Special Event: Summer Dreams "Comes Home" to Trout Lake!

Barbara Adler & Fang are this year's headliners at Summer Dreams

The biting humour of Barbara Adler's "Fang", is just one highlight of this year's Summer Dream Literary Arts Fest.

When you look at past rosters for the Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival, you quickly realize that the  "grassroots" used to describe it could easily be the grass of East Vancouver's Trout Lake,  the heart of the trendy neighborhood where many of the performers live and work.

Besides being only a few blocks away from the home of the city's and one of the country's oldest slam poetry venues, Cafe Deux Soleils and the Rio Theatre (which played host to a packed house for the finals for this year's Canadian Festival of the Spoken word), Trout Lake is a jewel in the neighborhood.

As in the past, the headliner for the event will be a familiar name to East Vancouverites, Barbara Adler and Fang. The accomplished spoken word artist cut her teeth at the local slam and has made a successful go of combining her poetry with her other passion, music.

This festival is not just slam based though. It truly lives up to its name of  a literary festival by having such literary greats as Joe Rosenblatt, Bryant Ross, Dennis E. Bolen, Daniela Elza and Heather Haley, just to name a few. There will be free workshops running throughout the day as well. 

For the festival to make the switch from it's long-time Stanley Park location is an important step for the festival's founder and executive producer, Bonnie Nish.

“Trout Lake has always been our ideal spot for the festival, “Nish states.
“While Lumberman's Arch obviously has a lot going for it too, East Van really is a huge centre for the city's writing scene. So many of our performers consider this (Commercial Drive) to be home, and because Pandora’s Collective - the non-profit literary organization which created and runs the festival – has put on so many events on the Drive, we can't help but feel like we are coming home as well.”

As one might expect, putting on a big event with 3 stages, a children's area, a market place and 90+ performers is a lot of work, so the more help the festival can have the better.  Volunteers are needed. It’s a great way to meet people and learn more about event planning and Vancouver's vibrant writing community.  Those interested can sign up on The website at www.summerdreamsfest.com.


For more information about the festival, including complete directions and line up, check out our website: www.summerdreamsfest.com or email srduncan@shaw.ca or call 604-788-8340

Bolen's "Anticipated Results" Book Trailer Hits YouTube

Local writer, Denis E. Bolen has been getting rave reviews for his latest book, "Anticipated results.  Check out the trailer and watch close for some other familiar favorites like Clint "Father Goose" Wilson, Soressa Gardner and Susan Cormier, who also directed the video.

Literary: Salish Seas Reading at The Pond

Talking Stick Festival and The Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast present an evening of readings featuring:
Lee Maracle, Russell Wallace, Janet Rogers, Wil George, Joanne Arnott, Greg Coyes, Wanda John, Gunargie O'Sullivan
Mon Feb 7th, 7pm @ The Pond, 1441 Commercial Dr

Salish Seas is an exhibition of works by prominent and emerging Aboriginal artists in conjunction with the upcoming anthology, Salish Seas: An anthology of text + image. This project offers perspective to urban Aboriginal peoples living within these Coast Salish lands who are influenced and inspired by the Salish Sea and its associated rivers.

Salish languages are a grouping of indigenous languages of the Pacific NorthWest (BC and adjacent American states). The power of our words, either in our original languages or in English is manifest in the new and powerful works by the The Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast, a collective of Aboriginal writers and multidisciplinary artists.

Curated by Tania Willard and featuring work by artists Sonny Assu, Janice Toulouse, Charlene Vickers, Merritt Johnson, Kevin McKenzie, Duncan Murdoch, Dionne Paul, joAnne Noble, Cease Wyss, Kelly Roulette, Kamala Todd and Michelle Sylliboy.

Artist works featured in the publication and exhibition include installation, painting, digital illustration and video. From Sonny Assu's culture jamming Coke Salish print to expressive paintings by Janice Toulouse dealing with Aboriginal relationship to land, this exhibition examines ideas of home, origin, identity and 
honouring the land we come from, the sea and the rivers that connect us.

Kamala Todd's film, Indigenous Plant Diva documents the urban aboriginal and plant based knowledge of Coast Salish artist Cease Wyss. Wyss's work in the exhibition showcases three generations of Coast Salish women in vibrant digital illustrations from the book, Squamish People of the Sunset Coast. joAnne Noble's powerful crow mandala image and Kelly Roulette's portrait painting of a Native woman offer a strong aesthetic experience of the West Coast. Dionne Paul's Coast Salish borders offers an abstract approach to representing West Coast territories; while Michelle Sylliboy's close up images of the sea makes you feel like you are standing on a beach. All works are united in an exploration of living on the Coast surrounded by and connected to the Salish Sea and all the rivers that connect to it.

The Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast publication, Salish Seas: An Anthology of Text + Image will be launched at the exhibition closing, Sat Feb. 26th at 6pm at Gallery Gachet featuring a number of writers form the collective including Garry Gottfriedson and Michelle Sylliboy. Presented by the Talking Stick festival authors from the book including, Janet Rogers, Wil George, Russell Wallace, Greg Coyes, Wanda John and Joanne Arnott, will read at The Pond on Commercial drive. Mon Feb.7th at 7pm.

media contacts:

Exhibition:
Tania Willard, curator. t: 250 299 5835
Lara Fitzgerald,Programming Director, gallerygachet t: 604 687 2468

Book:
Joanne Arnott @ 604-277-7940