The Writing Centre presents the On Edge Reading Series, which seeks to enrich literary and writing communities both inside and outside of the Emily Carr University community.
The series showcases the work of writers who are doing the freshest, most interesting, and relevant work, writers who are also artists, volunteers, literary award winners, social justice organizers, prison abolitionists, literary organizers, dancers, managing editors, filmmakers, creative writing instructors, and scholars. The On Edge programming serves to enrich literary and writing communities both inside and outside of ECUAD. The series is support by the Emily Carr Writing Centre with grateful acknowledgement to the Canada Council for the Arts and the Coast Salish First Nations whose traditional lands we are on.
All readings are FREE and open to the public. ASL interpretation is provided.
This series is organized and hosted by Mercedes Eng and assisted by Tenaya.
Logo and posters by Sandy.
On Edge on social media:
Follow On Edge on Instagram to stay up to date.
For any other inquiries:
Please e-mail onedge@ecuad.ca
FALL 2023 *NEW*
FEATURING:
Molly Cross-Blanchard
Wednesday, Sept 27 at 6:30 pm PT
HYBRID session: attend in-person in the Artist Book Room (ECU Library) OR by Zoom
Molly Cross-Blanchare is a white and Métis writer, editor, and educator born on Treaty 3 (Fort Frances, ON), raised on Treaty 6 (Prince Albert, SK), and currently living on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, colonially known as Vancouver. She is the former poetry editor of PRISM international, the former publisher of Room, and currently teaches creative writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. In service to the writing community, Molly serves as the Indigenous Advocate for the National Council of TWUC, sits on the Board of Directors at Asparagus Magazine, and consults on the Equity Advisory Committee at the BC Arts Council. Her debut collection of poetry is Exhibitionist (Coach House 2021).
Jody Chan
Tuesday, Oct 17 at 6:30 pm PT
ONLINE session: Zoom registration
Jody Chan is a writer, drummer, community organizer, and care worker based in Toronto/Tkaronto. They are the author of sick (Black Lawrence Press), which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary and Pat Lowther Memorial Awards, and winner of the 2018 St. Lawrence Book Award and 2021 Trillium Award for Poetry. Jody is also a performing and teaching member with RAW Taiko Drummers, and they can be found online at www.jodychan.com.
Steffi Tad-y
Tuesday, Nov 7 at 6:30 pm PT
ONLINE session: Zoom Registration
Born and raised in Manila, Steffi Tad-y is a poet & writer based in the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, & Tsleil-Waututh Nations, also known as Vancouver, British Columbia. Her chapbook of poems Merienda published by Rahila’s Ghost Press was nominated for the 2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award. In 2022, she published her debut book of poetry From the Shoreline with Gordon Hill Press. Steffi’s poems often reflect on kinship, diasporic geographies, & formations of the mind.
Mackenzie Ground
Tuesday, Nov 28 at 6:30 pm PT
HYBRID session: attend in-person in the Artist Book Room (ECU Library) OR by Zoom
Mackenzie Ground is a nehiyawiskwew from Enoch maskekosihk Cree Nation and Edmonton amiskwacîwâskahikan, Alberta. She is a PhD student at Simon Fraser University in the Department of English. She is a writer and a language learner of nehiyawewin (the Plains Cree language), and her work considers the relationships of identity and place, to the land and to cities, and to the more-than-human beings who live there. Her writing has appeared in The Capilano Review, The Denver Quarterly, and C Magazine among others. She is thankful for the support of her friends.
PREVIOUS SEASONS OF THE ON EDGE READING SERIES:
SPRING 2023
FEATURING:
Manahil Bandukwala
Tuesday, January 24th, 2023 at 6:30 pm PT
Online event: Zoom registration
Manahil Bandukwala is a writer and visual artist originally from Pakistan and now settled in Canada. She works as Coordinating Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine, and is Digital Content Editor for Canthius. She is a member of Ottawa-based collaborative writing group VII. Her debut poetry collection is MONUMENT (Brick Books). See her work at manahilbandukwala.com.
Adam Pottle
Monday, February 6th, at 6:30 pm PT
Online event: Zoom registration
Adam Pottle is a Deaf author whose writing spans multiple genres. His works include the novella The Bus, the memoir Voice, and the groundbreaking Deaf musical The Black Drum. His work has won and been nominated for numerous awards, including Saskatchewan Book Awards, the ReLit Award, and the National Magazine Award. In the 2021-22 academic year, he served Sheridan College as writer in residence, and in 2022 he was a Warner Bros. Discovery Access screenwriting fellow. His prairie gothic horror novel Apparitions will appear in Fall 2023, and his children’s story Butterfly on the Wind will be released in Spring 2024. He lives in Saskatoon, where he teaches English and creative writing.
