UBCO Prof Matt Rader together students present work during Zoom reading
By Contributor
A teacher of writing from UBC Okanagan together with five students from Selkirk College’s creative writing classes will read from their work on Wed., March 24 at the fourth Zoom reading in the 2020-21 author reading series presented by Nelson, B.C.’s Oxygen Art Centre.
Featured will be Kelowna author Matt Rader and Selkirk students Sarah Beauchamp, Carina Costom, Tressa Ford, Bre Harwood and Meredith MacDonald.
The event begins at 7 p.m. Those interested in attending need to R.S.V.P. by emailing info@oxygenartcentre.org to receive the Zoom link and accompanying event information. The reading is free and everyone welcome to attend. Donations are encouraged: $2 – $5 via Oxygen’s CanadaHelps page.
Oxygen Art Centre, at 320 Vernon St. (alley entrance), is Nelson’s only artist-run centre. Oxygen programming in a variety of artistic disciplines supports local professional-level artists and engages the wider community.
Rader, who teaches in UBC Okanagan’s Creative Studies Department, is the author of four collections of poems, a book of stories, and most recently a book-length lyric essay, Visual Inspections, from Nightwood Editions in 2019.
In 2014 he won the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize in the literary category, awarded by the Canada Council to an emerging or mid-career author based on a submitted grant application. His writing has appeared in such journals as The Walrus, Geist, and The Malahat Review.
All five Selkirk College writing students who will read on March 24 have been published by Selkirk’s literary magazine, the Black Bear Review. Harward is the producer of a new arts and culture podcast called “This Black Bear Has 22 Minutes,” with Ford acting as the host and MacDonald is an interviewer. Costom is currently the Black Bear Review’s managing editor, and Beauchamp writes for two local magazines, Freya and Living Here.
“Public readings are often turning points for emerging writers,” said Selkirk College creative writing instructor Leesa Dean, a member of Oxygen’s Author Reading Series committee and the emcee for the March 24 reading.
“With audience support and the chance to read alongside professionals, the dream of being a writer suddenly seems more attainable,” Dean said.
Oxygen will kick off National Poetry Month on March 31 with “Dark Times Come Again No More”, a previously postponed book launch by Winlaw, B.C. author Tom Wayman along with a reading and music by Vernon, B.C. writer and musician John Lent.
Oxygen’s Author Reading Series is supported in part by the B.C. Arts Council and the Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance, and is co-presented by Nelson’s Elephant Mountain Literary Festival.
