Literary: Summer Dreams Festival – A Movable and Free Literary Arts Feast

By Mary Duffy

“It’s kind of like coming home,” says Bonnie Nish, Executive Director of Pandora’s Collective, of this year’s 9^th annual Sumer Dreams Literary Arts Festival.  The festival, which spent its first years at the Vancouver Art Gallery and then moved to Stanley Park, now takes place at Trout Lake, 300 Victoria Drive, on Saturday, August 25th. Summer Dreams is very much at home in Eastside Vancouver.

Nish, the artistic director of Summer Dreams, has just come home after a summer in the Swiss Alps working on her PhD in Expressive Arts Therapy at the European Graduate School. Therefore, the festival planning had to start earlier than before, with Nish assembling a team of volunteers and feeding them pizza, chili and Pasta Gardenia during meetings at her home, starting just after last year’s festival finished.

Twisted Poets, a Pandora’s Collective venture, just celebrated its 10^th year. This was where Bonnie began to dream about creating a showcase connecting local poets in one big festival. Pandoras’ presents a mix of published, award winning writers alongside emerging writers and open mike performers, and debuted at a Commercial Drive café, hosting legendary poets such as Bill Bissett and local spoken-word stars such as R.C. Weslowski.

The Summer Dreams Festival is like an immense expansion of Twisted Poets, featuring poets, children’s authors, musicians and performers from across the lower mainland. The festival, which started with one stage at the Vancouver Art Gallery, has now grown exponentially and will present three stages, on the 25^th, at Trout Lake; and a gala night on Friday, the 24^th, at the CBC Studio 700, at 700 Hamilton St. The festival is free and open to the public and is aimed at “anyone who loves words, stories or poetry”.

According to Nish, “the gala will honour many who deserve to be recognized,”. This years award recipients  are poets Joe Rosenblatt, Wayde Compton, Heather Haley and Steve Duncan  in addition to D&M Publishers and the magazine, Adbusters. The evening of the 24^th will also feature award-winning poet George Bowering and the music of Mount Pleasant’s Inchoiring Minds, followed by a silent auction replete with a smorgasbord of treasures from local artists, craftspeople and businesses.

The Saturday outdoor festival at Trout Lake on the 25^th will share the park with the Farmer’s Market, and will provide many pleasures. You can listen to the traditional music of Darfur performed by Sundada, featuring the oud playing of Alaaeldin Abdalla, groove to the fusion of Leanne Averbach’s spoken word poetry accompanied by the jazz/blues of Indigo, or dance to the beat of spoken-word artist Barbara Adler and Fang, Vancouver’s famous accordion rock band. You can attend author-readings, workshops, readings by children’s writers, and other performances, on three stages. You can join in a “Free Silly Workshop” for adults, and participate in crafts and face painting for the younger set. You can move through this joyful fair and consume a cornucopia of desserts.

The fest hosts a feast of amazing artists from musicians to award winning ‘page’ and slam poets , including Evelyn Lau, Jillian Christmas, Denis E. Bolan, Daniela Elza, Billeh Nickerson, and Tanya Evanson.  As Nish says, “It’s a great way to get involved in the literary community and see what’s out there”. You might even decide to

 continue to follow or join one of the many featured writing or performance groups; from the Vancouver Storytellers to the Van Slam Poetry team this fest offers something for everyone.

And in the true spirit of an East Vancouver potluck, the festival invites you to participate. There will be two open mikes that you can sign up for on the day of the 25^th, if you would like bring some of your own creations to share at this party.

For more information and a complete list of events and performers you can visit:

www.summerdreamsfest.com

or email

srduncan@shaw.ca

or call

604-788-8430

Literary: Poetry Olympians Hit Summer Dreams!

Jillian Christmas

While Canadians are watching our athletes in London, closer to home, a team of four young writers are going for it all in Charlotte, North Carolina, and being noticed by a large, discriminating poetry audience.

Vancouver is one of only two Canadian teams (the other being Toronto) in a sea of American teams, with a smattering of European contenders. Despite being considered underdogs, they have reached the finals with their group piece, this after a grueling round robin series of bouts where members of the audience are recruited to judge the poetry with score cards, figure skater-style on a scale of 1-10. Poems can be no longer than 3 minutes or the team is subjected to a time penalty.

