Radical Attitudes wins Leo for Best Documentary Congratulations to Jim Hamm on the 2004 Leo Award for Best Documentary (Arts/Performing Arts) for his latest film, Radical Attitudes: The Architecture of Douglas Cardinal. Hamm's scrutiny of this controversial Métis architect, including Cardinal's triumphant work on the Canadian Museum of Civilization and his botched collaboration with the Smithsonian on the soon-to-be-opened National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, reveals an uncompromising, exacting and passionate artist.

Chika's Bird a Golden Sheaf winner

Congratulations to Adam Mars, Sharon Yu and Emiko Ando whose short film Chika's Bird won the Golden Sheaf for Best Children/Youth Production at this year's Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival. The film, also named Best Short at the Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children, features Valerie Tian as a 10-year-old Japanese-Canadian girl whose beloved grandfather is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Tian is best known as the star of Mina Shum's most recent film, Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity.

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Drawing Out the Demons premières at Hot Docs

David Vaisbord's new film, Drawing Out the Demons, had its world première to sold-out audiences at the recent Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. The 78-minute film unflinchingly follows the notorious and gifted bad-boy of the art world, Attila Richard Lukacs, through his difficult descent into addiction and back again. Also available in a 48-minute version.

Deconstructing Supper on Knowledge Network

The controversy behind genetically modified foods (GMOs) is at the center of Deconstructing Supper, an impassioned exploration into the politics, economics and ethics of eating. The film is part of the Knowledge Network's series on Food Issues and will be airing again Monday July 19th at noon. Deconstructing Supper was directed by Marianne Kaplan and produced by Leonard Terhoch and Marianne Kaplan.

"A fascinating, if disturbing, primer on the subject of genetically modified food. It manages to instruct without scolding, explore without preaching, and ultimately, should interest anybody who eats."     – Toronto Star 

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Almost Normal: Stories from the Well Within

Seana Kozar
46 min. 2004

Storyteller and folklorist, Dr. Seana Kozar is a woman with an invisible disability. When she was born with cerebral palsy, her parents were told she would never enjoy a full life. But when she was just 19, she was offered a fully funded spot in a Ph.D. program. In Almost Normal, Seana takes a deeply personal journey with four other women whose disabilities—attention deficit disorder, auditory disability, bipolar affective disorder, reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), rheumatoid arthritis and asthma—are as diverse as their life experiences. They discuss the challenges they have encountered at work, school and home, and the coping strategies they have developed to survive. These women know first hand that the greatest barrier to living fully with an invisible disability is a society that chooses not to see. Together, they discover the well within that helps them nourish themselves and support one another.

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The Artist's Life, A 13-part series

Michael Glassbourg
TickleScratch Productions
2003

These engaging profiles feature the bright lights of the Canadian art world, both emerging and established, giving insight into their artistic processes.

Will Munro (Mixed Media Artist) 24 min.

Will Munro is young, hip and one of the hottest artists on the Canadian scene. In Toronto's Now Magazine, he topped the 2002 list of Top Ten Art Shows. Munro shares his ideology on sex and social freedoms, giving deeper insight into his work.

Candida Girling (Painter) 24 min.

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Candida Girling studied art, architecture and industrial design, but after a brief foray into the more practical applications of design, she returned to painting, printmaking and sculpture. In her studio, she articulates her process, including her focus on colour and the exploration of gender roles and relationships.

Shelley Reeves (Painter) 24 min.

A native of Regina and a professor at Concordia University and Dawson College, Shelley Reeves prepares for a big opening in Edmonton on the heels of a very successful show in Montreal. Delving into the human psyche, her work explores the division between mind and body and has a poetic resonance.

Holly Farrell (Painter) 24 min.

Toronto artist Holly Farrell is a self-taught artist who burst onto the scene in 1995. She has won both awards and high acclaim. Her work, mostly still life, has a familiar and universal appeal, recalling the diner where she grew up. Through succinct and realistic paintings of common items, she creates an odd sense of déjà vu.

Susan Stewart (Photographer/Performance Artist) 24 min.

Vancouver artist Susan Stewart is one of Canada's most provocative photographers as well as a videographer and performance artist. A member of the acclaimed Kiss and Tell collective, she has published several books of her works including the photographs from Drawing The Line, an internationally acclaimed show which forces audiences to make distinctions between pornography and art.

Snaige Sileika (Printmaker/Painter) 24 min.

Born in Lithuania, Snaige Sileika trained as a printmaker at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. She has enjoyed solo exhibitions of her work in Canada and abroad. She shares her most recent work exploring the "fragility of life" and describes in detail the process of both her ink and brush sketches and her paintings.

