Latest News / Nouvelles
September 27-29, 2023
Three Events with Olive Senior
The Centre for Literatures in Canada/Centre de littératures au Canada and Canada Research Chair Nominee Dr. Michael A. Bucknor present award-winning essayist, poet, novelist, and children’s literature writer Olive Senior.
Please join us for as many of these events as you can, and share widely!
Wednesday, September 27 from 12 to 1 PM
Reading + Q & A in Henderson Hall (Rutherford Library South 1-17). This event kicks off the CLC's 2023-24 Reading and Conversation Series on the theme of "Air and Fire." Open to the U of A community and to the public. Tea, coffee, and cookies will be served!
Thursday, September 28 from 3 to 4 PM
Interview with Dr. Michael A. Bucknor: “The Writing Life: Artistic Vulnerabilities and Resilience” in Henderson Hall (Rutherford Library South 1-17). Open to the U of A community and to the public. Tea, coffee, and cookies will be served!
Friday, September 29 from 10 AM to 1 PM
Creative Writing Workshop: “Writing Your Environment” in person, registration required. Offered in partnership with the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, this workshop is open to all emerging creative writers. Black, Indigenous and other racialized writers are especially encouraged to join. Registration is free and open to the public but will be capped at 15 participants. Click HERE to register! 
Olive Senior’s books, articles and lectures span multiple genres, including poetry, fiction, non-fiction and children’s literature. Her twentieth book, Hurricane Watch: New and Collected Poems, was recently published by Carcanet in the UK. It follows Pandemic Poems: First Wave (2021), a work consisting of alphabet poems derived from the language of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her work has found worldwide resonance in numerous critical essays and translations and is taught in educational institutions at various levels. Most recently, Summer Lightning (her first short story collection; 1986) was named one of the 70 outstanding books from the Commonwealth chosen to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee (The Big Jubilee Read).
Her many awards include Canada’s Writers’ Trust Matt Cohen Award for Lifetime Achievement, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, honorary doctorates from the University of the West Indies and York University and the Gold Medal of the Institute of Jamaica.
Olive Senior lives in Toronto but returns frequently to Jamaica and the Caribbean which remain central to her work. She is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica for 2021-2024.
Photo Credit: Alex Rice
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
CLC Brown Bag Lunch with Samantha Jones & Matthew Weigel
Mark your calendars for a Brown Bag Lunch Reading by poet Samantha Jones, followed by a conversation between Jones and poet Matthew James Weigel on the relationship between art and science! Join us Wednesday, April 5 from 12 to 1 p.m. MDT in Henderson Hall (Rutherford Library South 1-17), or join via Zoom.
Click HERE to register to attend the reading via Zoom!
Samantha Jones (she/her) is a poet, scientist, and editor based in Calgary, Alberta on Treaty 7 territory. Her writing appears in THIS, Room, Grain, CV2, GeoHumanities, Arctic, and elsewhere, and her chapbook, Site Orientation (2022), is available from the Blasted Tree. Sam has a background in geology and is currently a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of Calgary studying inorganic carbon cycling in the Canadian Arctic. Her poem, “Ocean Acidification,” first published in Watch Your Head, was developed into a multimedia clip with science and policy partners and featured in the COP26 Virtual Ocean Pavilion (2021). In 2022, she worked with the Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction and Response Network (MEOPAR) to develop Science-Art Symbiosis, a UN Ocean Decade endorsed activity, to inspire researchers to explore intersections of science and art in their work. She is an alumna of the Banff Centre Spring Writers Retreat and the Iceland Writers Retreat. Sam is white settler and Black Canadian, and is the founder and facilitator of the Diverse Voices Roundtable for BIPOC Writers at the Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society in Calgary.
Matthew James Weigel is a Dene and Métis poet and artist born and raised in Edmonton. Currently pursuing a PhD in English at the University of Alberta, he holds a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences. He is the designer for Moon Jelly House press and his words and art have been published by people like Arc Poetry Magazine, Book*Hug, The Polyglot, and The Mamawi Project. His public art can be found at several places around Edmonton. Matthew is a Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize finalist, National Magazine Award finalist, Nelson Ball Prize finalist, Betsy Warland Between Genres Award finalist, Cécile E. Mactaggart award winner, and winner of both the 2020 Vallum Chapbook Award and 2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award for his chapbook "It Was Treaty / It Was Me". His debut full-length collection Whitemud Walking recently won the Alcuin Society Award for book design, and is available now from Coach House Books.
le vendredi 31 mars 2023
Atelier d'écriture avec Chloé Savoie-Bernard
Le 31 mars (13h-14h30), venez écouter et ainsi mieux connaître l’écrivaine, traductrice et éditrice, Chloé Savoie-Bernard! Grâce à la Writers Guild of Alberta, cet atelier gratuit est ouvert au public. Chacun d’entre vous y est donc cordialement invité!
