Obasan author Joy Kogawa among presenters at Nelson’s 2017 Elephant Mountain Literary Festival
By Contributor
Best-selling author Joy Kogawa, whose widely taught novel Obasan is based on her family’s World War II internment in Slocan, is among the invited and local writers and other artists featured at the 6th annual Elephant Mountain Literary Festival in Nelson, B.C. July 6-9.
Tickets for Festival events, including a full Festival Gold Pass, are now available online at www.emlfestival.com.
The weekend kicks off with a talk on the writing craft by EMLF’s 2017 writer-in-residence Fred Stenson on Thursday, July 6 at 7:30 p.m. at Room 310, Kootenay Studio Arts.
Author of 19 books of fiction and nonfiction as well as 150 film scripts, Stenson also will offer one-on-one critique sessions to writers, with registration opening for these June 10. This is the second year of these Holley Rubinsky Memorial Blue Pencil Sessions. For 25 years, Stenson directed the Wired Writing Studio at the Banff Centre.
The 100-Mile Opening Gala on Friday, July 7, 7:30 p.m. at the Hume Hotel celebrates four recently-published local authors — poets Jane Byers and Emily Nilsen, fiction writer Leesa Dean, and creative nonfiction author Eileen Delahanty Pearkes. Each author will be paired with a Kootenay wine for a literary wine-tasting.
The 2017 Richard Carver Award winner will be announced at the Gala as well.
Saturday Night Live! features readings by Kogawa and Stenson, along with Sto:Loh author Lee Maracle at the Hume Hotel on Saturday, July 8 at 7:30 pm. Maracle received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for her work promoting writing among Aboriginal Youth. Interviewing all three Saturday Night Live! presenters on stage at the event will be the Globe and Mail ‘s western arts correspondent Marsha Lederman.
Three daytime panels on different aspects of creativity on Saturday July 8 bring together EMLF’s featured authors and invited panelists representing a range of artistic disciplines. The panels convene at 9 a.m., 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. in Room 310, Kootenay Studio Arts. Among the panelists are Calgary poet laureate Micheline Maylor, Nelson actor and artist Michael Graham, Nelson architect and dancer Thomas Loh and Articulate editor Margaret Tessman.
Price for a Gold Pass is $65, with early bird pricing of $60 available before June 16. Individual event admissions are: 100-Mile Opening Gala $25 (wine samples and refreshments included), Saturday Night Live! reading $20, and panels $10 each.
A full list of sponsors, schedule of events, presenter profiles are available at www.emlfestival.com.
Photo Caption: Best-selling author Joy Kogawa is among the invited and local writers and other artists featured at the 6th annual Elephant Mountain Literary Festival in Nelson, B.C. July 6-9. — Photo courtesy Raymond Lum