Jean-Pierre Schoss (Sculptor) 24 min.

Raised in southwestern Ontario's tobacco country, Belgian-born Jean-Pierre Schoss recycles discarded toxic metals to make starkly beautiful sculptures. His work is primitive, balanced and often very humorous. At his acreage in Uxbridge, Schoss shares his creative process as well as his outdoor art gallery and unique graveyard of materials.

Camilla Singh (Artist/Curator) 24 min.

One of the most dynamic and challenging artists working in Canada today, English-born Camilla Singh is also an assistant curator for the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto. Her latest project interweaves hard pornographic images with photographs from the interiors of churches and cathedrals.

Andrew Danson (Photographer/Artist) 24 min.

Andrew Danson is a photographer, artist, curator, author and educator. In the 1980s, he convinced Jean Chrétien and Canada's 10 provincial premiers to take photographs of themselves alone in their offices for what would become his best-selling book, Unofficial Portraits.

Noel Harding (Installation Artist) 24 min.

In 1982, painter, sculptor and installations creator Noel Harding was the youngest artist ever to be honoured by a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario. His latest work features hundreds of live goldfish in a 45-foot-long tank made of plastic wrap. Another project was an installation next to the Don Valley Expressway called Elevated Wetlands, which takes toxic by-products from the plastics industry and uses them to clean Don River water.

Susan N. Stewart (Painter) 24 min.

A former student of Visual Arts at York University and Ontario College of Art & Design, Susan N. Stewart has exhibited in the U.S. and Canada and also has works in private and corporate collections around the world. Her most recent exhibition of paintings, Head Shots, is a compelling and disturbing collection of portraits with an unusual cast of characters. Stewart paints with boldness, fluidity, irony and wit.

Margaret Vanderhaeghe (Painter) 24 min.

Margaret Vanderhaeghe is as raw, expressive, and engaging as her paintings. At home in her studio, she allows an in-depth look at her creative process as she works on one of her unique abstract paintings. She discusses how she has frequently delved into her own childhood in the small, predominantly German community of Leader, Saskatchewan.

Dorothy Knowles (Painter) 24 min.

One of Canada's most prominent landscape painters, Dorothy Knowles discusses her work in the environment that she paints most often—the South Saskatchewan River valley. The landscape is dramatic, delicate, and astoundingly beautiful, as are the artist's paintings.

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Athlii Gwaii: The Line at Lyell

Marianne Jones/Susan Underwood/Jeff Bear
Ravens and Eagles Productions
46:30 min. 2003

In the fall of 1985, a small but resolute troupe of Haida elders journeyed by helicopter to Athlii Gwaii (Lyell Island) to join their young counterparts in a stand against clearcutting. Industrial invasion in the remote archipelago had gone too far. Ancient cedar giants and rare spruce trees—lifeblood of Haida art and culture—had been leveled indiscriminately for too long. Buoyed by their courageous Haida elders, protesters united in peaceful resistance, their dignity and grace capturing the attention of the world. A total of 72 people were arrested, but their tactics won change. In 1987, the government established the Gwaii Haanas Park Reserve/Haida Heritage Site, over 1,400 square kilometers of land that is still protected today.

This special episode of the Ravens and Eagles: Haida Art series features poignant archival interviews with elders Ada Yovanovich and Adolphus "Fussy" Marks. Surviving elders Ethel Jones and Watson Pryce share their recollections. Miles Richardson, head of the BC Treaty Commission, Guujaaw, president of the Council of the Haida Nation, and Allan Wilson, an RCMP officer at the scene and Haida himself, provide further insight into these pivotal events.

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Blindspot

Sherry MacDonald/Maureen Bradley
10 min. 2003
(includes discussion guide)

In this dramatic short, six-year-old Joe is caught in the tumult of his parents' disintegrated marriage. When his dad comes to visit, his mom calls the police and refuses to open the door. All she wants is protection from her husband. All Joe's dad wants is to get his family back. All Joe wants is to see his dad. Poignantly accurate, Blindspot depicts a violent family crisis through the eyes of a child.

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bp (pushing the boundaries)

Brian Nash
48 min. 2004
(includes discussion guide)

In this award-winning documentary, filmmaker Brian Nash has created a tapestry of style and content as he reveals the essence of the late poet bpNichol, author of over 300 publications including books of poetry and fiction, sound recordings, television scripts, libretti and comic strips. The film is thought-provoking, experimental, wildly playful and captures the work and spirit of bpNichol (1944-88), who in 1970 was the youngest recipient ever of the prestigious Governor General's Award.

