10 May 2023 @ 4:00 PM PST (Zoom) *updated*
Canisia Lubrin
Jessica Johns
+ Krista Love (Student)
Register via EventBrite to attend
We are thrilled to welcome Canisia Lubrin and Jessica Johns at Oxygen Art Centre’s Author Reading Series on Wednesday May 10th at 4:00 PM PST on Zoom.
Acclaimed poet, editor and writer Canisia Lubrin’s work explore ideas of social justice and the limits and possibilities of art, form, and language.
Polyvocal in register, Lubrin’s second book, The Dyzgraphxst (M & S, 2020) mines meanings of kinship through the wide and intimate reach of language across geographies and generations. Against the contemporary backdrop of intensified capitalist fascism, toxic nationalism, and climate disaster, the figure Jejune asks, how have I come to make home out of unrecognizability. Marked by and through diasporic life, Jejune declares, I was not myself. I am not myself. My self resembles something having nothing to do with me.
The Dyzgraphxst (M & S, 2020) won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry and the overall Literature prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and the Derek Walcott Prize. That same year, she was awarded the Canada Council’s Joseph S. Stauffer prize for literary achievement and the Windham-Campbell prize for a body of work. Among other honours, her writing was finalist for the Governor General’s Award, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and Trillium Book Award for Poetry.
Accompanying Lubrin is writer, editor and nehiyaw auntie, Jessica Johns with her debut novel, Bad Cree (Harper-Collins, 2023), where dreams, family and spirits collide.
Bad Cree (Harper-Collins, 2023) follows Mackenzie, a Cree millennial, when she wakes up in her one-bedroom Vancouver apartment clutching a pine bough she had been holding in her dream just moments earlier. When she blinks, it disappears. But she can still smell the sharp pine scent in the air, the nearest pine tree a thousand kilometres away in the far reaches of Treaty 8.
Mackenzie continues to accidentally bring back items from her dreams, dreams that are eerily similar to real memories of her older sister and Kokum before their untimely deaths. As Mackenzie’s life spirals into a living nightmare—crows are following her around and she’s getting texts from her dead sister on the other side—it becomes clear that these dreams have terrifying, real-life consequences. Desperate for help, Mackenzie returns to her mother, sister, cousin, and aunties in her small Alberta hometown. Together, they try to uncover what is haunting Mackenzie before something irrevocable happens to anyone else around her.
Haunting, fierce, an ode to female relations and the strength found in kinship, Bad Cree is a gripping, arresting debut by an unforgettable voice.
The evening will also feature a reading by student writer from the Selkirk College Creative Writing Program.
Join us on Wednesday, May 10, 2023 @ 4:00 PM PST on Zoom to participate in the second instalment of the Author Reading Series featuring Canisia Lubrin and Jessica Johns. Admission is free or by donation. Register via EventBrite to attend.
This event is generously supported by this Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance. Special thanks to Oxygen’s Author Reading Series committee.
About the Authors
CANISIA LUBRIN is an acclaimed poet, editor and writer. Her writings explore ideas of social justice and the limits and possibilities of art, form, and language. Her books include the story collection, Code Noir (Knopf, 2023). Her first book Voodoo Hypothesis (Wolsak & Wynn, 2017) was named a CBC Best Book. Her second book, The Dyzgraphxst (M & S, 2020) won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry and the overall Literature prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and the Derek Walcott Prize. That same year, she was awarded the Canada Council’s Joseph S. Stauffer prize for literary achievement and the Windham-Campbell prize for a body of work. Among other honours, her writing was finalist for the Governor General’s Award, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and Trillium Book Award for Poetry. Anthologies that include her fiction were finalists for the Toronto Book Award and the Shirly Jackson Award. She was twice longlisted for the Journey Prize.
Lubrin is a 2022 Civitella Ranieri Fellow and has held writer residences at Queen’s University and the appointed inaugural 2021 Shaftesbury Writer in Residence at Victoria College, University of Toronto, where she has taught creative writing. Lubrin previously taught at the Banff Centre, multiple community and literary organizations, and universities and colleges in Toronto. Her work is widely published and anthologized and has been translated into four languages. In 2021, the Globe & Mail’s named Lubrin Poet of the Year. She is poetry editor at Canadian press McClelland & Stewart.
JESSICA JOHNS is a nehiyaw auntie with English-Irish ancestry and is a member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta. The former managing editor of Room magazine, she co-organizes the Indigenous Brilliance reading series. Johns’s writing has been published in Grain, Glass Buffalo, SAD magazine, Red Rising Magazine and Canadian Art, among others. Her debut poetry chapbook, How Not to Spill, was a co-winner of the bpNichol Chapbook Award, and her short story “Bad Cree,” upon which her novel is based, won the Writers’ Trust of Canada Journey Prize and a silver medal at the National Magazine Awards.
Krista Love writes, directs, performs and teaches. She uses humour while exploring the vulnerabilities of being human. She has received critical acclaim for her writing and performances while touring self-produced plays across Canada.
Krista has worked with many notable Canadian artists; playwright Ian Ross workshopping new Canadian works, played Toby in Toby’s Made-Up Mind directed by George Toles; played The Caregiver in Guy Maddin’s film Rooster Workbook; received a writing credit for Sparklehorse’s music video “It’s a Wonderful Life”, directed by Guy Maddin. She has also written for CBC radio. After spending many years away from the stage teaching meditation and movement, Krista feels drawn to write and tell stories again. She has studied at Studio 58, The Canadian National Voice Intensive, Fantastic Space’s Clown School and is currently a creative writing student at Selkirk College.
Image Credit: Canisia Lubrin (L) + Jessica Johns, photo by Madison Kerr (R)
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