Faculty Listing
Permanent Faculty
Sessional Faculty
Aaron Bushkowsky M.F.A.(UBC), B.A., B. Ed. (U of A) has
been produced and published in numerous genres. His book of poetry ed
and mabel go to the moon was nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Award.
His latest book of poems, Mars is for Poems (Oolichan Books), garnered
critical acclaim. His short film, The Alley, which aired on CBC, was
nominated for six Leos (BC Film Awards).
Aaron has several optioned screenplays in development. His plays have been produced throughout Canada. My Chernoby
, which premiered in 2008 at Richmond Gateway Theatre, received nine Jessie Richardson Theatre Award nominations and led all productions. It was published by Playwrights Canada Press and is being translated into French for publication in France. His latest play The Project, was nominated for four Jessies in 2010. Aaron has also been nominated for Jessie Theatre Awards for Outstanding Original Play seven times over the past ten years, more than any other playwright in Canada, winning two.
Aaron has a book of prose out, The Vanishing Man, (Cormorant Books), and
numerous of books of drama, including The Waterhead (Playwrights Canada
Press), that features three plays of his produced by Solo Collective, a
theatre company he helps run. Curtains for Roy, Aaron's latest book,
his seventh, is a novel about theatre and wine. It's due for publication
this Fall.
Aaron’s latest play After Jerusalem will premiere at Performance Works December 1, 2011. Produced by Solo Collective Theatre and helmed by Jessie nominated director Rachel Peake, this black comedy puts a new spin on Christmas holiday romance and stars two of Vancouver’s most talented comedic actors, Andrew McNee and Deborah Williams.
Rodger
Cove, B.A.English (SFU); M.F.A (UBC). Rodger began writing
professionally in radio and has since had radio and stage plays
produced, short fiction published,
and screenplays optioned. Hair of
the Sasquatch, a mockumentary that he wrote, co-produced and
acted in, premiered at the Calgary International Film Festival in 2008
and will soon be available on-line. A number
of other projects, including a web-series and a new stage play, are in
the works.
He is the senior writing instructor at the Vancouver Film School, and
teaches occasionally for Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
Kevin Chong is the author of Baroque-a-Nova, a novel, Neil Young Nation, a music memoir, and two forthcoming books: a memoir on horse-racing called My Year of the Horse and a novel, Beauty Plus Pity. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in publications like the Walrus, Chatelaine, Prism International, Descant, the Globe and Mail, Maclean's, and Maisonneuve. He was born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver, where he presently lives. He attended the University of British Columbia, where he also teaches part-time in the Creative Writing Program, and received an MFA at Columbia University in New York.
Genni Gunn, M.F.A (UBC) is a writer, musician and translator. She has published eight books: two novels—Tracing Iris and Thrice Upon a Time, two short story collections—Hungers and On The Road, two poetry collections— Faceless and Mating in Captivity. As well, she has translated from Italian two collections of poems—Devour Me Too and Traveling in the Gait of a Fox by renowned Italian author, Dacia Maraini. Mating in Captivity has been translated into Italian, and Soliaria and Tracing Iris will be translated and published in 2012. Tracing Iris has also been optioned for film.
Her opera, Alternate Visions, produced by Chants Libres premiered in Montreal in 2007 (music by John Oliver) and was projected in a simulcast at The Western Front in Vancouver; and her poem, Hot Summer Nights, has been turned into classical vocal music by John Oliver, and performed widely internationally.
Genni's works have been finalists for the CBC Literary Awards in all three categories: fiction personal essay and poetry; the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Thrice Upon a Time; the Gerald Lampert Award for poetry collection Mating In Captivity; the Premio Internazionale Diego Valeri for literary translation for poetry collection Traveling in the Gait of a Fox; and the John Glassco Translation Prize for poetry collection Devour Me Too. She has received two Praxis Film Development Fellowships for her screenplays.
Genni's manuscripts and papers are collected in Special Collections at The University of Calgary.
Her 2010 novel, Solitaria, was long-listed for the Giller Prize.
Aislinn Hunter,M.F.A. (UBC), MSc (Writing and Cultural
Politics, University of Edinburgh), has published a novel ('Stay'), two
books of poetry ('Into the Early Hours' and 'The Possible Past'), a
collection of short stories ('What's Left Us'), and a book of lyric
essays ('A Peepshow with Views of the Interior: Paratexts').
Her work
has been shortlisted for numerous national and provincial awards and in
2002 she won the Gerald Lampert Award for poetry. Aislinn has been
Writer-in-Residence in the Graduate Departments at Lancaster University
in England, at Macquarie University in Australia, and most recently at
Memorial University in St John's, Newfoundland.
She is currently working
on a novel and writing her PhD thesis (for The University of Edinburgh)
which focuses on cultural phenomenology and thing theory. She teaches
one semester a year.
Ross Laird, Ph.D., is an interdisciplinary scholar, consultant, teacher,
and creative artist. He is a best-selling author, psychotherapist, university
professor, addictions and trauma specialist, consultant in the psychology of
leadership, poet, and craftsman in wood and stone. Whether he's giving a
keynote address at a psychology conference, working with heroin addicts in
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, or discussing his ideas about creativity on
radio and television, Ross offers a unique blend of the arts and sciences. He
is a storyteller, a philosopher, and an engaging speaker. He has appeared on
CBC's Tapestry and North by
Northwest, on Bravo's Book Television, and has been profiled twice in the Vancouver Sun. His
first book appeared on Macleans national best-seller list.
Ross is a recipient of the Union Institute's Sussman Award for Academic Excellence for "ultimate academic achievement at the doctoral level." His doctoral dissertation, which subsequently was adapted into book form as Grain of Truth: The Ancient Lessons of Craft, was shortlisted for the 2001 Governor General's Award (the highest literary award in Canada) and the BC Book Prize. Grain of Truth was voted one of the 100 most important books of 2001 by the Globe and Mail and by Spirituality and Health magazine.
