our bodies and therefore from our humanity, losing sight of the true nature of who we are.
Embodiment coach Tara Teng helps us untangle ourselves from centuries of body-based oppression built into our societal systems or masquerading as religion. When we embrace our relationship with our bodies, we come into alignment with all things: ourselves, each other, the earth, and our spirituality. When we embrace ourselves, we can take back what society says is too much — too loud, too feminine, too masculine, too gay, too worldly, too unique. Now is the time to journey back to our bodies and to celebrate our whole selves.
About the author:
Tara Teng (she/her) is an Embodiment Coach who works in the intersections of spirituality and sexuality. She helps people find their way back to their bodies, overcome shame, heal trauma and dismantle purity culture in a way that is in alignment with their values and beliefs so that they can build a healthy, sexual ethic and thrive in freedom and wholeness.
Aside from her 1:1 coaching, Tara hosts women’s circles, workshops, online classes and retreats on the topics of embodiment, justice, sexuality, and relationships. Her debut book, Your Body is a Revolution: Healing Our Relationships with Our Bodies, Each Other and the Earth was published June 2023 from Broadleaf Books and Dundurn Press and is available in print, e-book and audiobook everywhere books are sold.

Bottom Rail on Top by DM Bradford with Guests
2023-11-06 18:00 | British Columbia
On Monday, November 6th at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and Brick Books in celebrating the launch of Bottom Rail on Top by DM Bradford with with Cecily Nicholson and Junie Désil, hosted by Mercedes Eng.
“Not a collection of poetry but the sound of an opening door. Not a book but a tree on the riverbank. Not a line but a kinetic archive. Not a text but a heart. Not a page but a scene of the author at sunrise. Not a day but the gathering of the senses. Not a moment but the heavy low of another place.” — Jordan Abel, author of Open Spaces, Injun and NISHGA
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site. Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the book:
Bottom Rail on Top (Brick Books, 2023)
A rolling call and response between antebellum Black history and the present that mediates it.
Somewhere in the cut between Harriet Jacobs and surveillance, Southampton and sneaker game, Lake Providence and the supply chain, Bottom Rail on Top sets off a mediation between the complications of legacy and selfhood. In a kind of archives-powered unmooring of the linear progress story, award-winning poet D.M. Bradford fragments and recomposes American histories of antebellum Black life and emancipation, and stages the action in tandem with the matter of his own life. Amidst echoes and complicities, roots and flights, lineage and mastery, it’s a story of stories told in knots and asides, held together with paper trails, curiosities, and hooks — a study that doesn’t end.
About the author & guests:
Darby Minott Bradford is a poet and translator based in Tio’tia:ke (Montreal). They are the author of Dream of No One but Myself (Brick Books, 2021), which won the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry, was longlisted for the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal, and was a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize, Governor General’s Literary Awards, and Gerard Lampert Memorial Award. House Within a House by Nicholas Dawson, Bradford’s first translation, was published in 2023 by Brick Books. Bottom Rail on Top is their second book.
Cecily Nicholson is the author of four books and a past recipient of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. She is an Assistant Professor in Poetry at the School of Creative Writing, UBC and will be the 2024/2025 Holloway Lecturer in Poetry and Poetics at UC Berkeley. Cecily volunteers with community impacted by food insecurity and her most recent book HARROWINGS considers Black rurality, agriculture, and art history.
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.
Mercedes Eng is the author of Mercenary English, Prison Industrial Complex Explodes, winner of the BC Poetry Prize, and my yt mama. Her writing has appeared in Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry, Jacket 2, Asian American Literary Review, The Abolitionist, r/ally (No One Is Illegal), and Survaillance (Press Release). Mercedes is at work on a women’s prison anthology as a 2023 SFU Shadbolt Fellow.

Virtual Author Presentation: Johnnie Christmas
2023-11-07 09:00 - 10:00 | Zoom
Students in grades 5-7 are invited to join this virtual author presentation with the award-winning author/illustrator of Swim Team, Johnnie Christmas.
This splashy, contemporary middle-grade graphic novel follows young Bree as she faces her fear of swimming head on, while at the same time confronting the longstanding barriers of systemic racism set within the public pool system. Johnnie Christmas conveys an engaging story with courage, and heart and shows us the wave of change can start with the smallest ripple.
Mr. Christmas will talk about his graphic novel Swim Team and how it was created.
Registration required. Elementary school teachers can register to receive a Zoom link to attend the presentation with their class. Register online, email brownr@nvdpl.ca, or call 604-984-0286, ext. 8184.