Photo Credit: Tenille Campbell of Sweetmoon Photography
Alessandra Naccarato
Tuesday, February 28, 2023 at 6:30 pm PT
Online event: Zoom registration
Alessandra Naccarato is the author of Imminent Domains: Reckoning with the Anthropocene (Essays) and Re-Origin of Species (Poems). Born and raised in Tkaronto (Toronto), her poetry and essays explore intersections of disability and ecological change, and have appeared widely in publications such as The New Quarterly, Room Magazine, and Event. She is the recipient of numerous recognitions, including the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award and the CBC Poetry Prize, and holds graduate degrees in both creative writing and community economic development, supporting two decades of work in grassroots social change, community arts, and the prevention of gender-based violence. Her debut poetry collection, Re-Origin of Species, was awarded the AICW Bressani Literary Prize for Poetry, shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, and named a Best Book of 2019 by CBC Books.
Photo credit: Simon Beckmann of JOYA
Joshua Whitehead
Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 6:30 pm PT
Online event: Zoom registration
Joshua Whitehead is an Oji-nêhiyaw, Two-Spirit member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is the author of full-metal indigiqueer, Jonny Appleseed, and Making Love with the Land. He is also the editor of Love after the End: an Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction and has a chapbook, Indigiqueerness: a Conversation on Storytelling to be published in 2023 with AU Press alongside Angie Abdou. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary where he is housed in the departments of English and International Indigenous Studies.
Photo Credit: Tenille K Campbell of Sweetmoon Photography
This season’s poster (click thumbnail to enlarge):
FALL 2022
bailey macabre + Whess Harman
October 11th, 2022 at 6:30 pm
bailey macabre is an agender Cree, Métis and Ukrainian artist and writer who is passionate about bright colours, Indigenous sovereignty, and identity; these themes are often at play within their works. bailey has experience working in a variety of mediums and dabbles in everything from sculpture and beadwork, illustration, zines and comic arts, to painting and sewing. they currently reside on the territory of the Snuneymuxw people.
Whess Harman is Carrier Wit’at, a nation amalgamated by the federal government under the Lake Babine Nation. They graduated from the Emily Carr University BFA program in 2014 and are currently living and working on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh as the curator at grunt gallery.
Their multidisciplinary practice includes beading, illustration, text, poetry and curation. As a mixed-race, trans artist they work to find their way through a tasty plethora of a reasonably managed attention deficit disorder, colonial bullshit and queer melancholy. To the best of their patience, they do this with humour and a carefully mediated cynicism that the galleries go hog wild for.
Twitter: @ndn_bebop
Rebecca Salazar
November 1st, 2022 at 6:30 pm
Rebecca Salazar (she/they) is a writer, editor, and community organizer living on the unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik. Salazar is the author of two chapbooks, and her first full-length collection sulphurtongue (McClelland & Stewart), an urgent, powerful examination of place and the ways in which all kinds of identities exist and collide, was a finalist for the 2021 Governor General’s Award for Poetry, longlisted for the Gerald Lampert Menmorial Award, and shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award.
David Ly
November 8th, 2022 at 6:30 pm
David Ly is the author of Mythical Man (2020), which was shortlisted for the 2021 ReLit Poetry Award, and Dream of Me as Water (2022), both published under the Anstruther Books imprint at Palimpsest Press. He is also co-editor (with Daniel Zomparelli) of Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022). David’s poems have appeared in publications such as Arc Poetry Magazine, Best Canadian Poetry, PRISM International, and The Puritan, where he won the inaugural Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence. David is the Poetry Editor at This Magazine.
This season’s poster (click thumbnail to enlarge):
FALL 2021
SEPT 21, 2021 with Dallas Hunt
OCT 5, 2021 with Leah Horlick
OCT 26, 2021 with Chantal Gibson
NOV 16, 2021 with Jas Morgan
Organized and hosted by Mercedes Eng and Vance W.
This season’s poster (click to enlarge):
Spring 2021
JAN 18 – Cecily Nicholson, Hari Alluri + Junie Désil
FEB 9 – Amber Dawn + Justin Ducharme
MAR 2 – Brandi Bird, Emily Riddle + Jessica Johns
MAR 18 – jaye simpson
MAR 25 – Billy-Ray Belcourt
Curated and hosted by Mercedes Eng, and co-hosted by Vance W.
This season’s poster (click to enlarge):