The National Poetry Slam is the annual poetry slam championship tournament, wherein four- to five-person teams from all over North America and Europe gather to compete against each other for the national team title. It has become part superbowl, part poetry summer camp, and part traveling exhibition. Staged in a different city each year, the National Poetry Slam has emerged as slam’s highest-profile showcase.

This year’s Vancouver team is made up of Jillian Christmas, Erich Haygun, Zaccheus Jackson, Erin Kirsh and Julie Peters.

Jilian Christmas on YouTube

Fresh off the Greyhound, the team takes to the stage at Trout Lake with almost 90 other writers and performers on Saturday, August 25th for the Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival.

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

Literary: The Written and Spoken Word Heats Up @ Britannia

4th Tuesday of every month
Pandora's Collective Presents
WORD WHIPS WRITING SERIES
Take the challenge. We provide the writing prompts and the opportunity for sharing. 10 -15 minutes to write to each prompt. See what you can whip up. 
Hosts: Sita Carboni, Mary Duffy, Maureen Egan, Wendy Goldsmith, Stephen Karr, Suzy Malcolm, Eva Waldauf
Time: 6:30 - 8:30pm
Location: Britannia Library, Gallery Room,
1661 Napier Street, Vancouver, BC
http://www.vpl.vancouver.bc.ca/branches/details/britannia_branch
Contact: sita@pandorascollective.com
www.pandorascollective.com


2nd Wednesday of every month
Presented by Pandora’s Collective and Britannia Branch
BOOK TALKS - BOOK CLUB
Join us for Book Talks book club! We will be discussing a preselected book each month, with the occasional session reserved for a discussion on a theme. Bring your favorite passages, points of interests, and share your reading experiences with us. Each person is responsible for either borrowing or buying their own copy to read. This is an open book club. Drop ins are welcome.

Aug 8th: The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steve Galloway
“Gripping. . . . Every action, no matter how mundane, is charged with tension. . . . Galloway has shown that contemporary fiction can move beyond the minute examination of self and relationship. We are asked to gaze, instead, on a city, a society, in the process of being destroyed, and on the tiny human gestures that represent the only means to repair the damage.” – National Post
Sept 12th:This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin
Oct 10th: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Nov 14th: Annabel by Kathleen Winter
Dec 12th: Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat
Jan 9th: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Feb 13th: Books We Love (book recommendation night - tell us about the books/authors you love)
March 13th: The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit by JJ Lee
April 10th: The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Location: Britannia Library, Gallery Room, 1661 Napier Street, Vancouver, BC
Hosts: Mary Duffy and Sita Carboni
Contact: booktalks@pandorascollective.com
www.pandorascollective.com

Literary: Award Winner Haley is a Renaissance New Media Artist

Stimulating and directing cultural fulmination is as natural to Heather Haley as manipulating media. She is an innovative programmer with a history of staunch commitment to the arts community and cultural awareness. 

With a strongly held conviction that artists, especially poets, needed to be represented on the World Wide Web, she founded The Edgewise Café in 1994, one of Canada's first electronic literary magazines, along with the non-profit arts organization, the Edgewise ElectroLit Centre. 

The EEC facilitated the Vancouver Videopoem Festival and Telepoetics, a videoconferenced reading series founded by Merilene Murphy. The Edgewise ElectroLit Centre's populist mandate and innovative programs effectively made poetry accessible to all and assisted Canadian artists in expanding both their audience and potential. 

Since 2004, Haley has been the host and curator of the Visible Verse Festival, North America's sustaining venue for the presentation of new and artistically significant poetry film and video. www.heatherhaley.com 

Haley and several other local literary figures of note will be honored at a ceremony on August 24, 2012, at CBC Studio 700. She then takes the stage the following day at Trout Lake with almost 90 other writers and performers for the Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival. 

 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

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

Special Event: Summer Dreams Fest "A Child's Vision" Exhibit @ Cafe Deux Soleils

Children in three age groups (8 -11, 12- 15, 16-18) were asked to tell the organizers of the Summer Dreams Literary Arts festival in poetry or a drawing what their "summer dreams" were. 


"The entries should reflect the artist’s or poet’s interpretation of summer," festival Executive Producer, Bonnie Nish, said. 

