Interview by Selina Boan. Liz Howard’s Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent won the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize, the first time the prize has been awarded to a debut collection. Howard received an Honours Bachelor of Science with High Distinction from the University of...
Interview by Emma Cleary
Welcome to the first installment of Between Us, a conversation series by, for, and between immigrant/first-gen Canadian writers. We’re featuring writers who move back and forth across the hyphen, straddling old country and new, negotiating ideas of home-place, belonging, and identity. Writers who create within and beyond the categories of “Canadian literature” and “Canadian immigrant literature.”
Former PRISM poetry editor (2014-15) Rob Taylor sat down with recent City of Victoria Butler Book Prize finalist Patricia Young to discuss her nominated poetry collection (and ninth, total) “Short Takes on the Apocalypse“. Chagall’s Lovers – Patricia Young ...
Interview by Kyla Jamieson.
Hey, hi, come in, meet Kia Miakka Natisse, a writer and artist from Buffalo, New York, whose nonfiction piece, “I Have a Brother Named Jamaal,” about growing up alongside her autistic brother “before [autism] was a movement, before it was a puzzle-patterned bumper sticker and spectrum of disorders,” you can find in our Liminal issue, PRISM international 56.1 (but read an excerpt here).
Kia Miakka Natisse studied journalism at Howard University, where she earned her BA, and went on to get her Master’s in transmedia studies from NYU. Now based in Chicago, Illinois, she self-publishes text-based works through her website, kiamiakkanatisse.com. She was recently part of a group show titled “Front & Center” at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago and is working on completing a chapbook titled American.
Interview by Tze Liew
Alan Woo is a lively, open-hearted Asian Canadian author who was born in England and grew up in Vancouver. Disguised as a lanky, pink-bellied rabbit, he read his award-winning children’s book, Maggie’s Chopsticks, at Chosen Family Story Hour, a Vancouver Queer Film Festival event. His book paints a heartwarming picture of learning to find strength in your own unique nature, even when everyone is telling you to do something their way. Woo graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Master’s in Library Studies and a Minor in Creative Writing, and has written for Ricepaper, Vancouver Magazine, Arc, and Xtra. He is currently a teen services librarian at Surrey Libraries, where he often works with LGBTQ+ youth and youth of colour.
Interview by Claudia Wilde
Our next Get to Know (with a few bonus added questions!) features Jan Zwicky, a poet, philosopher, essayist, and musician who will be appearing at this year’s Writers Fest in Vancouver. In 1981, Zwicky earned her PhD at the University of Toronto specializing in Philosophy of Logic and Science. Jan Zwicky has published over a dozen books of poetry, and was the recipient of the Dorothy Livesay Prize and the Governor General’s Award for poetry. After teaching for a number of years, she has finally settled on Quadra Island. Last year she came out with a collection of poetry called The Long Walk.
Interview by Hilary Leung. In her debut novel, Saints and Misfits, S.K Ali offers a poignant coming of age narrative that explores, with nuance and tenderness, the identity of Janna Yusuf as she navigates a world that is divided...
Deborah Willis is one of the most exciting and original talents to emerge in the last ten years. Her first short story collection Vanishing and Other Stories (2009) was nominated for the Governor General’s Award and earned several rave reviews. Her most recent collection The Dark and Other Love Stories (2017) was longlisted for the Giller Prize. Her fiction has appeared in Event, PRISM international, The Walrus, The Virginia Quarterly, The Iowa Review and Lucky Peach. Deborah is currently working on a novel and is the writer-in-residence at MacEwan University. Prism international was excited to have the opportunity to discuss with Deborah her most recent collection of unforgettable short stories. Be sure to see Deborah Willis at the Vancouver Writers Fest for How This Story Began and The Sunday Brunch. Check it out at http://writersfest.bc.ca/.
Continue reading “The Dark and Other Love Stories:” An Interview with Deborah Willis
Interview by Mikaela Asfour.
Leanne Dunic is a writer, multidisciplinary artist, singer/guitarist of The Deep Cove, and winner of the Alice Munro Short Story Prize in 2015.
Her poetic travelogue, To Love the Coming End, was published in 2017, and takes place in Singapore, Japan, and Canada. The narrator, thrown off balance by a personal loss, deftly juxtaposes the impact of grief on the human body and psyche with the patterns and rhythms of historical and natural disasters— all the while haunted by the “curse of 11.”
Leanne is featured in two upcoming events at the Vancouver Writer’s Festival. She will be reading and performing with her band, The Deep Cove, at Dance to the Coming End on Thursday October 19th at 8:30 PM at Performance Works, where the Open Book Art Collective will be showcasing their artworks inspired by To Love the Coming End.
Leanne will also appear on the True Confessions and Tall Tales panel with Hera Lindsay Bird, Dina Del Bucchia, and Zoey Leigh Peterson on Friday October 20th at 8:30 PM at the Revue Stage, where they will discuss the line between fiction and nonfiction.
The Deep Cove’s release show for their first upcoming album, To Love the Coming End of the World—a companion to Leanne’s book— will take place on Saturday November 4th at the Fox Cabaret, with a solo guest performance by José Miguel Contreras (By Divine Right).
Three tracks from The Deep Cove’s upcoming album can be downloaded for free at bookthug.ca/thedeepcove.
Continue reading “To Love the Coming End:” An Interview with Leanne Dunic