Liz Teaches at Douglas College

Douglas College, where I am an instructor for the Department of Language, Literature and Performing Arts, has done a little writeup about me for their website. I'm so flattered! I love teaching at Douglas. You can check out the article here.

Reading in Victoria at Open Word

I'm reading at Open Space in Victoria on November 2. Here are the details:

Elizabeth Bachinsky

Tuesday November 2, 7:30 p.m.

Open Space, 510 Fort Street, 2nd floor

Victoria, British Columbia

followed by a conversation with Yvonne Blomer

CV2 Coast to Coast 35th Anniversary Reading

I'm reading this Saturday at W2 with Donato Mancini, Bren Simmers, and Billeh Nickerson. It's also Donato's Birthday. Between CV2's 35th anniversary celebrations and the birthday hooplah, I'm betting there will be cake.

Reading starts at 8pm. Venue: W2 Storyeum, 151 W. Cordova.

For more information contact Michelle Elrick at michelle.elrick@gmail.com

Reading at Spartacus Books

I am reading with Gary Barwin and Jordan Scott at Spartacus Books in Vancouver, Oct 5, 8pm. Click here for more info.

New Poem Roundup

New poems of mine have been published in The Dublin Poetry Review (Ireland) and Eleven Eleven (US). I love it when my poems get to go places I've never been, or seldom go. And I especially like the Dublin Poetry review's hand-drawn logo.

It's The First Day of School. Don't Forget Your Pencils!

Toronto's Kalpna Patel (aka Ghostface Knittah) is the crafty gal behind The Pencil Project. This summer Kalpna asked a few poets and writers, including me, to contribute an original line of text to be engraved onto wooden pencils. Lines could be a one-line poem, an aphorism, or any kind of line that could stand alone. The only real constraint was that the line had to fit onto a pencil. The pencils will be sold at a couple of independent shops in Toronto as a fundraising endeavour to send some much-needed cash to a newly-built Elementary school in the village she's from in Gujarat, India. Kalpna had a chance to visit the school earlier this year and saw that in addition to school supplies and computers, many of the children are in need of basic things, like shoes. A few Canadian dollars go a long way in Gujarat. If you'd like to purchase a pack of pencils and help out, please contact Patel at oldweston@gmail.com

Curio Reviewed at Canadian Literature

Check out the review here.

The George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature

God of Missed Connections has been shortlisted for the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature. The other shortlisted works are Where the Blood Mixes by Kevin Loring and A Thousand Dreams by Larry Campbell, Neil Boyd, and Lori Culbert.

THE GEORGE RYGA AWARD

FOR SOCIAL AWARENESS IN LITERATURE

Sponsored by The George Ryga Society, BC Bookworld, CBC Radio (Kelowna) and Okanagan College, this annual literary prize is awarded to a BC writer who has achieved an outstanding degree of social awareness in a new book. Excerpts are aired on CBC Radio One's Daybreak Program. The award is announced in conjunction with George Ryga Week in November . Winners receive a full-page advertisement in BC BookWorld and a commemorative sculpture by Reg Kienast.

The criteria for the award are: 1. social awareness - in keeping with Alberta-born George Ryga's status as a marginalized Ukrainian Canadian who was deeply concerned with justice, the judges will select an outstanding work of both literary and social value that opens up discussion of social and cultural issues. 2. bc writer - a writer who has lived in BC for three of the last five years. 3. book - a full-length book (not a chapbook) published during the preceding calendar year.

PREVIOUS AWARD WINNERS

2004 - Maggie De Vries, Missing Sarah
Adjudicator: Craig McLuckie, Chair, English, Okanagan College
2005 - Robert Hunter, The Greenpeace to Amchitka: An Environmental Odyssey
Adjudicator: Ross Tyner, Chair, Library, Okanagan College
2006 - Leslie Robertson and Dara Culhane, In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver
Adjudicator: Myrna Kostash
2007 - Harold Rhenisch, The Wolves at Evelyn
Adjudicator, Sharon Josephson, Chair, Communications, Okanagan College
2008 - Leilah Nadir, The Orange Trees of Baghdad
Adjudicator: Ivan Townshend, Chair, Geography, University of Lethbridge
2009 - Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo
Adjudicator: Robert MacDonald, Publisher in Residence, Okanagan College

God of Missed Connections reviewed at Re:Verse

GMC reviewed here.