Under the Table Open Mic Series Ft. Sheniz Janmohamed
2023-11-07 18:00 | British Columbia
On Tuesday, November 7th at 6pm PDT / 9pm EDT, join Massy Arts Society and a collective of brilliant poet organizers for Under The Table Open Mic Series, featuring Sheniz Janmohamed.
Zoom room and sign-up opens at 5:45 PDT / 8:45 EDT, show starts at 6pm PDT / 9pm EDT
(we run on crip time with the understanding that bodies and brains aren’t always on schedule)
We invite you to sign up for the open mic as Under The Table welcomes us to laugh, cry, celebrate and sit in the richness of queer and disabled life, writing and poetics.
This event will unfortunately not have ASL interpretation. We are working to secure funding to continue having ASL at future events.
Please join the zoom room with the same email you used on eventbrite. If you have any issues joining please email us at underthetablepoetry@gmail.com
About Under The Table:
Under the Table is an open mic series centering disabled and/or queer poets. This series was dreamed up out of a desire to share work, experience art, and connect with community in a covid safer, more accessible, and anti-oppressive space. Partnering with Massy Voices and Kickstart Disability Arts & Culture, Under the Table Open Mic Series will be on the first Tuesday of each month with some events in person at Massy Arts Society and others virtually on zoom.
Under the Table is a space where the richness that is queer and disabled life and art, flourishes and finds a home. It’s a space to share work that’s asking to be told, but might not be welcomed in other spaces, if you are able to access those spaces at all. It’s a space where being queer and/or disabled (whether or not those specific words resonate for you) makes your work a brilliant fit, regardless of how queer or disabled you think the poetry you wish to share is, how connected you are to disabled and/or queer community, and whether you feel disabled and/or queer “enough” to participate. It’s a space to witness and engage with the work of incredible artists, anywhere on their path of sharing their work–from the person who has never shared in front of an audience, to artists who have read or performed work many times. It’s a space where there’s room to be scared, and choose to be in community, share, and engage with others’ work. It’s a space where we don’t claim to know all the answers, but are willing to be in the messy, nuanced space of learning together. Come to “Under the Table” to laugh, cry, celebrate, sit in discomfort, feel understood, and be together.
This event has been made possible by Massy Voices, The Government of Canada, The League of Canadian Poets, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted virtually via zoom. Automatic captioning will be turned on, we recognize automatic captioning is imperfect. We are working towards securing funding for CART to improve the quality of captioning. We ask anyone speaking or performing to provide a visual description for blind and low vision audience members. We also ask that people don’t message in the chat during poems, to increase accessibility for people using screen readers.
With Author & Featured Poet:
Sheniz Janmohamed was born and raised in Tkaronto with ancestral ties to Kenya and India. A poet, artist educator and nature artist, Sheniz is a graduate of the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of Guelph.
Sheniz has been performing her poetry for 15 years, including features at the Jaipur Literature Festival, Aga Khan Museum, and Vancouver Writers Fest to name a few. Her writing has been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, Descant and Canthius and she is a regular reviewer for Quill & Quire. She has three collections of poetry, published by Mawenzi House: Bleeding Light (2010), Firesmoke (2014) and Reminders on the Path (2021).
Her nature art has been featured across Turtle Island, including the National Arts Centre, MOCA and the Art Gallery of Mississauga.
A recipient of the Lois Birkenshaw-Fleming Creative Teaching Scholarship, Sheniz holds an Artist Educator Mentor certification from the Royal Conservatory. She visits dozens organizations and schools to offer performances, talks and workshops in poetry and nature art.
Sheniz served as the Writer-in-Residence at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus (Winter/Spring 2022), and is currently working on her fourth book, a collection of hybrid essays about her grandmother’s garden in the highlands of Kenya.

A Dream Wants Waking by Lydia Kwa with host Carleigh Baker
2023-11-09 18:00 | British Columbia
On Thursday, November 9th at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and Wolsak & Wynn in celebrating the launch of Lydia Kwa’s A Dream Wants Waking, with host Carleigh Baker.
“The melding of the technical with the mystical is masterfully done. This thrilling and innovative tale will have readers hooked.” — A Dream Wants Waking (Publishers Weekly, 15/08/2023)
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site.
Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the book:
A Dream Wants Waking (Wolsak & Wynn Publishers Ltd, 2023)
In the mythical Luoyang of 2219 CE, a half-human half-fox spirit Yinhe has been asked to help liberate the chimeric creatures enslaved in labour in Dream Zone and Interstitium, two zones of the city where they have been confined. Will Yinhe be able to stop Gui the demon from wreaking destruction on the city and on humankind? This is a novel that interweaves different times and spaces; and speaks to the power of love to motivate discovery and liberation.
About the author:
Lydia Kwa has published two books of poetry (The Colours of Heroines, 1992; sinuous, 2013) and four novels (This Place Called Absence, 2000; The Walking Boy, 2005 and 2019; Pulse, 2010 and 2014; Oracle Bone, 2017). Her fifth novel A Dream Wants Waking is published by Buckrider Books, an imprint of Wolsak & Wynn in Fall 2023. A third book of poetry from time to new will be published by Gordon Hill Press in Fall 2024.
She won the Earle Birney Poetry Prize in 2018; and her novels have been nominated for several awards, including the Lambda Literary Award for Fiction.
About the host:
CARLEIGH BAKER is an author and teacher of Cree-Métis and European descent. Born and raised on Stó:lō territory, she currently lives on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwəta (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. Her debut story collection, Bad Endings (Anvil Press, 2017), won the City of Vancouver Book Award, and was also a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Indigenous Voices Award for fiction. She is a co-editor of Carving Space, the Indigenous Voices Awards Anthology. Her new story collection, Last Woman, is forthcoming with McClelland & Stewart in spring 2024.