Pour vous inscrire à cet atelier, il vous suffit d’aller sur:
https://ualberta-ca.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYtf-2grTkvEtVbXOiaEBLGn9fN4lOhcWyJ
Chloé Savoie-Bernard occupe un poste de professeure de littérature à l’Université Queen’s. Ses intérêts de recherche comprennent les féminismes contemporains, la littérature des femmes au Québec, les études noires et la recherche-création. Elle a écrit plusieurs livres, dont Des femmes savantes (nouvelles, Triptyque, 2016, finaliste au Prix littéraire des collégiens et mention d’honneur du Prix Adrienne-Choquette de la nouvelle) et Sainte Chloé de l’amour (2021, Hexagone). Chez Triptyque, elle a aussi dirigé le collectif Corps (2018). Elle est également éditrice de poésie chez l’Hexagone, chroniqueuse au quotidien Le Devoir et traductrice littéraire.
Monday, February 6, 2023
CLC Brown Bag Lunch with Rita Wong & Tasha Beeds
Don’t miss our hybrid event featuring poet Rita Wong in conversation with scholar and Water Walker Tasha Beeds! This Brown Bag Lunch Reading will take place from 12 to 1 p.m. on Monday, February 6. Join us in person in Henderson Hall (Rutherford Library South 1-17), or watch via Zoom.
Click HERE to register to attend the reading via Zoom!
Rita Wong lives and works on unceded Coast Salish territories, also known as Vancouver, where she attends to questions of water justice, decolonization, ecology and climate justice. Co-editor of the anthology downstream: reimagining water (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2017, with Dorothy Christian), Wong is the author of current, climate (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2021), beholden (Talonbooks, 2018, with Fred Wah), undercurrent (Nightwood, 2015), perpetual (Nightwood, 2015, with Cindy Mochizuki), sybil unrest (Line Books, 2008, with Larissa Lai), forage (Nightwood, short-listed for the 2008 Asian American Literary Award for Poetry, winner of Canada Reads Poetry 2011), and monkeypuzzle (Press Gang, 1998). She has received the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop Emerging Writer Award.
Dr. Tasha Beeds is an Indigenous scholar of nêhiyaw, Scottish-Metis, and Caribbean ancestry from the Treaty 6 territories of Saskatchewan. She activates from connected roles: as a mother, kôhkom, creative artist, poet, Water Walker, and a Midewiwin iskwêw from Minweyweywigaan Lodge out of Roseau River First Nations and Wiikwemkoong Unceded Reserve. Her creative, academic, and grassroots work highlights and celebrates Indigeneity while promoting Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty, as well as care and protection of the Land and Waters based on carrying Indigenous Ancestral legacies forward for the generations to come.
Dr. Beeds was the Ron Ianni Fellow at the University of Windsor for two years where she worked with the Indigenous Legal Orders (ILO) Institute. She continues with the ILO team as a guest term lecturer. She was also the inaugural visiting Indigenous Scholar at the Ānako Indigenous Research Institute at Carleton University. Mentored under the late Josephine Mandamin, in addition to Shirley Williams and Liz Osawamick, Dr. Beeds has walked approximately 8000 kms for the Water, all around the Great Lakes, the Kawartha Lakes and most recently for the Saskatchewan River.
Friday, January 20, 2023
Podcast midis littéraires du CLC avec Marjorie Beaucage & Marie-Andrée Gill
Écoutez un nouvel épisode des midis littéraires du CLC avec la vidéaste activiste Métis Marjorie Beaucage et la poète Innue Marie-Andrée Gill. Dans l’épisode 11, c’est deux écrivaines renommées parlent de leur expérience formative—grandir dans le bois (Beaucage) et passer une adolescence au lac (Gill)—et la façon que ses expériences les ont aidées à développer un sens non seulement pour la justice social, mais aussi la justice pour les éléments.
Marjorie Beaucage est une aînée franco-métisse originaire de Vassar, au sud-est du Manitoba. Le partage est au cœur de la vie et du parcours de cette raconteuse, artiste et éducatrice. Son parcourt professionnel débute comme éducatrice. Marjorie utilise l’art de raconter des histoires pour apporter des changements sociaux. Elle produira plus d’une trentaine d’œuvres cinématographiques pendant plus de trente ans. Son travail donne une voix aux groupes et aux individus marginalisés, aux femmes, aux peuples autochtones, et aux causes environnementales plus particulièrement. En 2021 et 2022 à l’âge de 74 ans, Marjorie commence une marche pour l’eau de inspirée par Josephine Mandamin. La marche Saskatchewan River Water Walk a pour but d’aider la rivière, en péril. Leur parcours de plus d’un mois débute dans les montagnes Rocheuses en Alberta, et se termine à la fourche près de Prince Albert. La marche reprend l’été suivant, tout au long de la rivière Saskatchewan Sud.