The selected artwork and poems will be displayed for a month at Cafe Deux Soleils.  Winners of the poetry and artwork will be present a reception on Sunday August 7th. at 7pm to receive their rewards, talk about their work and give readings. All winners receive a small prize in addition to being a part of the show.

LOTD: Summer Dreams 2011 interview

Live On The Drive - Commercial Drive's video blog caught up with Summer Dreams' Executive Producer Bonnie Nish and Daniela Elza - writer/festival volunteer - to hear about some of the highlights of this year's events.
Full info at www.summerdreamsfest.com

Live On The Drive: Summer Dreams 2010

Live On the Drive caught up with Bonnie Nish, executive producer of the 7th Annual Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival happening August 13-24 and featuring several local writers and musicians.
For more info about the event, check out their schedule at: https://sites.google.com/site/summerdreamsfest/
for full details.

Live on the Drive: Interview with Summer Dream Literary Arts Festival organizers

Recorded July, 18, 2009

My interview with Bonnie Nish and Rhonda Milne, organizers of the 6th Annual Summer Dream Literary Arts Festival, held August 19th to 29th. For more info on the event go to www.pandorascollective.com/sdrfestival.

Thanks t.o Lynn Wilson for operating the camera on the intro.

Special Event: Summer Dream Literary Arts Festival

Volunteers Wanted:

The 6^th Annual

Summer Dream

Literary Arts Festival

Aug.19-Aug.29, 2009

Presented by Pandora’s Collective

Summer Dream was created to raise public awareness about on-going literary events, programs and resources available in the local writing community.

Now in its sixth year, the festival proudly features over 100 of the West Coast’s best authors, musicians and performers, including Governor General nominee Evelyn Lau, Vancouver’s first Poet Laureate George McWhirter, Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize winner Rita Wong, quirky Commercial Drive anti-heroes Al Mader AKA “The Minimalist Jug band” and the surreal RC Weslowski, plus Seattle spoken word legend Jack McCarthy, to name just a handful.

Summer Dream incorporates literary performances, dancers, local bands, panel discussions, open mics and a children’s area with puppet shows, music, story tellers, face painting and craft tables. There are also information tables showcasing community groups and resources like the Vancouver Public Library and The Federation of BC Writers.

Preparations are now well-underway for the event that local critics have called “Vancouver’s best-kept summer secret!”

Festival organizers Bonnie Nish and Rhonda Milne are anxious to meet people who want to be a part of this engaging, entertaining, family-friendly celebration of literary-based art.

”There’s always lots do,” Nish, the festival’s Executive Director, pointed out in a recent interview. “We need people to lend a hand with everything from spreading the word before the event, to helping out with set-up and tear-down on Saturday’s big outdoor happening.”

Milne, who acts as Volunteer Coordinator for the festivities, was quick to add, that what first convinced her to become involved was the sense of “camaraderie and community” that the festival fostered.

“The first time I got involved with Summer Dream,” Milne said, “I was inspired all the great talent and great people who really go out of their way to make you feel like your part of something very special and important. It’s like a big family!”

For volunteer opportunities you can contact Rhonda Milne at rhondamsel@yahoo.ca 778-928-1147

For media information and full festival details visit http://www.pandorascollective.com/sdrfestival.html or call Steve Duncan at 604-788-8340. srduncan@shaw.ca.

For all other inquiries contact Bonnie Nish at Bonnie Nish at 778-322-4039 blnish_pandoras@yahoo.ca

Pandora’s Collective would like to thank the following sponsors for making this event possible: Giest, Vancouver Review, Subterrain, Event, Room With A View, 3 Day Novel Contest, Prism, Capilano Review, One Cool Word, Vancouver Story Tellers, Vancouver Public Library, Quills, Nestor's Market, Graphic design by CWCLCOGY with Wera, Vancouver Parks Board, 2008 Celebrations Grant c/o The City of Vancouver and The Office of Cultural Affairs, CBS Outdoor, Starbucks, VanCity, Christianne's Lyceum, Coast Capital Savings, The Federation of BC Writers, Burnaby Writers Society, Industrial Alliance Pacific Life Insurance Company, BC Poetry, Jaffer Speech and Language Services, Irene Livingston, Don Simpson, Joyce Statton, Randy Jacobs, Bernice Lever, Andrea Winterbottom and Robin Susanto.