REGIONAL AUTHORS GATHER TO CELEBRATE 16 YEARS OF NELSON LITERARY MAGAZINE NEW ORPHIC REVIEW AT NELSON’S OXYGEN ART CENTRE

MAY 17, 7:30 P.M.

A Sweet Sixteen birthday party is an important milestone for any young person, and even more so for a print literary magazine in these days of electronic publishing. On Friday, May 17 at 7:30 p.m., at Nelson’s Oxygen Art Centre, eight regional authors will read as part of the Sweet Sixteen birthday celebration for the Queen City’s New Orphic Review.

The Oxygen Art Centre is located at 320 Vernon St. (alley entrance). The celebration, sponsored by Oxygen Art Centre’s Presentation Series, is free (donation appreciated) and open to the public.

“I enjoy a great range of writing, and I hope the New Orphic Review reflects this,” said editor Ernest Hekkanen, a novelist and poet who has authored 45 books. Over the years, fiction contributions to the magazine have been selected for inclusion in Canada’s prestigious Journey Prize Anthology and the Best American Mystery Stories anthology. The magazine’s sixteenth issue, compiled by Hekkanen and associate editor Margrith Schraner, a prize-winning short story writer and memoirist, will be on sale at the birthday bash.

Joining the editors will be eight West Kootenay contributors to the New Orphic Review who will give brief readings: Jane Byers, Linda Crosfield, Susan Andrews Grace, Sandra Hartline, Linda Hunter (reading on behalf of her late husband, Michael Woligroski), Art Joyce, Ross Klatte, and Tom Wayman.