Marie-Andrée Gill est autrice, poète, scénariste, animatrice de balados décolonisants (Laisser-nous raconter : l’histoire crochie, Les mots de Joséphine ) de la communauté des Pekuakamiulnuatsh. Elle possède également une maitrise en lettres et enseigne la littérature autochtone à l’université. Elle a publié trois recueils de poésie aux éditions La Peuplade ainsi que dans de nombreux collectifs. Son écriture cotoie l’intime, la relation aux éléments et à la quotidienneté comme guérison ainsi que le rapprochement bienveillant entre les nations.
Introducing the 2023 CLC Kreisel Lecture with Wayde Compton
We are thrilled to announce the 2023 CLC Kreisel Lecture with Wayde Compton! Please mark your calendars for March 8, 2023 (7:30 p.m. at the TIMMS CENTRE for the ARTS).
Register HERE to attend the lecture!
Compton is a poet, historian, graphic novelist, essayist, short story writer, anthologist, sound poet, and (with David Chariandy and Karina Vernon) the co-founder of Commodore Books—the first Black Canadian literary press in Western Canada. His lecture, “Toward an Anti-Racist Poetics,” promises to probe Canada’s myths about race and multiculturalism and expand how we think about the role writers play in creating anti-racist imaginaries.
Wayde Compton's writing is as deeply theoretical as it is funny. For example, The Outer Harbour, a work of speculative fiction, traces the fate of Pauline Johnson Island, a volcanic island that suddenly bubbles up off the shore of West Vancouver. In tracing the evolution of the island—from ecological reserve, to condominium development, to prison complex—Compton's writing refutes the characterization of colonization as a historical act. Instead, Compton imagines how ongoing colonial practices might manifest if 'new land' were to materialize. —Kristine Smitka, incoming Acting Director
Wayde Compton has written five books and has edited two literary anthologies. His collection of short stories, The Outer Harbour, won the City of Vancouver Book Award in 2015 and he won a National Magazine Award for Fiction in 2011. His work has been a finalist for two other City of Vancouver Book Awards as well as the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. In 2006 Compton co-founded Commodore Books, western Canada’s first Black Canadian literary press. Compton has been writer-in-residence at Simon Fraser University, Green College at the University of British Columbia, and the Vancouver Public Library. From 2012-18, he administrated the Creative Writing Program in Continuing Studies at SFU, including the award-winning Writer’s Studio. He is currently working on a re-imagining of The Argonautika by Apollonius of Rhodes as surrealist slave narrative set on the west coast of North America in the 18th century. Compton is currently the chair of Creative Writing at Douglas College in New Westminster, BC.
Photo credit: Roger Hur
Friday, December 16, 2022
CLC Brown Bag Lunch Podcast with Moni Brar & Randy Lundy
Tune in to Episode 10 of the CLC Brown Bag Lunch Podcast! Randy Lundy and Moni Brar take us deep into their attachments to land and water, the complexities of which—for both poets—stem from childhoods spent in industrial towns. Their poetry shows us, through acts of noticing, how the land and water become kin and teacher.
Moni Brar (she/her) was born in rural India, raised in northern British Columbia, and now gratefully divides her time between the unceded territories of the Treaty 7 signatories and Métis Nation Region 3 (Calgary) and the Syilx Okanagan Nation (Oliver). She has multiple nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize, was the winner of the 2022 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award, and has received writing awards and honours from PRISM international, Room Magazine, SAAG, Blood Orange Review, and Subnivean. Her creative work explores the interrelation of place, time and identity in the immigrant experience, diasporic guilt, and religious violence. She has been published in Best Canadian Poetry, The Literary Review of Canada, The New Quarterly, Passages North, Prairie Fire, and Hobart, among others. She is an alum of Tin House and The Banff Centre. She believes art contains the possibility of healing.
Randy Lundy is Cree, Irish, and Norwegian and a member of the Barren Lands First Nation, Brochet, Manitoba, in Treaty 10 territory. He is the author of four award-winning full-length books of poetry, most recently Field Notes for the Self (2020) and Blackbird Song (2018), as well as the chapbook In the Dark Times (2022). Randy grew up in Treaty 6 territory in Saskatchewan and lived for more than twenty years in Treaty 4 territory, also in Saskatchewan. He teaches in the English Department at the University of Toronto, Scarborough, where he resides as companion to two female dogs. He is the Editor of the Oskana Poetry & Poetics series at University of Regina Press.
2023 CLC Poetry Contest: "Land and Water"/« La terre et l'eau »
The Canadian Literature Centre, MacEwan University, and Athabasca University are once again teaming up to bring you the 2023 CLC Poetry Contest! We’re looking for the best poem in English or in French from a University of Alberta, MacEwan University, or Athabasca University student on the theme of “Land and Water.”