Book Launch: Arleen Pare and Barbara Pelman
2023-11-09 19:00 - 21:00 | Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1Y2, Canada
Please join Munro’s Books for the launch of new books by two beloved local poets!
Award-winning poet Arleen Pare’s latest collection, Absence of Wings, is both an intimate family portrait and a public documentation of how we, as a society, can fail to protect our children.
Absence of Wings depicts the extraordinary and tragically foreshortened life of A.—Paré’s niece, Brazilian, adopted, racialized, and living with multiple mental health diagnoses. In her deft and clear poetics, accompanied by documentary pieces in the tradition of C.D. Wright’s One with Others, Paré is both witness to and emotionally engaged in the life and death of A. The result is deep and heart-felt, both factional and fictional, poetry and prose, holding its subject, A., heart-close and 3,000 miles away. Absence of Wings unfolds on many levels; it embraces the private and public spheres; it is as intimate as family, as worldly as the public and personal politics that surround each life. It both observes and embraces, always with the important question of the world’s unprotected children in mind.
In A Brief and Endless Sea, award-winning poet Barbara Pelman presents a life lived in poetry, delving into the small moments and spaces containing the greatest offerings of love, hope and possibility.
Born out of waiting out the lockdown during the early days of the pandemic, Barbara Pelman’s A Brief and Endless Sea explores a life in retrospect, beginning with a high school typing class and ending with the Angel Purah, cutting the ties that bind a soul to a body. Many of the poems in this collection are rooted in Jewish tradition: the prophet Isaiah’s words of comfort; the rabbinical story of the Lost Princess, that angel and her counterpart, the Angel Duma. Pelman takes us to difficult places—the dissolution of a marriage, caring for a parent with dementia. But she doesn’t leave us there, waiting. Using the power of words to map a route out, A Brief and Endless Sea pulls us toward life in all of its vibrant details—the simple beauty of a small garden of tomatoes and roses, the pleasures of teaching poetry, long walks with a grandson, and encounters with spirituality. For Pelman, there is comfort in the making of a poem and in the “smallest life you can love.” Like the glosa form she turns to often, something small transforms into something larger, expansive. In A Brief and Endless Sea, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and waiting in itself presents fertile ground for hope and possibility.
WHEN: Thursday, November 9th at 7PM (doors at 6:30)
WHERE: In-store at Munro’s Books, 1108 Government St.
WHAT: A reading and Q&A with Arleen Pare and Barbara Pelman.
HOW: This event is free to attend.

Trans People and the Choreography of Reproductive Healthcare by A.J. Lowik
2023-11-15 18:00 | British Columbia
On Wednesday, November 15th at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and Lexington Books in celebrating the launch of Trans People and the Choreography of Reproductive Healthcare: Dancing Outside the Lines, by A.J. Lowik with host Cora Beitel.
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site.
Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Reproductive healthcare is choreographically delivered—an intricate collection of seemingly disparate but deftly balanced elements all come together in a complex dance. It is choreographed in ways that presume that the person accessing it—the dancer-patient—will be, among other things, cisgender. As a result, trans people are altogether erased, systematically unanticipated, insufficiently accommodated, or understood only in relation to hegemonic, regulatory frameworks. Trans People and the Choreography of Reproductive Healthcare: Dancing Outside the Lines draws on data from a research study involving qualitative interviews and participatory photography with fourteen trans people from British Columbia, Canada. It uses dance as a metaphor to expose facets of the restrictive choreography of reproductive healthcare, and to document the improvisational tactics used by trans people in their pursuit of care that is competent, safe, and affirming.
“Dance and choreography are more than metaphors in A.J. Lowik’s fetching blend of social science and cultural studies. Those terms offer analytically apt descriptions of how reproductive healthcare provisions for trans people seeks to script the movements of providers and recipients alike in certain ways, while the individual participants find ways to move creatively within these structural constraints. In the end, Lowik calls upon us all to imagine new ways of moving together in ways that better serve our lives.” — Susan Stryker, author of Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution
–> Special 30% Discount Offer! To get discount, use code LXFANDF30 when ordering. https://rowman.com/Lexington
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A.J. Lowik is a researcher, instructor and consultant, whose work focuses on advancing trans-inclusive and gender-affirming reproductive healthcare, including menstruation, pregnancy, lactation, sterilization, fertility preservation and abortion. A.J. is the Vice-President of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, and a member of the B.C. Period Poverty Task Force. They are the author of Trans People and the Choreography of Reproductive Healthcare: Dancing Outside the Lines, and the co-editor of The Liminal Chrysalis: Imagining Reproduction and Parenting Futures Beyond the Binary. A.J. is a nonbinary, queer, feminist, who loves cats, jigsaw puzzles, board games, and knitting.
ABOUT THE HOST
Cora Beitel is a registered midwife, educator and community organizer working to increase access to reproductive health care for queer and trans families and undocumented people with precarious immigration status. A founder of the Strathcona Midwifery Collective, Cora has facilitated the Trans and Queer Pregnancy and Parenting (TQPP) group since 2015. In addition to their clinical practice, they currently work as a consultant focusing on inclusive pregnancy, birth and postpartum care for gender diverse people. Cora is non-binary and from Eastern European Jewish ancestry and a parent to three awesome kids. When not working, they’re with family and spend their free time knitting, canning, growing garlic and riding their bike.

Better Next Year: An Anthology of Christmas Epiphanies edited by JJ Lee
2023-11-16 18:00 | British Columbia
On Thursday, November 16th at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and Tidewater Press in celebrating the launch of Better Next Year: An Anthology of Christmas Epiphanies, edited by JJ Lee. The evening will include light refreshments and readings from three contributors: JJ Lee, Sonja Larsen and Joanna Baxter.
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site.
Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the book:
Better Next Year An Anthology of Christmas Epiphanies (Tidewater Press, 2023)
Christmas is trumpeted as a time of peace, joy, bounty and goodwill. Believers and non-believers alike covet the spirit of the holidays even when their circumstances are screwed up.
Recollections from acclaimed Canadian authors combine with emerging voices from across the country in an anthology that debunks the popular depiction of Christmas while delivering its messages of hope and renewal.
Writers of colour, immigrants, Indigenous authors, members of the queer and transgendered community and those marginalized by personal circumstance share memories of surviving bleak Christmases past: holidays spent in shelters, prisons or on the streets; families marred by alcohol and violence; personal struggles with addiction, poverty or grief; isolation and loneliness. Despite these and other obstacles, contributors strive to salvage the spirit of the season.
About the contributors:
JJ Lee’s debut book, The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit (McClelland & Stewart) was a finalist for the Hilary Weston, Charles Taylor, Hubert Evans and Governor General’s awards for Non-Fiction. For ten years, he was a contributor reporter, producer, and host for CBC Radio and now leads a Non-Fiction workshop at The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University.
Sonja Larsen’s memoir Red Star Tattoo: My Life as a Girl Revolutionary (Random House Canada) won the 2017 Edna Staebler Non-Fiction award and was shortlisted for The Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Award. She lives in Vancouver, BC, where she is currently working on her second book about her experiences running a computer lab in an inner-city community centre.
Joanna Baxter co-founded and co-hosted a quarterly reading event and podcast called Spiel_Vancouver to support local emerging writers. She is currently working on a collection of short stories. Joanna lives with her husband and two teenagers on Vancouver’s North Shore.

