Indigenous Writers & Storyteller Series

by | Oct 25, 2024 | Events, Faculty, indigenous, Writing

When this year’s installment of the sxʷiʔe ̕m “To Tell A Story” Indigenous Writers & Storytellers Series returns to UVic on November 1, it will be the latest gift to the community by the Department of Writing and professor Gregory Scofield.

“My goal is to honor the nations on whose territory we live, and to celebrate and honour the writers and storytellers in our communities,” he says. 

Scofield is following up last year’s successful event by presenting two acclaimed Indigenous authors this year: Icelandic/Red River Métis poet Jónína Kirton and Cree author Joseph Kakwinokansum. 

“It has been and continues to be a very exciting time for Indigenous writers and storytellers,” he says. “There are so many important stories to be shared, told and celebrated across Turtle Island through the mediums of literature, film, music, dance and oral storytelling . . . . As more Canadians become aware of truth and reconciliation, more people are reading works by Indigenous writers and gaining knowledge of our history.”

Scofield

About Jónína Kirton

Jónína Kirkton was born in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba: Treaty 1 territory, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, Dene peoples and the homeland of the Métis. She graduated from the SFU Writer’s Studio in 2007 and since that time has published three books with Talonbooks. She was 61 when she received the 2016 Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award for an Emerging Artist in the Literary Arts category, the same year her first collection — page as bone, ink as blood — was released.

Her second collection of poetry, An Honest Woman, was a finalist in the 2018 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her third book, Standing in a River of Time, was released in 2022. It merges poetry and lyrical memoir to take us on a journey exposing the intergenerational effects of colonization on her Métis family. She currently lives in New Westminster BC, the unceded territory of many Coast Salish Nations. Although she acknowledges and is thankful for the teachings offered through academic institutions, she leans heavily into what some term ‘other ways of knowing.’ Her writing is often a weaving of body and land as she firmly believes until we care for women’s bodies we will not care for the earth.

About Joseph Kakwinokansum

Joseph Kakwinokansum is a writer, creator, and storyteller. A member of the James Smith Cree Nation, he grew up in the Peace Region of northern BC and is a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio and Writer’s Studio Graduate Workshop.

He was selected by Darrel J. McLeod as one of the Writers Trust of Canada’s Rising Stars of 2022. His short story “Ray Says” was a finalist for CBC’s Nonfiction Prize in 2020 and his manuscript Woodland Creetures was awarded the 2014 Canada Council for the Arts Creation Grant for Aboriginal Peoples, Writers, and Storytellers.

His debut novel, My Indian Summer (loosely based on his own childhood) was winner of the 2023-2024 First Nations Communities READ Award and shortlisted for the 2023 ReLit Award for fiction. His work has been published in the Humber Literary Journal and the anthologies Resonance: Essays on the Craft and Life of Writing, Emerge: The Writer’s Studio and Better Next Year: An Anthology of Christmas Epiphanies.

Kakwinokansum was also selected as the 2024 Storyteller in Residence for Vancouver Public Library.

The free event  sxʷiʔe ̕m “To Tell A Story” Indigenous Writers & Storytellers Series, starts at 7pm Friday, November 1, in UVic’s First Peoples House. Books will be available for purchase & signing

Kathryn Mockler wins Victoria Book Prize

by | Oct 23, 2024 | Award, climate, Faculty, Writing

The Writing department’s 2024 Victoria Book Prize finalists (from left): Tim Lilburn, Ali Blyth, Kathryn Mockler, Arleen Paré 

This year, October should be renamed the “Month of Mockler”, given how much Department of Writing professor Kathryn Mockler has been popping up. Not only was she announced as a shortlister for — and eventual winner of — the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize (more on that later), but she was also one of three jurors for the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry, appeared as part of the Wild Prose literary roundtable “Alice in Monsterland: Alice Munro and other ‘art monsters’” and was one of the featured readers at the Department of Writing’s Faculty Reading Night.

But it was her Butler Book Prize win for her new story collection Anecdotes which really gave her cause to celebrate.

Named the winner at the annual public gala at the Union Club on October 16, Mockler was originally announced as a finalist alongside recently retired Writing professor Tim Lilburn (Numinous Seditions: Interiority and Climate Change) plus Writing alumni Ali Blythe (Stedfast) and Arleen Paré (Absence of Wings), as well as local poet Shō Yamagushiku (Shima).

It was a notable indicator of excellence that four of the five finalists were connected to our Writing department and, in her acceptance speech, Mockler noted that she was “humbled to be in the company of these finalists and their beautiful books”.

Prize money to charity  

While the win may have been a surprise to the author, her donation of the $5,000 prize money to three local charities was likely a surprise to the event’s audience. Yet such a move was not surprising for Mockler, who describes the act of writing as being “inherently political”.

“No matter how solitary the act of writing can feel, a writer is always addressing a collective, shared world — describing, analyzing, critiquing, redefining and expanding it. Writers cannot ignore the world that shapes their words nor the world that receives them,” she noted in her acceptance speech.