Old School Scream

Found this clip of a reading from Home of Sudden Service I gave at The Scream in High Park in 2007. Such a good memory. I'll let you decide about the reading. "Wolf Lake" starts at 4:40 with a nod to Matt Rader and Michael V. Smith.

Interview and New Poems at CV2

I'm very pleased to have been interviewed at CV2. The issue is on newsstands now or you can read a snippet here.

Chapbooks Alive and Well in New Westminster

Hello there. If you've noticed I haven't posted in a while, it's because I'm an instructor of creative writing. Most of my days this season have been spent with my students. This term my Advanced Poetry students at Douglas College in New Westminster, BC, made chapbooks—most of them for the first time. The books are beautiful, the poems even better, and I know they worked like poets to get these done. This post is for them. Well done, all of you!

God of Missed Connections Nominated for the Pat Lowther Award

Good Morning. God of Missed Connections has been nominated for the Pat Lowther Award for Poetry. I'm proud to be on the list with many excellent poets including Sina Queyras, Laisha Rosnau, Damian Rogers, and Karen Solie. A fifth, Ronna Bloom, is unknown to me, but I will fix that shortly.

The Pat Lowther Award is given for a book of poetry by a Canadian woman published in the preceding year and is in memory of the late Pat Lowther whose career was cut short by her untimely death in 1975. The judges for this year's award were Gloe Cormie, Maureen Hynes, and Rhea Tregebov. Here's what they have to say about the book,

"God of Missed Connections is an ambitious and valiant collection that boldly addresses the fraught history of Ukraine with delicacy and outrage, grace and indignation. Bachinsky’s adroit poetry takes on Stalin’s holodomor (death by famine) of the 1930’s, as well as the lasting devastation of the 1986 nuclear reactor meltdown at Chernobyl. Canadian history also is implicated in the catalogue of injustices, as Bachinsky powerfully documents the internment of Ukrainian-Canadians (and others) during and after the First World War. The complex subjectivity in which these poems are grounded generates a clarity of political intent, making for poems imbued with a compelling integrity."

Blackout's Closing Ceremonies

During the Olympics Vancouver writer Alex Leslie and I have conducted a public art project called BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR, asking members of the public to black out sections of Olympics coverage to create erasure poems. We have collected over 300 hilarious, confrontational, elliptical and/or nonsensical refractive miniatures of the media overwhelm that is and was the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

Thanks to The Candahar’s curators, writer Michael Turner and Reid Shier of Presentation House Gallery and artist Theo Sims, for the use of The Candahar as our project space and for their support of the BLACKOUT project. Thanks to everyone who made a poem; our contributors were all ages and were from Vancouver and away.

Alex and I will be presenting a little talk/video presentation about the project on Sunday at 3:30. Here are the details,

Last Call at the Candahar Bar

February 28, 3:30pm

Playwrights Centre Theatre, 3rd floor

1398 Cartwright Street

Granville Island

Featuring Ensemble Sisyphe's Clock, Elizabeth Bachinsky & Alex Leslie, Clint Burnham, Jeff Derksen, Peter Dickinson, Ken Lum, Anu Sahota, Trevor Boddy & Matthew Soules/ Stan Douglas DJ

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR acknowledges the support of SubTerrain magazine, the City of Vancouver, Presentation House Gallery, and the 2010 Cultural Olympiad . The best of the blackouts will appear inSubTerrain magazine.

The Candahar at the New York Times & MacLean's Magazine

Great news. BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR has received a mention in the most recent edition of MacLean's magazine (on newsstands now) and a write-up about The Candahar has appeared in the New York Times.

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR has become a runaway hit—a truly collaborative public art project—with over 300 hilarious, contrary & sometimes contentious, poems generated in just over a week. Thrillingly, Theo Sims, creator of The Candahar, has invited us to wallpaper the pub with your blackouts for display on last night of the show, Sunday Feb 28. After then, The Candahar comes apart forever. There is still a week left in the project, plenty of time to come down and be a part of BLACKOUT. And, if you've already made a piece, make sure to come out on Sunday and see the project come together in the space.