Moonlight Piano and Arts Festival
2023-11-18 18:00 | British Columbia
A family-friendly fantasy themed autumn event showcasing a slice of the wide and diverse local artistic talent in the city. Admire the magical artwork and listen to the soothing music of our singer-storyteller pianists. Located at the venerable Massy Art Gallery at 23 W Pender St, Vancouver, BC, it will be a pleasant, relaxing way to spend a Saturday evening.
This is a mask mandatory space and it is recommended you come in masked, but otherwise, they will be provided on site.
We gratefully acknowledge this event takes place on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh nations, who have been telling and preserving their stories since time immemorial, as well as its close proximity to historic Chinatown who several of our artists have close ties to.

Book Launch: Blue Camas, Blue Camas by Danielle S. Marcotte
2023-11-19 13:00 - 14:30 | Black Bond Books – Ladner, 5251 Ladner Trunk Road, Ladner, BC, V4K 1W4, Canada
Join local author Danielle S. Marcotte for the launch of her new picture book, Blue Camas, Blue Camas.
Sunday, November 19 | 1:00 pm
Black Bond Books – Ladner Village
Blue Camas, Blue Camas is the captivating story of how a flower that has been cultivated on Canada’s west coast since time immemorial came to symbolize the meeting of two contrasting ways of life and the perseverance of traditional knowledge against all odds.
https://www.heritagehouse.ca/book/blue-camas-blue-camas/
“Blue Camas, Blue Camas is a captivating story revealing the overlooked history of colonial contact and its impact on Indigenous communities. Through vivid storytelling and diverse voices, it emphasizes land stewardship, cultural heritage, and fostering empathy, making it a valuable resource for children.”
—SAMANTHA BEYNON, author of Oolichan Moon

Dead Poets Reading Series - Nov. 19, 2023
2023-11-19 18:00 | British Columbia
Join Massy Arts Society on Sunday, November 19th at 3pm for the next Dead Poets Reading Series, as deep threads of connection and solidarity are drawn between local, contemporary poets and a diverse array of poets from the past.
We welcome you to an afternoon reflection and celebration, as poetic conversation and recitation travel through time.
Registration is free/by donation, open to all and required for entrance.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site. Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
Featured readers and poets include:
Phinder Dulai reading T.S. Eliot
Phinder Dulai is the Surrey-based author of dream/arteries (Talon Books) and two previous books of poetry: Ragas from the Periphery (Arsenal Pulp Press, 1995) and Basmati Brown (Nightwood Editions, 2000). Phinder toured dream / arteries extensively across Canada and the USA. His work has appeared in Canadian Literature, Cue Books Anthology. Ankur, Matrix, Memewar Magazine, Rungh Magazine, the Capilano Review, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Toronto South Asian Review, subTerrain, and West Coast LINE. In 2017, he was the co-creater of Canada’s first writing residency for BIPOC writers called Centering Ourselves at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Currently he serves as the Poetry Editor for Canadian Literature Journal.
T.S. Eliot is highly distinguished as a poet, a literary critic, a dramatist, an editor, and a publisher. In 1910 and 1911, while still a college student, he wrote “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” published in Poetry magazine, and other poems that are landmarks in the history of modern literature. Eliot’s most notable works include The Waste Land (1922), Four Quartets (1943), and the play Murder in the Cathedral (1935). Eliot’s awards and honors include the British Order of Merit and the Nobel Prize for Literature. His play The Cocktail Party won the 1950 Tony Award for Best Play. In 1964, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats was famously adapted in 1981 into the musical Cats, which won seven Tony Awards.
Meredith Quartermain reading Douglas Barbour
Meredith Quartermain’s poetry books include Lullabies in the Real World, Vancouver Walking (winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize) and Nightmarker (all from NeWest Press), and Matter and Recipes from the Red Planet (from Book*hug).
Douglas Barbour’s books of poetry include Visible Visions: Selected Poems, Story for a Saskatchewan Night, Fragmenting Body etc, Breath Takes, and Listen. If. He was a co-founder of NeWest Press in Edmonton, and was a professor of English at the University of Alberta. His critical work includes Worlds Out of Words: The SF Novels of Samuel R. Delany and monographs on John Newlove, Daphne Marlatt, bp Nichol and Michael Ondaatje. Barbour’s writing has been characterized as minimalist, aiming to create a landscape of sound equivalent to what his eye sees.
Peter Quartermain reading Maurice Scully
Peter Quartermain’s most recent book is Growing Dumb: My English Education. He is the author of two books of critical essays: Stubborn Poetries and Disjunctive Poetics. He edited the award-winning two-volume Collected Poems and Plays of Robert Duncan, and co-edited two other collections.
Maurice Scully was an Irish poet who lived in Dublin and was the author of more than a dozen books of poetry. His books include 5 Freedoms of Movement, Steps, Livelihood, Sonata, Doing the Same in English, Humming, Several Dances, and Things That Happen. Early in his writing life he edited Beau a literary magazine that featured an impressive range of writers from Ireland, Britain and the U.S. The magazine contributed to the emergence of experimental writers in Ireland. Things That Happen (2020) has been described critically as “the most ambitious and important long poem in modern Irish literature”.
Christopher Levenson reading Gerda Mayer
Christopher Levenson, born 1934 in London, England, has lived in Canada since 1968, first In Ottawa for 39 years where he taught English, Comparative Literature and poetry workshop courses at Carleton University, and co-founded and became first editor of Arc magazine.. In 2007 he moved to Vancouver where,. with Rob Taylor he helped re-start David Zieroth’s Dead Poets Reading Series. He has published fourteen books of poetry, most recently Moorings (Caitlin Press, 2023) and has translated from German and Dutch.
Gerda Mayer, a German-speaking Jew, was born in 1927 in Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia. She came to England at age eleven in 1939 on one of the last Kindertransport trains. After two boarding schools during the war she worked in an office, met and married her husband, and studied at Bedford College, London, for a degree in English, German and Art History, after which she worked for a while for the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner. Her first major poetic success was with Treble Poets 2 in1975 and was followed in 1991 by Bernini’s Cat, New and Selected Poems. She died in July 2021.
Fiona Lam reading Tin Lander
Tim Lander (26 February 1938 – 20 August 2023) Born in February of 1938 in Surrey, England, Tim Lander attended London University before moving to Canada in 1964. A penny whistle-playing itinerant ‘street poet’ and busker, he published over 50 handmade, hand-sewn chapbooks and 2 collections of poetry. Gentle, thoughtful and articulate, he remained an important presence on the West Coast poetry scene for decades, mostly based out of Nanaimo. In 2021, he moved to an assisted living facility and died on 20 August 2023, at the age of 85. (Reference: BC BookWorld Archives.)

