Welcome to Historic Joy Kogawa House

When: Sunday, October 16, 2 to 4pm
Where:Historic Joy Kogawa House, 1450 West 64th Avenue, Vancouver

Join author and adventurer Eric Enno Tamm in discussion about his latest book, The Horse That Leaps through Clouds: A Tale of Espionage, the Silk Road and the Rise of Modern China. He'll show photos from his research in China, during which he retraced the epic journey of a Russian spy who trekked from St. Petersburg to Beijing a century ago along the Silk Road. Books will be for sale and signing.

Space is limited. To reserve a seat, please RSVP kogawahouse@yahoo.ca.

Admission by donation. We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council Author Readings program. Eric Enno Tamm is an author, journalist and activist with more than 15 years’ experience in the media and non-profit sector. His first book, Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Story of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell, was a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book in 2005. His latest book, The Horse That Leaps Through Clouds: A Tale of Espionage, the Silk Road and the Rise of Modern China (Douglas & McIntyre, 2010), chronicles his epic journey retracing the route of a Russian spy who traveled the Silk Road a century ago. Born in Tofino and raised in Ucluelet, Eric currently lives in Ottawa where he continues to write and work on environmental issues.

In a few days non-fiction writer and activist Susan Crean will arrive to take up residence at Historic Joy Kogawa House. On Thursday, September 15, Crean will begin to live and work at the house for a three-month term, ending Thursday, December 15. While in residence, Crean will work with writers and host this year's Writing for Social Change reading series. The fabulous line-up of authors invited to join Crean in conversation about their work will be announced this week. While in residence, Crean is writing a blog that you can find at www.susancrean.ca.

Susan originally moved to British Columbia in 1989 to take up a position in the Creative Writing department at the University of British Columbia. She stayed for ten years, during which time she wrote her groundbreaking work of creative non-fiction about Emily Carr's legacy, as well as a biography of CUPE leader and feminist pioneer Grace Hartman, and numerous book reviews for the Vancouver Sun. The Laughing One: A Journey to Emily Carr, won the BC Book prize for non-fiction in 2002.

Susan lives in the South Riverdale neighbourhood of Toronto, and is currently working on a book about Toronto which includes the story of head-tax payer, Wong Dong Wong, who came to Canada in 1911. For more on that story, check out her website at www.whatistoronto.ca.

We are most grateful to the Canada Council author residency program and the BC Arts Council for their assistance in funding this residency.

Please join community crafter Laura Bucci at Historic Joy Kogawa House to create collage buttons using text and a variety of other materials. Crafters of all levels are welcome to attend this FREE button-making workshop at Historic Joy Kogawa House, 1450 West 64th Avenue on Friday, September 23, from 7 to 9pm.

This event is part of a community celebration to welcome non-fiction writer Susan Crean as our 2011 writer-in-residence at Historic Joy Kogawa House. Susan Crean arrives from Toronto on September 15 to spend three months living and working in the former childhood home of Joy Kogawa. Members of the community will have the opportunity to meet Susan Crean during the workshop, and she will entertain crafters with daring tales of her plans as writer-in-residence, books will be available for sale and signing, and refreshments will be served. Buttons and collage materials will be provided free of charge but donations are appreciated!

For more information see www.laurabucci.com and Word on the Street.

The Alcuin Society and Joy Kogawa House

will jointly hold a sale of used books

to benefit both groups

Date: Saturday, June 18, and Sunday, June 19
Time: 10:00am to 4:00pm each day
Place: Historic Joy Kogawa House, 1450 West 64th Avenue Vancouver

If anyone who is able to help, it would be greatly appreciated. To help, please email kogawahouse@yahoo.ca

And please come!

On January 5, 2009, Historic Joy Kogawa House welcomed to Vancouver a young poet from Kazakhstan. Akerke Mussabekova will be hosted until the middle of May in a homestay at the home of Vancouver International Writers Festival artistic director Hal Wake as part of a cultural exchange initiated by Poet in the City in London, England, sponsored by HSBC and supported and hosted by Historic Joy Kogawa House.

Akerke is a third year-student of the Translation Department at al-Farabi Kazakh National University, the country’s largest and premier university, situated in Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan. There her interests in poetry, languages and translating come together in the translation of poems from English into Kazakh. In 2007 Akerke took part in an International Congress of Students and Young Scholars and was awarded the main prize for her research on the poems of Byron as translated into Kazakh during the Soviet era.

 "I identified many mistakes in the translations," she says, "because all were translated into Russian before being translated from Russian into Kazakh." Akerke’s proficiency in English—she has studied the language since the age of seven—allowed her to review the original English poems and translate them into Kazakh with good results.

Here in Vancouver, Akerke studies literary translation as a guest of UBC’s Department of Creative Writing, where she participates Thursday afternoons in a translation workshop led by Dr. Rhea Tregebov. Throughout the week, Akerke improves her English in high-intermediate level classes in SFU’s English Language and Culture Program. Later this winter she will also participate in SFU Writing and Publishing Program courses.

The expected outcome of Akerke’s stay in Vancouver is a collection of 20 to 25 original poems, to be published in Kazakh, English and Russian, but we have asked that she also consider translating some of Canada’s best poets into Kazakh, in order to develop an audience for our literature in this faroff country.