Entrants should submit their poem in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format, without any identifying information in the document, to clccomm@ualberta.ca by March 13, 2023. Please include name, email address, phone number, mailing address, and departmental and university affiliation in the body of the email, and use the subject line: “Last Name: CLC Poetry Contest."
Le Centre de littérature canadienne de l’Université de l’Alberta (CLC), en collaboration avec l’Université MacEwan et l’Université Athabasca, vous invite à participer à son Concours de poésie 2023. Nous sommes à la recherche du meilleur poème en français ou en anglais écrit par un étudiant ou une étudiante de l’une des trois institutions, qui porte sur le thème « La terre et l'eau. »
Chaque participant devra soumettre leur poème dans un seul fichier anonymisé de format .doc, .docx ou .pdf et l’envoyer à clccomm@ualberta.ca au plus tard le 13 mars 2023. Veuillez inclure votre nom, courriel, numéro de téléphone, adresse postale et affiliation départementale ou universitaire dans votre courriel, puis utilisez la formule suivante dans le sujet du message : « VOTRE NOM DE FAMILLE: Concours de poésie du CLC. »
Monday, November 7, 2022
CLC Masterclass with Bänoo Zan
We are pleased to announce our upcoming virtual masterclass with the University of Alberta's Writer-in-Residence, Bänoo Zan! Join us Monday, November 7, 2022 at 7 p.m. MST via Zoom. We welcome writers of all genres and levels of experience.
Click HERE to register for free!
Bänoo Zan is a poet, librettist, translator, teacher, editor, and poetry curator, with more than 250 published poems and poetry-related pieces as well as three books, including Songs of Exile and Letters to My Father. She is the founder of Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Canada’s most diverse poetry reading and open mic series (inception: 2012), a brave space that bridges the gap between communities of poets from different ethnicities, nationalities, religions (or lack thereof), ages, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, poetic styles, voices, and visions. Currently, Bänoo is Writer-in-Residence at the University of Alberta.
Friday, October 21, 2022
CLC Brown Bag Lunch with Kit Dobson
On October 21, 2022, the Canadian Literature Centre and LitFest will host a Brown Bag Lunch Reading with Calgary-based writer and scholar Kit Dobson. Kit’s new book of essays, Field Notes on Listening, “bears witness to a world in ecological distress at a time of profound change.” Join us at noon in Henderson Hall (Rutherford Library South 1-17) for this second event in our Land & Water Series.
Kit Dobson lives and works in Calgary / Treaty 7 territory in southern Alberta. His previous books include Malled: Deciphering Shopping in Canada and he is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Calgary. He grew up in many places across Canada, but returned again and again to the landscapes of northern Alberta where his family members settled—and that continue to animate his thinking.
Wednesday, October 5, 2022
CLC Brown Bag Lunch with Waubgeshig Rice
The CLC is delighted to announce our first in-person Brown Bag Lunch Reading since 2020! On October 5, 2022, we will hear from Waubgeshig Rice, acclaimed author of Moon of the Crusted Snow, Midnight Sweatlodge, and other works of fiction and nonfiction. Waub will read and answer questions in Henderson Hall (Rutherford Library South 1-17) from 12 to 1 p.m. MDT. This event kicks off our Land & Water Series!
Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist from Wasauksing First Nation on Georgian Bay. He has written three fiction titles, and his short stories and essays have been published in numerous anthologies and periodicals. His most recent novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, was published in 2018 and became a national bestseller. He graduated from the journalism program at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2002, and spent most of his journalism career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a video journalist and radio host. He left CBC in 2020 to focus on his literary career. His forthcoming novel, Moon of the Turning Leaves, will be published in 2023. He lives in Sudbury, Ontario with his wife and two sons.
Congratulations to the University of Alberta Press!
The CLC Warmly Thanks Marie Carrière for a Decade as Director
After more than 10 years at the helm of the CLC, Marie Carrière is concluding her term as director and moving into a new position as Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Arts, while continuing to serve on the CLC’s Executive Board. The Centre has flourished under Marie’s passionate and talented leadership. Her development of a diverse and engaging program of Brown Bag Lunch readings, research seminars, scholarly lectures, international conferences, and high-profile literary events has enriched our community immeasurably. She created the web-based research initiative “Inside the Bag,” as well as the Centre’s postdoctoral fellowship. She brought the Kreisel Lecture series to a wider Canadian and International audience through partnerships with the CBC Radio programme, Ideas, and the University of Alberta Press, while nurturing a vibrant local community of readers and writers both in and beyond the University here in Edmonton. These are just a few of Marie’s many contributions to the vibrant life of this Centre. Through all of her initiatives, Marie made the CLC a warm and hospitable bilingual space connecting the many creative and scholarly communities that animate Canada’s literary culture. Merci, Marie; bonne chance and best wishes in your next adventure!