Tales for Late Night Bonfires by G.A. Grisenthwaite with host Molly Cross-Blanchard
2023-11-22 08:00 - 17:00 | British Columbia
On Wednesday, December 6th at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and Freehand books in celebrating the launch of G.A. Grisenthwaite’s Tales for Late Night Bonfires, with host Molly Cross-Blanchard.
“Tales for Late Night Bonfires is funny, dark, and rich all at once; each story is immense and alive. Grisenthwaite shows us what fiction can be when story leads the way.” QUILL & QUIRE starred review
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site.
Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the book:
Tales for Late Night Bonfires (Freehand Books, 2023)
These are stories that are a litle bit larger than life, or maybe they really happened. Tales that could be told ’round the campfire, each one-upping the next. Tales about a car that drives herself, ever loyal to her owner. Tales about an impossible moose hunt. Tales about the Real Santa(TM) mashed up with the book of Genesis, alongside SPAM stew and bedroom sets from IKEA.
G.A. Grisenthwaite’s writing is electric and inimitable, blending meticulous literary style with oral storytelling and coming away with a voice that is entirely his own. Tales for Late Night Bonfires is truly one of a kind, and not to be missed.
About the author:
G.A. Grisenthwaite is a Nlaka’pamux writer and a member of the Lytton First Nation. His debut novel, Home Waltz, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Grisenthwaite lives in Kingsville, Ontario. In 2023, he served two months as the Writer-in-Residence at Berton House, Dawson City.
About the host:
Molly Cross-Blanchard is a white and Métis writer and editor born on Treaty 3 territory (Fort Frances, ON), raised on Treaty 6 territory (Prince Albert, SK), and living on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver, BC). She published her debut collection of poems, Exhibitionist, in 2021 with Coach House Books, and currently teaches Creative Writing and Indigenous Studies at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

Family Holiday Book Pop-Up & Reading!
2023-11-25 13:00 - 15:00 | Massy Arts, 23 East Pender, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
On Saturday, November 25th at 1pm, join Massy Arts and Massy Books at the Family Holiday Book Pop-Up & Reading, featuring childrens, middle-reader, and young adult fiction and non-fiction with authors Tanya Boteju, Jillian Christmas, Tony Correia, Hasan Namir, Emily Pohl-Weary, Holman Wang, and Andrea Warner. Plus, enjoy arts & crafts, story prompts, shopping, and book signings!

Escape to Paris: History, Archives and the City of Light
2023-11-25 14:00 - 15:00 | Vancouver Island Regional Library, Sidney/North Saanich Branch, 10091 Resthaven Drive, Sidney, BC, V8L 3G3, Canada
Join local author and archivist Sonia Nicholson as she takes you to one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Following some of the locations featured in her novel, Provenance Unknown, travel from Victoria to Paris using local history and sense of place as a gateway for storytelling.
This casual talk will include an author reading and lots of opportunities for questions. Copies of the book will also be available for purchase, (cash or e-transfer).

Horror in Seconds: Horror Poetry Night
2023-11-25 18:00 | British Columbia
Join for a night of horror poetry and delicious horror-themed catering

An Afternoon With Authors Featuring Tellers of Tales and Poetic Justice
2023-11-26 13:00 - 17:00 | I Heart New West Community Art Space, Unit 103 - 78 10th Street, Columbia Square Plaza, New Westminster, British Columbia, V3M 1C4, Canada
Royal City Literary Arts Society presents An Afternoon With Authors
Featuring Tellers of Tales and Poetic Justice
Sunday November 26, 2023, 1pm to 5pm
Location:
I Heart New West
Community Art Space
Unit 103 – 78 10th Street
Columbia Square Plaza, New Westminster
Tellers of Tales – 1:00pm
• Winona Kent – The Jason Davey Mysteries: Ticket to Ride
• Jerena Tobiasen – The Nightingale and Sparrow Chronicles: Tsarina’s Crown.
• Ruth Kozak – Shadow of the Lion, Dragons in the Sky
• Una Bruhns – Apartheid
Poetic Justice – 3:00pm
• Herb Bryce – Seeds of Poetry
• Franci Louann – Portugal Calling
Music
• Catherine Booth
The Royal City Literary Arts Society presents an afternoon of fiction and poetry, with music, door prizes, a book market (signed books make wonderful Christmas gifts!), nibbles and an open mic. No admission charge. Free parking (the Community Art Space is across from Cockney Kings Fish & Chips in Columbia Square).