“In Anecdotes, I use personal experiences to grapple with violence, oppression and the climate crisis, and I am accepting this award at a time in which a genocide is being perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians with the support of the US, Canada and many European states—the same colonial forces responsible for the genocide of Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island.

“While Canada makes me complicit in these crimes through its arms sales and moral failure, I am deeply grateful to the judges and the Victoria Butler Book Prize for enabling me to donate the entirety of this award money to the following:

She concluded by saying, “I encourage anyone appalled by these atrocities to seek out groups like ArmsEmbargoNow and World Beyond War.”

About Anecdotes

Mockler’s sixth book, Anecdotes is her latest collection of characteristically disruptive writing (see also the 2020 anthology Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis, which she co-edited) and is described as a hybrid collection of “dreamlike stories and dark humour” which examines the pressing realities of sexual violence, abuse and environmental collapse.

A finalist for four other awards (2023 Danuta Gleed Literary Award, 2024 Trillium Book Award, 2024 Fred Kerner Book Award, 2024 VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award), Anecdotes was also recently reviewed in subTerrain Magazine.

Southam Lecture:John Vaillant

by | Oct 18, 2024 | climate, Events, Writing

Humans, aided by the fossil fuel industry (AKA the “fire industry”), have altered the chemistry of our planet and its atmosphere in life-changing ways. As a result, we are now crossing a threshold into a new climate regime marked by previously unimagined extremes and whipsawing instability. How we conceptualize and respond to this unprecedented challenge is of immediate and paramount importance, not just to our psyches and our souls, but to the future of everyone on Earth.

Listen to this memorable evening with acclaimed author John Vaillant (The Golden Spruce, The Tiger) as
he discusses his compelling new book, Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, about the catastrophic 2016 Fort McMurray wildfires. Vaillant explores not just the environmental and human toll, but also the broader implications of our relationship with a planet increasingly defined and deformed by the extreme events of human-fuelled climate change.

Vaillant recently won the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize at the BC & Yukon Book Prizes for Fire Weather (Knopf Canada).

This is more than just a story of fire — it’s a warning, a call to action, and an unforgettable narrative of survival, resilience, and the undeniable power of nature.

Hear John Vaillant at 7pm Thursday, October 24 in room 105 of UVic’s Hickman Building • Free & open to all! 

A legacy of excellence

Vaillant is only the latest writer to be named a Southam Lecturer, joining the recent likes of Tyee founder David Beers, climate journalist Andrew Nikiforuk, science writer Erica Gies and many others. Since 2007, we have been bringing some of Canada’s leading print and broadcast journalists to campus to speak, teach and mentor our Writing students.  

The annual Harvey Stevenson Southam Lectureship — named after UVic alumnus Harvey Southam — is made possible by a gift from one of the country’s leading publishing families.

Orion Series presents Virtuosic Technologies

by | Oct 15, 2024 | Alumni, Events, indigenous, Orion Series in Fine Arts, School of Music

The Orion
Lecture Series in Fine Arts

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present:

 

 

 

 

“Virtuosic Technologies:

Indigenous and European

musical storytelling in the

17th century”

 

Featuring
Jonathon Adams, baritone
Chloe Kim, violin
Tom Foster, harpsichord/organ

 

7–9pm Monday, October 21 

Free & open to all

Presented by UVic’s School of Music 

For more information on this lecture please email: arthistory@uvic.ca

About the event 

 

Part conversation, part listening circle and open rehearsal, this session will approach works from this virtuosic European oeuvre, sharing specific technical challenges, comparing resources, and revealing moments of personal joy. They will also share early recordings of florid Cree singing, and examples of other highly ornamented traditional storytelling mediums, illuminating similarities between Indigenous modes of storytelling and the “geistliches Konzert” form.

As an ensemble, they consider the following questions: What technologies do we rely on to learn and share stories of deep spiritual resonance in a good way? What curatorial accountability do we accept when programming ancient European repertoires today, on stolen land? As we share these 350 year old sonic gems of world-bending grief, world-making ecstasy, world-affirming faith with you, can we do so in a musically curious and generative way? Inviting any voice, any body, any way of knowing into the circle?

About the artists

 

Jonathon Adams is a Cree-Métis two-spirit baritone from amiskwaciwâskahikan  (Edmonton, AB). They have appeared as a soloist under Masaaki Suzuki, Philippe Herreweghe, Laurence Equilbey, and Alexander Weimann, among others, with the New York Philharmonic, National Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, the Washington Bach Consort, Tafelmusik, Ricercar Consort, B’Rock, Vox Luminis, the Netherlands Bach Society, and il Gardellino. In 2021 they were named the first artist-in-residence at Early Music Vancouver. They have lectured and led workshops at the Universities of Toronto, Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta (Augustana), Bard College, Festival Montréal Baroque, and the Juilliard School. Jonathon was featured in Against the Grain Theatre’s 2020 film MESSIAH/COMPLEX, in Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s MEA CULPA with Ballet Vlaanderen, and on Jessica McMann’s most recent album ‘Prairie Dusk’. They attended the Victoria Conservatory of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, studying with Nancy Argenta, Emma Kirkby and Rosemary Joshua.

