Verse Across Canada - VERSeFest 2021

VERSeFest returns November 13-21, 2021! Join us online and in person for a week of the most exceptional poetry around. Visit Versefest.ca for the entire festival lineup.

Featuring readings from:

CATHERINE HUNTER

Catherine Hunter is a Winnipeg writer. Her most recent book is the poetry collection St. Boniface Elegies, Signature, 2019 (short-listed for the Governor General's Award for poetry and a High Plains Book Award, and winner of Manitoba's Lansdowne Prize for Poetry). Her short story "Calling You," Prairie Fire, 2020, won the gold in fiction at the National Book Awards.

LILLIAN NECAKOV

Lillian Nećakov is the author of six books of poetry, numerous chapbooks, broadsides and leaflets. Her new book il virus was published in April 2021 by Anvil Press (A Feed Dog Book). In 2016, her chapbook The Lake Contains an Emergency Room was shortlisted for bpNichol chapbook award. During the 1980s she ran a micro press called “The Surrealist Poets Gardening Association” and sold her books on Toronto’s Yonge Street. She ran the Boneshaker Reading series from 2010-2020. She lives in Toronto and just might be working on a new book.

MEDRIE PURDHAM

Medrie Purdham lives in Regina, SK, Treaty 4, and teaches at the University of Regina. Her first collection of poetry, Little Housewolf, was published by Véhicule Press in 2021. Her poems have appeared in journals across the country, have been broadcast on CBC Saskatchewan's Sound XChange  and have been featured several times in Tightrope Press's Best Canadian Poetry series. She won the City of Regina Writing Award in 2015 and was runner-up for Arc Magazine's Poem of the Year competition in 2019.

VANESSA BELL

Vanessa Bell est animatrice, codirectrice de l’organisme en arts littéraires CONTOURS, critique à la revue Le Sabord, membre du comité de rédaction chez Lettres québécoises, présidente de la Table des lettres de Québec et Chaudière-Appalaches et chroniqueuse culturelle à la radio de Radio-Canada. 

Sa pratique en arts littéraires lui a permis de performer au Québec, en Europe et en Scandinavie. En plus du recueil De rivières (2019, La Peuplade), elle a publié en revue et en collectif, a fait paraître deux livres d’artiste et a signé un catalogue d’exposition. Elle a également codirigé l’Anthologie de la poésie actuelle des femmes au Québec 2000-2020 (2021, Éditions du remue-ménage) et a remporté le prix Félix-Antoine-Savard remis dans le cadre du Festival international de la poésie de Trois-Rivières (2021).

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 This is a free online event. Register at VERSeFest.ca: https://verseottawa.ca/en/event/verseacrosscanada2021