Nimrods: a fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir by Kawika Guillermo
2023-11-29 18:00 | British Columbia
On Wednesday, November 29th at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and Duke University Press Books in celebrating the launch of Nimrods: a fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir by Kawika Guillermo, with guest David Chariandy.
Their discussion will focus on memoir, parenthood, and the possibilities of love within histories of violence. Guillermo will also bring his late wife Y-Dang Troeung’s red Chinese stamp to sign copies of her memoir Landbridge on her behalf, as she wished he do.
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site. Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the book:
Nimrods: a fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir (Duke University Press Books, 2023)
In Nimrods, Kawika Guillermo chronicles the agonizing absurdities of being a newly minted professor (and overtired father) hired to teach in a Social Justice Institute while haunted by the inner ghosts of patriarchy, racial pessimism, and imperial arrogance. Charged with the “personal is political” mandate of feminist critique, Guillermo honestly and powerfully recounts his wayward path, from being raised by two preachers’ kids in a chaotic mixed-race family to his uncle’s death from HIV-related illness, which helped prompt his parents’ divorce and his mother’s move to Las Vegas, to his many attempts to flee from American gender, racial, and religious norms by immigrating to South Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Canada. Through an often crass, cringey, and raw hybrid prose-poetic style, Guillermo reflects on anger, alcoholism, and suicidal ideation—traits that do not simply vanish after one is cast into the treacherous role of fatherhood or the dreaded role of professor. Guillermo’s shameless mixtures of autotheory, queer punk poetry, musical ekphrasis, haibun, academic (mis)quotations, and bad dad jokes present a bold new take on the autobiography: the fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir.
About the author:
Kawika Guillermo is a third generation Filipino American whose family is primarily from Hawai’i and Texas. He has lived in Portland, Las Vegas, Seattle, Gimhae South Korea, Nanjing China, Hong Kong, and Vancouver, Canada. His debut novel, Stamped: an anti-travel novel (2018), won the 2020 Association for Asian American Studies Book Award for Creative Prose, while his follow-up speculative fiction novel, All Flowers Bloom (2020), won the 2021 Reviewers Choice Gold Award for Best General Fiction/Novel. His first novel was recently adapted into the video game Stamped: an anti-travel game, released November 1st by Analgesic Productions.
About the guest reader:
David Chariandy is the author of Soucouyant, which was nominated for eleven literary awards, including the Governor General’s Award and the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and Brother, nominated for fourteen awards, winning the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Toronto Book Award. His most recent book is a memoir entitled I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter. David lives in Vancouver and teaches literature and creative writing at Simon Fraser University. In 2019, he received the Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction. In 2022, he was elected a fellow of the Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences of Canada.
Also featuring discussion of:
Landbridge (Knopf Canada, 2023)
The inaugural title from Alchemy by Knopf Canada: A searing account by an exquisite writer who came to Canada as a baby, escaping war in Cambodia.
In 1980, Y-Dang Troeung and her family were among the last of the 60,000 refugees from Cambodia that then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau pledged to relocate to Canada. As the final arrivals, their landing was widely documented in newspapers, with photographs of the PM shaking Y-Dang’s father’s hand, reaching out to pat baby Y-Dang’s head. Forty years later, in her brilliant, astonishing book, Y-Dang returns to this moment, and to many others before and after, to explore the tension between that public narrative of happy “arrival,” and the multiple, often hidden truths of what happened to the people in her family.
In precise, beautiful prose accompanied by moving black-and-white visuals, Y-Dang weaves back and forth in time to tell stories about her parents and two brothers who lived through the Cambodian genocide, about the lives of her grandparents and extended family, about her own childhood in the refugee camps and in rural Ontario, and eventually about her young son’s illness and her own diagnosis with a terminal disease. Through it all, Y-Dang looks with bracing clarity at refugee existence, refusal of gratitude, becoming a scholar, and love.
About Landbridge’s author:
Y-Dang Troeung was Assistant Professor of English at the University of British Columbia, where she did research and taught in the fields of transnational Asian literatures, critical refugee studies, global south studies, and critical disability studies. She was also an Associate Editor of the journal Canadian Literature, and a 2020 Wall Scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. Her recent publications can be found in Canadian Literature, Brick: A Literary Magazine, Amerasia Journal, and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. Y-Dang passed away in November 2022, after completing the final draft of her extraordinary memoir, Landbridge. See also: http://www.y-dang.com/

Storied: Writing and illustrating comics with Michele Assarasakorn and Nathan Fairbairn
2023-11-29 19:00 - 20:00 | British Columbia
Join the BC and Yukon Book Prizes for Storied: Discussions on Books, Publishing, and the Creative Process.
On Wednesday, November 29th, Michele Assarasakorn and Nathan Fairbairn will be offering mini-lectures on writing and illustrating comics and graphic novels. Michele and Nathan’s book PAWS: Mindy Makes Some Space was a finalist for the 2023 Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize.
The event begins at 7 pm (PT). It will run for an hour.
This is a free event, but registration is required.
Funding for the Storied Series is thanks to Canada Book Fund, Creative BC, the Government of BC and the Canada Council for the Arts.
About the guests:
Nathan Fairbairn is a New York Times bestselling and Eisner-nominated creator who has worked as a colorist for such iconic characters as Spider-Man, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Scott Pilgrim. He’s also co-creator, writer, and colorist of the graphic novel Lake of Fire. He started writing PAWS, his middle grade debut, as a way to share his passion for comics and storytelling with his daughter. Nathan lives with his family in Vancouver. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram (@NathanFairbairn) and see more of his work at nathanfairbairn.com.
Michele Assarasakorn (also known as MSASSYK) is colorist who worked on comic series such as Eisner-nominated Isola, Gotham Academy, and the Magnificent Ms. Marvel. Originally from Bangkok, Thailand, Michele now calls Vancouver home but also likes to travel the world working remotely as an artist. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@Msassyk) and see more of her work at msassyk.com.

