Kevin Spenst

Kevin Spenst is the author of Ignite, Jabbering with Bing Bong, (both with Anvil Press), and over a dozen chapbooks including Pray Goodbye (the Alfred Gustav Press), Ward Notes (the serif of nottingham) and most recently Upend (Frog Hollow Press).  His work has won the Lush Triumphant Award for Poetry, been nominated for both the Alfred G. Bailey Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, and has appeared in dozens of publications including, the Malahat Review, Prairie Fire, CV2, the Rusty Toque, BafterC, Lemon Hound, and the anthology Best Canadian Poetry 2014. Kevin Spenst is one of the co-organizers of the Dead Poets Reading Series which takes place every other month at the Vancouver Public Library.

From January to the end of February, Kevin‘s goal was to start his first book of short fiction, which is rooted in the Mennonite refugee experience centred around South Vancouver in the 20s and 30s and branching out to 1495 Southwest Marine Drive, where his mother lived in the late 30s.
Furnishing his stories with Vancouver and world history, he hopes to bring an element of the surreal with an eye to creating a kind of Mennonite magic realism.