The details:

Last Call at the Candahar

February 28, 7pm

Playwrights Centre Theatre, 3rd floor

1398 Cartwright Street

Granville Island

Featuring Ensemble Sisyphe's Clock, Elizabeth Bachinsky & Alex Leslie, Clint Burnham, Jeff Derksen, Peter Dickinson, Ken Lum, Anu Sahota, Trevor Boddy & Matthew Soules/ Stan Douglas DJ

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR acknowledges the support of SubTerrain magazine, the City of Vancouver, Presentation House Gallery, and the 2010 Cultural Olympiad . The best of the blackouts will appear in SubTerrain magazine.

What is BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR?

photo by Nikki Reimer

During the sixteen days of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, I'll be working nightly at the Playrights' Centre Theatre on Granville Island with Vancouver writer Alex Leslie on a public art project we're calling BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR.

In response to the censorship that's been a part of the 2010 Olympic PR machine, Leslie and I have collected months worth of Olympic coverage from local and national newspapers as source material for your found poetry.

Poems of erasure (blackout poems) have been a part of collagist literary tradition for over a century. Now it's your turn to give it a try. Your materials at The Candahar include an avalanche of Olympic coverage, black markers, Olympic- coloured electrical tape, scissors, and a very nice pint of lager. The beauty of the blackout? You don't have to write a thing. Just come on down and start blacking out.

Still not sure what I'm talking about? Come on down to The Candahar, catch a show, and find out.

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR acknowledges the support of SubTerrain magazine, the City of Vancouver, the 2010 Cultural Olympiad and Presentation House Gallery. All poems will be shown during the last few nights of the salon and the best of the blackouts will appear in SubTerrain magazine.

March 4th, The Kobzar Literary Award Ceremony

God of Missed Connections has been nominated for the Kobzar Literary Award. I'll be at the ceremonies on March 4 in Toronto. The Ceremony is a fundraiser for the Shevchenko Foundation, a very worthy cause. Here are the details,

Thursday, March 4th

Palais Royale Ballroom

1601 Lakeshore Boulevard W.

Toronto, ON

Cocktails 6pm, Dinner 7:30

Tickets $250 per person

to purchase tickets, please call 416-243-0122

or email christine@shevchenkofoundation.com

And, for those of you who can't be there, here is Ivan and Palagna's wedding scene from from Sergei Parajanov's Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors which played behind me at Supermarket last time I was in TO. It appears in God of Missed Connections. I can't get enough of this scene.

The Real Vancouver Writers Series at the W2 Culture + Media House

February 17th, 7pm – Hosted by Elizabeth Bachinsky

112 West Hastings Street across from the refurbished Woodwards Building in Downtown Vancouver

Teresa McWhirter, Lee Henderson, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Heather Susan Haley, Nikki Reimer, Chris Hutchinson, Dina Del Bucchia, Amber Dawn, Donato Mancini, Sonnet L’Abbe, Jonathon Wilcke, Catherine Owen.

The Real Vancouver Writers Series consists of 4 weekly events showcasing local Vancouver writers, publishers and creative literary artists at the W2 Culture + Media House.

These evenings are designed to show the city and the world real and diverse Vancouver culture and real creative individuals in the literary and publishing communities at a time when the eyes of the world are on our city.

Countless millions of people will want to know what real Vancouver culture looks like.

We are determined to take the opportunity to show the world just how amazing, diverse, talented and fun our literary and publishing culture is!

These events will occur every Wednesday during February beginning at 7pm.

Each night will showcase local writers doing short readings their work and/or interacting with a moderator, taking questions from the audience and will include book sales, signings, a multi-media component, music, cash bar, raffles and give-aways.

Every night will consist of writers that will give the in-house audience a glimpse of the variety of cultures, ethnicities, forms and skills of writers living and working in Vancouver.

It will showcase the writers, their books, their publishers and other support structures within the local community and the larger culture and publishing communities.

In conjunction with Books on the Radio and Geist Magazine.

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR

"Aunt Mamie Talking About Supper" by Able Parris.

During the sixteen days of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, I'll be working nightly with Vancouver writer Alex Leslie on a project we're calling BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR.