The Bones of Belonging: Finding Wholeness in a White World
2023-11-30 08:00 - 17:00, 2023-11-30 18:00 | British Columbia
On Thursday, November 30th at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and Dundurn Press in celebrating The Bones of Belonging: Finding Wholeness in a White World with author Annahid Dashtgard, in conversation with equity leader Suzanne Hawkes.
“Annahid is a stunning writer, daring to speak truths that are often hidden or marginalized, and in the process opening people’s hearts and minds.” —Judy Rebick, journalist and author
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site.
Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the book:
Bones of Belonging: Finding Wholeness in a White World (Dundurn Press, 2023)
Sharp, funny, and poignant stories of what it’s like to be a Brown woman working for change in a white world.
I take a deep breath, check my lipstick one last time on my phone camera, and turn on my mic. It’s about ten steps, two metres, and one lifetime to the front of the room. “Hello,” I repeat. “My name is Annahid — pronounced Ah-nah-heed — and shit’s about to get real!”
In a series of deft interlocking stories Annahid Dashtgard shares her experiences searching for, and teaching about, belonging in our deeply divided world. A critically acclaimed, racialized immigrant writer and recognized inclusion leader, Dashtgard writes with wisdom, honesty, and a wry humour as she considers what it means to belong — to a country, in a marriage, in our own skin — and what it means when belonging is absent. Like the bones of the human body, these stories knit together a remarkable vision of what wholeness looks like as a racial outsider in a culture still dominated by whiteness.
About the author:
Annahid Dashtgard is an author and CEO/ Co-founder of leading racial justice company Anima Leadership. Her books Bones of Belonging: Finding Wholeness in a White World (Dundurn, 2023) and Breaking the Ocean: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion and Reconciliation (Anansi, 2019) have both been bestsellers, marking her a voice to listen to. She is also host of the podcast Soundwaves of Belonging, creator of the BIPOC Leader Lab program and spends what’s left of her free time trying to keep up with her two kids. Her personal mantra: Be excellent, love fiercely, no bullshit.
About the guest:
Suzanne Hawkes is an equity-centered management consultant, leadership trainer, and facilitator. She has supported stakeholder engagement and dialogue, organizational planning and change initiatives across the US, Canada and overseas for 25 years, for a range of corporate, governmental and not-for-profit clients. Her vision: a multi-racial, cross-sectoral network of collaborative, service-oriented leaders working across difference to achieve transformational change.

Lha yudit’ih — We Always Find a Way
2023-12-01 18:00 | British Columbia
On Friday, December 1st at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and Talonbooks in celebrating the launch of Lha yudit’ih — We Always Find a Way: Bringing the Tŝilhqot’in Title Case Home by Lorraine Weir with Chief Roger William. We are honoured to also have sχɬemtəna:t Audrey Siegl (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) conducting a Welcome for this event.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site.
Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the book:
Lha yudit’ih — We Always Find a Way is a community oral history of Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, the first case in Canada to result in a declaration of Aboriginal Rights and Title to a specific piece of land. Told from the perspective of the Plaintiff, Chief Roger William, joined by fifty Xeni Gwet’ins, Tŝilhqot’ins, and allies, this book encompasses ancient stories of creation, modern stories of genocide through smallpox and residential school, and stories of resistance including the Tŝilhqot’in War, direct actions against logging and mining, and the twenty-five-year battle in Canadian courts to win recognition of what Tŝilhqot’ins never gave up and have always known.
About the authors:
Chief Roger William is the Plaintiff in the Tŝilhqot’in Rights and Title case. Born at Naghataneqed in Xeni, he is from the Bulyan family and is the great-great-grandson of Warrior Qaq’ez, older brother of Warrior Chief Lhats’assʔin. Roger served his community, Xeni Gwet’in, for six terms as Chief and three terms as Councillor. In recognition of his twenty-five-year contribution to the Title case, Chief William was awarded an honorary LL.D. by the University of Northern British Columbia in 2015.
Lorraine Weir came to oral history from Irish studies early in her career and Indigenous Studies more recently via a bridge from the Law and Society field and papers on the concepts of “time immemorial” and “oral tradition” in the Tŝilhqot’in case. She worked as an expert witness in touchstone Canadian censorship court cases. A fifth-generation descendant of Irish Famine survivors, she grew up in Montréal and holds a Ph.D. in Irish literature from Ollscoil na hÉireann (National University of Ireland). Weir is an Emeritus Professor of Indigenous Studies, Department of English Language and Literatures, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
______
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.

Under the Table Open Mic Series Ft. Smokii Sumac
2023-12-01 18:00 | British Columbia

Book Launch: Better Next Year
2023-12-01 18:00 - 20:00 | Caffè Fantastico Specialty Coffees, 965 Kings Road, Victoria, British Columbia, V8T 1W7, Canada
Please join Munro’s Books in launching Better Next Year: An Anthology of Christmas Epiphanies!!
Christmas is trumpeted as a time of peace, joy, bounty and goodwill. Believers and non-believers alike covet the spirit of the holidays even when circumstances are screwed up.
Recollections from acclaimed Canadian authors combine with emerging voices from across the country in an anthology that debunks the popular depiction of Christmas while delivering its messages of hope and renewal.
Writers marginalized by personal circumstance, faith, and race share memories of surviving bleak Christmases past: holidays spent in shelters, or on the streets; families marred by alcohol and violence; personal struggles with addiction, poverty or grief; isolation and loneliness. Despite these and other obstacles, contributors strive to salvage the spirit of the season.
This event will be hosted by the book’s editor, J. J. Lee and will feature readings from Joseph Kakwinokanasum and Jordan Kawchuk.
WHEN: Friday, December 1st from 6PM-8PM
WHERE: Caffe Fantastico Roastery, 965 Kings Rd.
WHAT: Hosted by J. J. Lee, readings from Joseph Kakwinokanasum and Jordan Kawchuk
HOW: This event is free to attend