Interviews with Bill Bissett, Roy Miki, Fred Wah and Christian Bök, among a host of other writers and colleagues, reveal the profound impact of this eclectic artist.

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Building Bridge: A Housing Project for Women

Jacqueline Levitin
Health and Home
22 min. 2003

Homeless women and women in desperate straits on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside found a safe haven when Bridge Housing for Women opened in 2001. This opening culminated a 20-year effort by neighbourhood residents and activists to create a place where women could escape the dangers of the streets and get support to come off drugs and alcohol. The women who created the project and the women who call Bridge home tell their stories.

Building Bridge grew out of the Simon Fraser University research project, Health & Home, that investigates the relationship between housing and the health of women on the Downtown Eastside.

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Don't Be a Bully

Riley Inge
Ryze Productions
20 min. 2003
(includes discussion guide)

Riley Inge, formerly on stage with the Motown group The Temptations, wrote and directed this short drama that educates both children and adults about bullying and violence.

Matt is a troubled boy who takes out his frustrations on other children. Everyone around him—his parents, sister, classmates, teacher—reacts to Matt, but no one looks deeper to find out what's behind his aggression. Riley Inge, as the school custodian, steps in to provide Matt with guidance. He communicates clearly, asks Matt questions about his feelings, and listens without judgment. By accepting the individual but not the behaviour, Riley shows that we can all own the problem of bullying.

For several years, Riley has been touring schools and workplaces with his successful Steps To Overcoming Problems (STOP) program, discussing self-esteem, coping skills and conflict resolution. Following in the footsteps of STOP, the video looks at bullying as a community problem that needs a community-based solution. It also features Riley's original music performed with help from the students of Connaught Heights Elementary School in New Westminster, BC.

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Drawing Out the Demons: A Film about the Artist Attila Richard Lukacs

David Vaisbord/Trish Dolman/Stephanie Symns
Point of View Productions
Two versions: 48 min. & 78 min. 2004
Also available on DVD

gifted artist, tormented soul, egomaniacal bad-boy hyped up on crystal-meth. This is the snapshot, circa summer 2001, as this raw and uncensored documentary begins tracking the dramatic career of Canadian-born painter Attila Richard Lukacs. A bold visionary whose life-size homoerotic renderings of neo-Nazi skinheads fetch as much as $150,000, Lukacs fails in his attempt to crack New York City and the world's toughest art scene. He spirals into depression and drug addiction, alienates arts associates, angers his boyfriends and pushes away his saintly parents. But the wired West Coast artist manages to make it to the other side, retreating from his disastrous NYC exploits to find detox, redemption and creative renaissance in Maui.

A gritty and compulsive examination of the extremes of artistic temperament, the story is set against the backdrop of Lukacs' school days at Vancouver's Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design and his meteoric rise into the international art world. His paintings—once the toast of Berlin and Toronto—shift and change in tone and execution, revealing an artist of uncanny ability and endurance.

The Globe and Mail calls the film "wonderfully voyeuristic" and "compulsively watchable," while the Atlantic Film Festival contends that, "Drawing Out the Demons may be the most honest and substantial documentary ever made about a world-class artist."

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Grassland Transfer

Susan Risk
Sure Fire Video Production/Live Wire Video Production
46 min. 2004

Looking out over the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, one could easily mistake it for the Canadian prairies. With similar geography, topography and weather patterns, the two arid regions are natural partners to exchange knowledge on sustainable dryland farming practices. Grassland Transfer follows the progress of just such an exchange: the Canada-China Sustainable Agriculture Development Project. Supported by CIDA, the project joins the expertise of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA)—a Canadian agency formed in the crucible of the Saskatchewan dustbowl—and its partners in northern China's Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (IMAR). With Canadian plant ecologist Jeff Thorpe as guide, the film journeys into China and the heart of the Inner Mongolian grasslands. The area currently faces a crisis similar to the drought of Canada's Dirty Thirties, theirs the result of population pressure and enormous overgrazing. While delving into the science behind drought, desertification and practices to renew ailing lands, the documentary also offers a rich tapestry of images from the land itself, the people, their culture and customs.

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The Hunt and The Walk, A 2-part series

Dennis Allen/Alexis Arthur/Ken Malenstyn
Big Red Barn Entertainment/Mackenzie Delta Films
2003
Available in English and Slavey
Also available on DVD

In The Hunt and The Walk, Inuvialuit and Vuntut Gwichin filmmaker Dennis Allen visits the tiny village of Colville Lake near his own childhood home of Inuvik in Canada's Northwest Territories. There he meets the Kahso Go'tine, a North Slavey Dene group and one of the last remaining truly traditional people.