Ross's second book, A Stone's Throw: The Enduring Nature of Myth explains the origins of the mythologies of Egypt, Israel, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. A Stone's Throw continues the themes of creativity and spirituality explored in Grain of Truth: The Ancient Lessons of Craft. Traversing five thousand years of history, and from the perspective of Laird as a craftsman sculpting stone in his shop, A Stone's Throw follows the evolution of sacred mythologies from the pharaohs and their pyramids to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the sacred Kaaba stone in Mecca, the Washington Monument, and the World Trade Center.
Ross also provides consulting services to professional artists and graduate students in multiple disciplines, to addictions counsellors, to social service agencies and to corporations and educational institutions. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, is a registered member of the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors, and is the 2003 recipient of the Association's Communications Award. His essays have appeared in The Globe and Mail, Canadian Geographic, and Pacific Yachting, for which he is a regular contributor.
Ross Laird released a new book on addictions in 2009. The narrative is based on his work with social service agencies in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.
Follow Ross on Twitter.
Zoë Landale, M.F.A. (UBC), has published six books. Her work has won significant awards in three genres: fiction, poetry and non-fiction. Most recently her poetry won first place in the 2003 CBC Literary Awards.
Zoë divides her time between Vancouver, when she is teaching, and Pender Island, where she writes, hangs out with family, pets and friends, and gardens. She has taught at Kwantlen for ten years with a specialty in online teaching.
Her last book of poetry, Once a Murderer, came out from Wolsak and Wynn in 2008. Slice Me Some Truth: An Anthology of Canadian Creative Nonfiction, co-edited with Dr. Luanne Armstrong, has just been released from Wolsak and Wynn in September.
A new book of poetry, Einstein's Cat, is coming out from Wolsak and Wynn in 2012.
Billeh Nickerson, B.F.A. (UVic), M.F.A. (UBC), is a writer, editor, performer, producer and arts advocate.
His first book, The Asthmatic Glassblower (Arsenal Pulp 2000), received a Publishing Triangle Award nomination and a starred review in the Quill and Quire, where reviewer Ross McKie wrote "Billeh Nickerson forms his exacting observations into poems that are fragile receptacles of wordplay." He is also the author of Let Me Kiss it Better: Elixirs for the Not So Straight and Narrow, (Arsenal Pulp 2002), a collection of humorous essays and cultural criticism that won him a Xtra West Community Hero Award, and McPoems (Arsenal Pulp 2009) a collection inspired in part by his experience working in the fast food industry.
His poetry and prose have also appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in Canada and the United States including CV2, Event, The Fiddlehead, Geist, Grain; and have been broadcast nationally on CBC radio 1 and CBCR3. His column "Full On" appears monthly online at Xtra.ca.
He is also a well-respected editor who has helmed PRISM international and Event, two of Canada's most prestigious literary journals; and has worked as a contributing editor with Geist since 1994. In 2007, he co-edited the critically-acclaimed Seminal: the Anthology of Canada's Gay Male Poets.
Nickerson is a much sought after performer who has performed at hundreds of readings and festivals across Canada and the U.S, including the Calgary Folk Festival; Calgary International Spoken Word Festival; Pride Toronto; Vancouver Folk Festival; the Vancouver International Writers Festival; the Ottawa Writers Festival; Wordfest: Banff-Calgary International Writers Festival; the Academy of American Poets in New York; and as a founding member of the performance troupe Haiku Night in Canada.
He has also produced reading series and events for Open Space in Victoria, The Western Front in Vancouver, The Vancouver International Writers Festival, Victoria Pride, and during his tenure as Queen's University's Writer in Residence in 2008.
Nickerson has been elected to the Writers' Union of Canada National Council on four occasions, and has participated on arts juries for the BC Arts Council, the BC Book Prizes, the Canada Council, and the Quebec Writers Federation.
He is currently Chair of the Department.
Jen Currin, B.A. (Bard College), M.F.A. (Arizona State), M.A. (S.F.U.), has published three books of poetry: The Sleep of Four Cities (Anvil, 2005), Hagiography (Coach House, 2008) and The Inquisition Yours (Coach House, 2010). The Inquistion Yours was shortlisted for the 2011 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, the ReLit Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and won the Audre Lord Poetry Award.
Jen’s poems and stories have appeared in many journals and
magazines, including No Tell Motel, The Fiddlehead, Washington Square, 42opus, VERSE,
KELR, The Mississippi Review, and Scythe. Her short story “East Van End Times Army” won
second place in Geist’s 2010 postcard story contest, and her short play “On a
Street Corner” was recently produced as part of the 2010 She Speaks Festival. A
former Poetry Editor for Hayden's Ferry Review and Nightboat Books,
Jen has taught writing and literature for many years and at many places,
including the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, Vancouver Film School,
Arizona State University, Vancouver Community College, Langara College’s Continuing
Studies Program, and SFU’s Writer’s Studio.
Cathleen With's first book, skids (Arsenal Pulp, 2006), about street kids on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver,
was short-listed for a Relit Award. Among her many adventures, Cathleen has
worked at a camp for disabled kids in Squamish, a bakery in Hawaii and a Greek
deli in Australia. She served as a drama educator in Kathmandu, a caregiver at
Mother Theresa's Home for the Sick and Destitute in Calcutta, an English
teacher to former sex trade kids in Cambodia, and as a teacher in Inuvik, NT
and in Seoul, Korea. Having Faith in the Polar Girls' Prison (winner of
the BC Book Prize's, Ethel Wilson Fiction Award), is her first novel.
