Mayor's Arts Award for Literary Arts
2017 recipients
Joanne Arnott
Honouree
Joanne Arnott is a Métis/mixed-blood writer and arts activist, originally from Manitoba, at home on the West Coast. Her first book, Wiles of Girlhood, won the Gerald Lampert Award (LCP 1992). She published eight further books, including Halfling spring (Kegedonce 2014), A Night for the Lady (Ronsdale 2013), Mother Time (Ronsdale 2007), and (as editor) Salish Seas: an anthology of text + image (AWCWC 2011).
Her essays and poetry appear in over 25 anthologies and a similar number of journals. She has been called to judge poetry and nonfiction on behalf of BC Book Prizes, the Governor General’s Awards, and others. A frequent performer, Arnott was a founding member of the Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast, a past volunteer with The Writers Union of Canada (National Council) and The Writers’ Trust of Canada (Author’s Committee). A grand multipara, mentor, editor, and blogger, Arnott is currently Poetry Editor for EVENT Magazine.
Wil to Write (Wil George)
Emerging artist
Wil to Write (Wil George) is a Coast Salish poet from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. Wil to Write’s work is published in various literary magazines and literary journals, including Ricepaper magazine and Salish Seas Anthology published by Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast. His poetry book, Survival In Its Many Shapes, was published by UNIT-PITT Projects. Wil to Write's poetry focuses on water bodies (inlets, rivers, oceans, etc.) and the land (mountains, forests, shorelines, etc.). He also uses Wolf and Raven from traditional Salish stories in contemporary settings, and to address contemporary issues.
Betsy Warland has written 12 books of poetry, creative non-fiction, and lyric prose including bestseller Breathing the Page – Reading the Act of Writing (2010). In April 2016, Oscar of Between – A Memoir of Identity and Ideas was one of two books that launched Caitlin Press’ new imprint, Dagger Editions.
Daniel Francis was born and raised in Vancouver and is the author of two dozen books, principally about Canadian, British Columbian, and local history.
Michal Kozlowski was born in Krakow, Poland and now calls Vancouver home. He is the assistant publisher of the literary magazine Geist. He has written dozens of reviews and articles for Geist, many about Vancouver artists, photographers, and publishers.
. He is a founding member of the Vancouver Memory Collective and a director of the Vancouver Memory Festival, an annual festival made up of talks, readings, and exhibitions on the subject of public memory.
George Fetherling, a poet, novelist and cultural commentator, has been a wide-ranging and prolific figure in Canadian writing for more than 45 years. He has published many works concerned with Vancouver and British Columbia, including his book The Sylvia Hotel Poems, his novel Jericho, and his collection of short fiction Tales of Two Cities. For six years he was the regular book columnist for the Vancouver Sun. His most recent publications are a volume of selected poems entitled Plans Deranged by Time and a memoir in diary form, The Writing Life: Journals 1975-2005.
Rahat Kurd is a poet and a prose writer at work on a memoir about creating Muslim culture in Canada. She was mentored by Betsy Warland in the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive Program in 2012, and has read her work at Real Vancouver Writers’ Series, Simon Fraser University lunch poems, the Writers’ Studio Readers Series, and at the Rhizome Café.
William New is a poet, children's writer, and literary commentator. He was born and raised in Vancouver and educated at the University of British Columbia and the University of Leeds. New is now retired from teaching at UBC, where for 18 years he also edited the journal Canadian Literature.
Onjana Yawnghwe was born in Chiang Mai, Thailand to Shan parents who escaped Burma in the 1970s. She grew up in Vancouver and was educated at the University of British Columbia, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in English Literature.
Alan Twigg has written sixteen books, produced six television documentaries, hosted a CBC television series, and can be frequently head on CBC radio's North by Northwest program in a segment called Turning Up The Volumes.
Glynis Whiting is a Vancouver-based filmmaker who switches hats from producer to director to writer, often within the same project.
Evelyn Lau was born in Vancouver in 1971. She is the author of five volumes of poetry, two collections of short stories, two works of non-fiction, and a novel. Her memoir Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid, published when she was 18, was made into a CBC movie starring Sandra Oh.
Kaitlin Fontana is an award-winning writer, born and raised in Fernie, who currently resides in Vancouver. Her work has appeared in the Walrus, Maisonneuve, Event, Room, SPIN, Rolling Stone, and Exclaim!, among other publications.
Brian Kaufman founded subTerrain Magazine in 1988 to promote emerging and experimental writers and has seen 53 issues of the edgy literary magazine into print.
Susan Steudel is a three-time winner of the Vancouver International Writers Festival Contest. Her poem “Scenes” was shortlisted for the 2008 CBC Literary Awards, and her poem “Restricted Access: Route 3” was a finalist for Arc’s Poem of the Year Award in 2007. Her poetry has appeared in The Fiddlehead, subTerrain, and Existere and is forthcoming in The Malahat Review and CV2. Susan works as a court reporter in Vancouver and abroad. She lives with her partner and two sons.