BLACKOUT is a site-specific collaborative installation featuring the found visual and process-based works of audience members, artists, and curators of the arts salon at The Candahar. Leslie and I will be on-site, providing the opportunity for our collaborators (that's you) to selectively erase months worth of local and national pre-Olympic news with a bucketful of Sharpies. All poems will be shown during the last few nights of the salon and the best of the blackouts will appear in SubTerrain magazine.

Presentation House Gallery is staging The Candahar at the Playwrights Centre Theatre on Granville Island as "a locus for social interaction and the host site for an ambitious series of nightly events — musical programs, theatrical presentations, and performances. Highlights include an opening intervention and inquiry into the pub itself by Vancouver based artist Rebecca Belmore (Feb 12), presentations by authors Timothy Taylor (Feb 22) and Lee Henderson (Feb 15) musical performances by The Rodney Graham band (Feb 26), Tom Anselmi’s Hello World, (Feb 20), Lisa Marr (Feb 14) and Kevin Schmidt (Feb 27), talks by Nicolaus Schafhausen (Feb 13) and Skeena Reece (Feb 19) a performance by Althea Thauberger (Feb 21) as well as video screenings of Olympic interviews by Nardwuar the Human Serviette (Feb 16 and 23). Evenings are capped by guest DJ’s including Vancouver artists Stan Douglas, Adrian Buitenhaus, Stephen Murray and Tim Lee as well as an Olympic “wrap up” salon with talks by Jeff Derksen, Peter Dickenson, Clint Burnham and Ken Lum among many others. For precise program details and regular updates visit www.presentationhousegall.com beginning February 1. The Candahar is programmed by Vancouver author Michael Turner and invited guests.

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR acknowledges the support of SubTerrain magazine, the City of Vancouver, and the 2010 Cultural Olympiad.

God of Missed Connections Reviewed in the Toronto Star

Barbara Carey has reviewed God of Missed Connections, alongside John Barton's Hymn, in the Toronto Star.

Vancouver's Best Literary Crawl, Saturday Jan 9

The painting is Michael Morris’ The Problem of Nothing, 1966.

Be like me. Do the best poetry crawl of 2010 (so far). There are three events: 1pm, a talk with the remarkable American poet, Charles Bernstein (you will never hear another poet like this); 3pm, a curatorial talk by Vancouver author Michael Turner for his new gallery show at SFU called to show, to give, to make it be there: Expanded Literary Practices in Vancouver: 1954-1969; 6-8pm follow everything up with an afterparty for the show at Vancouver artist Geoffrey Farmer's amazing project space, Every Letter in the Alphabet, on Powell street at Victoria. Walked by it last night on the way to the beer and wine. Look for the dream machine in the window. Don't miss it.

Here is the info for all the events. Get in your cars/on the bus/on a bike and just GO.

1: SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 2010 1pm: CHARLES BERNSTEIN: Is Art Criticism 50 Years Behind Poetry? Or Aren't You the Kind that Tells? (Introduced by Jacqueline Turner) at ARTSPEAK 233 Carrall Street, Vancouver.

2: SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 2010 3pm: OPENING OF “to show, to give, to make it be there”: Expanded Literary Practices in Vancouver: 1954-1969. Where: Simon Fraser University Gallery, Burnaby – the Gallery is in the south side of the AQ in room AQ 3004 – one level below the pond, one above the main mall outside the Library. The opening is 2PM-5PM, with a 3PM tour

3: SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 2010 6-8pm: after-party for “to show, to give, to make it be there” at Geoffrey Farmer's project space, Every Letter of the Alphabet, located at 1875 Powell Street (at Victoria Drive) 6PM-8PM. All are welcome.

God of Missed Connections at the Malahat Review

Here's a blurb from a review by Mitchell Parry of the Malahat Review. Refreshingly, you won't find the whole thing online. You'll have to subscribe for which you will receive an actual literary journal in the actual mail.

"There's a confident, edgy humour throughout [this] collection, in spite of the darkness of the subject matter...Bachinsky balances the tone precicely. Her control over form—and her willingness to bend form when necessary—ultimately make God of Missed Connections a deeply moving and tremendously satisfying read."

You'll also find new poems by George Elliott Clarke, Jan Zwicky, Barbara Nickel, and lots of others, as well as reviews of newly released works by Margaret Avison, Robert Bringhurst, David Zieroth, Barry Dempster, and others.