Praised as a “rising superstar” (The Georgia Straight) who performs with “passion and intensity to electrifying effect” (The Vancouver Sun), CBC’s 30 under 30 violinist Chloe Kim (UVic BMus ’18) has performed internationally with leading ensembles such as Voices of Music, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and The English Concert. Chloe has shared the stage with celebrated figures including Rachel Podger, Masaaki Suzuki, and Pablo Heras-Casado. She is the recipient of several awards, most recently including the 2021 American Bach Society Grant, 2020/21 Mercury-Juilliard Fellowship, as well as nominations for Canada’s prestigious Sylva Gelber Award and the 2024 WMCT Career Development Award. Chloe has served on the panel for the BC Arts Council and is also a Fellow of The English Concert in America, elected in 2021. Collaborations with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants have brought her to concert venues across France. In the summer of 2019, Chloe performed across Scandinavia with Yale’s Schola Cantorum and served as concertmaster of Juilliard415 for multiple productions of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in London’s Holland Park and the Opéra Royal de Versailles. Chloe is indebted to her dear friends and mentors Elizabeth Blumenstock, Jeanne Lamon, Christina Mahler, and Heilwig von Königslöw.

Praised for his “dazzling virtuosity” (The Spectator), Tom Foster has a busy career as a continuo player on organ and harpsichord and as a harpsichord soloist. Respected for his sensitive and inventive continuo playing, Tom is the principal keyboard player of the English Concert and is a regular guest with The Academy of Ancient Music, Arcangelo, The Dunedin Consort, Early Opera Company, The Mahler Chamber Orchestra, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Scottish Ensemble and The Sixteen. These collaborations have taken him to concert halls throughout Europe, the United States, Australia, Russia and South Korea. He has performed concertos at the Edinburgh International Festival and made his US solo-debut at Carnegie Hall in 2020. Tom began his musical education as a choirboy at Manchester Cathedral, then as a pianist and harpsichordist at Chetham’s School of Music. He holds a first-class degree in Music (BA) from St. Catherine’s College, Oxford and gained a Distinction in Performance (MA) from the Royal Academy of Music under the tutelage of Trevor Pinnock.

About the Orion Fund

Established through the generous gift of an anonymous donor, the Orion Fund in Fine Arts is designed to bring distinguished visitors from other parts of Canada—and the world—to the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Fine Arts, and to make their talents and achievements available to faculty, students, staff and the wider Greater Victoria community who might otherwise not be able to experience their work.

The Orion Fund also exists to encourage institutions outside Canada to invite regular faculty members from our Faculty of Fine Arts to be visiting  artists/scholars at their institutions; and to make it possible for Fine Arts faculty members to travel outside Canada to participate in the academic life of foreign institutions and establish connections and relationships with them in order to encourage and foster future exchanges.

Visit our online events calendar at www.events.uvic.ca

Orion Series presents Carleigh Baker

by | Oct 7, 2024 | Alumni, Events, indigenous, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Theatre, Writing

The Orion
Lecture Series in Fine Arts

Through the generous support of the Orion Fund in Fine Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Victoria, is pleased to present:

Carleigh Baker 

Writer

“Writing Fiction in our Complicated Contemporary World”

2:30-3:50pm, Monday, October 21
Room A240 UVic’s HSD Building 

 Free & open to all

Presented by UVic’s Department of Writing

For more information on this lecture please email: writing@uvic.ca

About Carleigh Baker 

Carleigh Baker is a Métis-Cree/Icelandic writer and UVic Fine Arts alumna who lives on the unceded territories of the peoples. Her debut story collection, Bad Endings, won the City of Vancouver Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Award, the Indigenous Voices Awards and the Bill Duthie Booksellers Choice Award at the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. Her short stories and essays have been translated into several languages and anthologized in Canada, the United States and Europe.

Baker’s new story collection, Last Woman, was released this year by McClelland & Stewart. Floods and wildfires, toxic culture, billionaires in outer space, or a purse-related disaster while on mushrooms—in today’s hellscape world, there’s no shortage of things to worry about—and Last Woman wants you to know that you’re not alone. Her novel-in-progress, Platformer, is about chosen family, storytelling and honeybees.

As a teacher and researcher, she is particularly interested in how contemporary fiction can be used to address the climate crisis.

About the Orion Fund

Established through the generous gift of an anonymous donor, the Orion Fund in Fine Arts is designed to bring distinguished visitors from other parts of Canada—and the world—to the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Fine Arts, and to make their talents and achievements available to faculty, students, staff and the wider Greater Victoria community who might otherwise not be able to experience their work.

The Orion Fund also exists to encourage institutions outside Canada to invite regular faculty members from our Faculty of Fine Arts to be visiting  artists/scholars at their institutions; and to make it possible for Fine Arts faculty members to travel outside Canada to participate in the academic life of foreign institutions and establish connections and relationships with them in order to encourage and foster future exchanges.

Visit our online events calendar at www.events.uvic.ca