Welcome to Historic Joy Kogawa House

Salon Sundays are a treat, largely because of a willing audience. Each week a different dynamic; each time a little bit of magic.

There are Sundays left. I look forward to seeing you.

December 4th — Shirley Bear
2pm – 4pm
Shirley Bear returns to Vancouver to read from her 2006 collection Virgin Bones – Belayak Kcikug’nas’ikn’ug at Kogawa House. A visual artist, writer, and activist, she was honored last week at Rideau Hall with the Order of Canada.

December 11th – Open House
1pm – 5pm
Please come to visit Kogawa House for a celebration of the people who created it and keep it running. Can I ask you to bring along something hand-made and simple like a jar of jam, a sheaf of paper, a holiday ornament? We’ll have a craft table with proceeds going to the House.

Place: 1450 West 64th Avenue, east of Granville
To reserve a seat, email kogawahouse@yahoo.ca

Other Kogawa House Events
Special Screening of Winds of Heaven
Emily Carr was born 140 years ago in Victoria this December 13th. Susan Crean will host a screening of Michael Ostroff’s documentary film that was featured at the Vancouver International Film Festival last year. It was based on my book, The Laughing One. And similarly explores Carr’s legacy and First Nations’ history. John Walker was cinematographer, Peter Raymont, producer with Michael Ostroff.

Time: Wednesday, December 7th, 7:00pm
Place: VPL Central Library, Peter Kaye Room, Lower Level

Join writer-in-residence Susan Crean for her conversation with Shirley Bear, activist, visual artist, and elder of the Maliseet First Nation. Shirley Bear’s writing includes an essay in the third volume of the anthology of writing from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission edited by Ashok Mathur. Two additional pieces are considered essential statements on her art and spiritual philosophy. The first is the opening piece in her book Virgin Bones (2006). The second is her curatorial statement accompanying the exhibition Changers: A Spiritual Renaissance (1989). In November 2011, Shirley Bear was inducted as a Member of the Order of Canada. She lives on the Tobique Reserve (Negootkook) in New Brunswick.

“Artists are the movers and changers of the world. They have always been revolutionaries, creating change in thought and style within their societies.”
—Shirley Bear, Changers: A Spiritual Renaissance, Curatorial Statement

Historic Joy Kogawa House, 1450 West 64th Avenue, Vancouver

Sunday, December 4, 2 to 4pm

Admission by donation.
Space is limited. To reserve a seat, email kogawahouse@yahoo.ca

Also, if you plan to attend, please find us on Facebook and Like this event.

When: Saturday, November 19, 10am to 3pm
Where: Historic Joy Kogawa House, 1450 West 64th Avenue, Vancouver

Please join writer-in-residence Susan Crean for a writing workshop with a total of 5 participants.
This workshop is directed at writers with some experience who are writing memoir, biography, history, or a combination of these. We will focus on story development, including research techniques and interviewing.

Together we will answer the following questions:

• What are the pitfalls in writing about someone very different from me?
• How do I know what to research?

Participants will submit 10 pages of writing and a short outline and/or bibliography.

Cost: $125 (includes lunch)

To register, please email kogawahouse@yahoo.ca

When: Sunday, October 30, 2 to 4pm
Where: Historic Joy Kogawa House, 1450 West 64th Avenue, Vancouver

Admission by donation
Space is limited
To reserve a seat, please RSVP to kogawahouse@yahoo.ca

Tara Beagan, a Toronto playwright of Thompson River Salish heritage, won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for her first play, Thy Neighbour’s Wife. She is currently artistic director of Native Earth Theatre, Canada’s oldest professional Aboriginal performing arts company, and we've brought her to Vancouver for a conversation with our writer-in-residence, Susan Crean, about writing as a means of social change.

Please join us.

Writing Life Workshop

When: Saturday, October 29, 10am to 3pm
Where: Historic Joy Kogawa House, 1450 West 64th Avenue, Vancouver
Cost: $125 (includes lunch)

Are you interested in telling your family story? Perhaps you have begun to write the history of your ancestors and their journey to Canada from China.

Please join writer-in-residence Susan Crean and author Larry Wong for a writing life workshop for unpublished and beginning writers who are writing memoir or personal history.

Participating in this workshop will help writers answer the following questions:
– What do I do about the gaps in the story?
– How do I make it interesting for others to read?

This workshop is open for a total of 7 participants. Participants will submit up to 15 pages of work for discussion during the workshop.

To register, email kogawahouse@yahoo.ca

Larry Wong is a local historian and past president of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society, and author of Dim Sum Stories: A Chinatown Childhood, about his childhood in Vancouver’s Chinatown of the 1940s to 60s. Wong’s personal short stories reveal a world filled with people from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Susan Crean is a writer, editor and cultural critic whose most recent book, The Laughing One: A Journey to Emily Carr, was nominated the Governor General’s Award for Literature in 2001 and won the Hubert Evans Prize for Non-Fiction in British Columbia. She is a frequent contributor to magazines such as Geist, This and The Capilano Review. She was the first Maclean-Hunter Chair in Creative Non-Fiction appointed at the University of British Columbia. Susan Crean is currently working on a major book about a head-tax payer, Mr. Wong Dong Wong, whose life she has been researching for the past two years. The book is a large undertaking, and like Crean’s book on Emily Carr, combines the genres of history, biography, journalism and memoir.

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.

On Friday, September 23, from 7 to 9pm, crafters, readers, and writers are welcome to join artist 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.

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.

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.