North Shore Authors Collection Book Fair
2023-12-02 10:00 - 14:00 | North Vancouver Public Library – Lynn Valley branch, 1277 Lynn Valley Road, North Vancouver, BC, V7J 0A2, Canada
SHOP LOCAL, READ LOCAL
North Shore Authors Collection Book Fair
When: Saturday December 2, 2023 10am – 2pm
Where: Community Meeting Room across from the Lynn Valley Library
Looking for great holiday gifts or eager to discover captivating stories written by North Shore authors? Join us to read local and support local authors.
Explore a diverse collection of books authored by more than 20 talented writers from the North Shore Authors Collection. Meet the authors in person to chat about their work or have your books personally signed.
Note: authors may have different payment preferences, including cash, e-transfer, or cheque.
No registration required. Call 604-984-0286, ext. 8144 for more information.

Wild Prose Readings Presents: Boy, Interrupted
2023-12-03 19:00 - 22:00 | British Columbia
Please join the Wild Prose Reading Series for Boy, Interrupted—readings from books about young men whose lives were interrupted, and the story of how they came back. Jason Jobin will read from his memoir, The Wild Mandrake, about his struggle with cancer as a young man; Katłįà will read from her novel, This House is Not A Home, about a young Dene man who goes hunting and returns to find that his home has been bulldozed by the government, and Jason Schreurs will read from his memoir about how punk rock has helped him and many others cope with their mental health issues: Scream Therapy: A Punk Journey Through Mental Health. The evening will begin with an open mic, opened by local poet, Sophie Crocker.

Book Launch / Tales for Late Night Bonfires by G.A. Grisenthwaite with host Molly Cross-Blanchard
2023-12-06 18:00 - 20:00 | British Columbia
On Wednesday, December 6th at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and Freehand books in celebrating the launch of G.A. Grisenthwaite’s Tales for Late Night Bonfires, with host Molly Cross-Blanchard.
“Tales for Late Night Bonfires is funny, dark, and rich all at once; each story is immense and alive. Grisenthwaite shows us what fiction can be when story leads the way.” QUILL & QUIRE starred review
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance. Register here: https://www.showpass.com/tales-for-late-night-bonfires-by-ga-grisenthwaite-with-host-molly-cross-blanchard/
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site.
Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the book:
Tales for Late Night Bonfires (Freehand Books, 2023)
These are stories that are a litle bit larger than life, or maybe they really happened. Tales that could be told ’round the campfire, each one-upping the next. Tales about a car that drives herself, ever loyal to her owner. Tales about an impossible moose hunt. Tales about the Real Santa(TM) mashed up with the book of Genesis, alongside SPAM stew and bedroom sets from IKEA.
G.A. Grisenthwaite’s writing is electric and inimitable, blending meticulous literary style with oral storytelling and coming away with a voice that is entirely his own. Tales for Late Night Bonfires is truly one of a kind, and not to be missed.
About the author:
G.A. Grisenthwaite is a Nlaka’pamux writer and a member of the Lytton First Nation. His debut novel, Home Waltz, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Grisenthwaite lives in Kingsville, Ontario. In 2023, he served two months as the Writer-in-Residence at Berton House, Dawson City.
About the host:
Molly Cross-Blanchard is a white and Métis writer and editor born on Treaty 3 territory (Fort Frances, ON), raised on Treaty 6 territory (Prince Albert, SK), and living on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver, BC). She published her debut collection of poems, Exhibitionist, in 2021 with Coach House Books, and currently teaches Creative Writing and Indigenous Studies at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

Storied: On queerness in children’s books with Danny Ramadan and Robin Stevenson
2023-12-13 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Join the BC and Yukon Book Prizes for Storied: Discussions on Books, Publishing, and the Creative Process.
On Wednesday, December 13th, Danny Ramadan, author of Salma the Syrian Chef, The Foghorn Echoes and more, and Robin Stevenson, winner of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence, will discuss queerness in children’s book.
The event begins at 7 pm (PT). It will run for an hour.
This is a free event, but registration is required. There will be no recording for this event.
Funding for the Storied Series is thanks to Canada Book Fund, Creative BC, the Government of BC and the Canada Council for the Arts.
About the guests:
Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian author and LGBTQ-refugees advocate. His latest novel, The Foghorn Echoes (Penguin – 2022) won the Lambda Award for Gay Fiction, and is shortlisted for the BC & Yukon Book awards, as well as the city of Vancouver Book Award. The Clothesline Swing (Nightwood – 2017) is translated to multiple languages. His award-winning children’s books The Salma Series includes picture book Salma the Syrian Chef (2020), and early chapters books Salma Makes a Home, Salma Writes a Book (2023) and Salma Joins the Team (2024). He is expected to release his memoir Crooked Teeth in 2024. His short stories and essays have appeared in publications across North America and Europe. Since his arrival to Canada, Ramadan has raised over $300,000 for LGBTQ+ identifying refugees.
Robin Stevenson is the award winning author of thirty books of fiction and non-fiction for kids and teens: her writing has been translated into numerous languages and published in more than a dozen countries. Robin’s books have won the Silver Birch Award, the Sheila A. Egoff award and a Stonewall Honor, and been finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Awards, the Lambda Literary Awards, and many reader’s choice awards. She is the Book and Periodical Council of Canada’s Champion of Free Expression for 2022.