The Hunt: Food from the Land 48 min.

The Kahso Go'tine survive on caribou and fish, heat their homes with wood and haul water from the lake. Since their present-day community was established in 1962, they have lived in isolation and maintained their traditions. But recently electric power, telephone service, satellite television, oil exploration, and access to the community via a winter road have meant a host of new influences.

To balance the inevitable changes ahead, every autumn the entire community of 100 people move to the "barrenlands" for the traditional caribou hunt. They may use a twin engine aircraft to get there, but they still butcher and pack the animals in the ways of their elders. The hunt points to a hopeful future where tradition and development can exist and prosper side by side.

The Walk: A Path to Healing 48 min.

In 1998, Dennis Allen accompanied the Kahso Go'tine on a historic trek over a traditional walking trail. They had not set foot on the trail in over thirty years, since air transport became available. With stunning footage, stories of personal triumph, and an emotional homecoming, The Walk moves through the lives of a people whose past holds the key to a successful future.

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I Learned to Live on the Day I Died

Matt Venables
5 min. 2003

A young artist struggles with his perceived failure, feeling overwhelmed by his inability to make an impact on the world around him. His girlfriend, though responsive, is unable to comfort him. But in the throes of his disastrous choice to commit suicide, does he belatedly see the truth in her soothing words?

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Just Smile and Nod

Katie Yu/Cheryl-Lee Fast
Massey Productions
9 min. 2004
(includes discussion guide)

Matt is a ten-year-old computer kid who starts the day by shooting doom trogs and decapitating hell raiders, but doesn't cotton to the idea of visiting his elderly Chinese grandfather. He complains to preoccupied parents that the old man doesn't have a computer nor does he "talk proper English." But from the moment the groovy disco-dancing grandpa greets Matt with an unexpected "Yo, my main man, slide me some skin," their communication gap is far from typical. Charming and hilarious, Just Smile and Nod turns the tables, and the turntable, on cultural stereotyping.

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Kla Ah Men: As Far Back as the Story Goes

Evan Tlesla Adams/Jan Padgett/Grace Adams
Sliammon Treaty Society
87 min. 2004
Includes discussion guide
Also available on DVD

Acclaimed actor Evan Adams (Smoke Signals) debuts as a filmmaker in a documentary about his people, the Sliammon First Nation (Coast Salish). Elders and tribal leaders voice their concerns on issues facing the community, their struggle to regain themselves and their place, and most urgently, the history-making treaty process being undertaken with the government of British Columbia. Now, more than ever for the Sliammon people, their insight into land usage must be astute and well-developed. How does day-to-day living involve their vast territories? How do memory, story, dance, and politics affect their relationship to the land now? What is it like to be out on the land today, carrying with them both traditions and modern experiences and concerns? This film is a tribute to Aboriginal stewardship of ancestral territories.

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A Little Life

Elizabeth Murray
5 min. 2003

Hatch, eat, fly, die…this enchanting short film shows the complete life cycle of the green bottle fly (phaenicia sericata) in minute detail.

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More Sensitive

Gail Noonan
2 min. 2003

More Sensitive takes a topsy-turvy trip into a hotel bar where a performer valiantly strikes the evening's first piano chord. But does he have the self-obsession necessary to survive his audience's indifference? With hand-coloured photographs, cutouts, plasticine, optical effects, and drawing on paper and cel, this short piece is a kaleidoscope of experimentation. Jazz musician Kim Darwin provides the stylized music and delicious self-parody.

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Radical Attitudes: The Architecture of Douglas Cardinal

Jim Hamm
48 min. 2004
Also available on DVD

"Creativity is making a declaration and a commitment and being absolutely unreasonable in carrying it out." – Douglas Cardinal

Never one to build "meaningless boxes designed for obsolescence," Métis architect Douglas Cardinal has spent a lifetime striving to elevate architecture. His work is celebrated nationally and internationally for its organic beauty and unique curvilinear style. With such prestigious projects as the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the First Nations University of Canada, he has established a design process informed and enriched by his aboriginal roots—consultative, holistic and nurtured by what he calls "sacred trust." But his extraordinary career has also been marked by tumult. Exacting and outspoken, Douglas Cardinal has never shied from controversy.

Radical Attitudes chronicles Cardinal's highs and lows, including his headlong plunge into the computer age in which he banished all his team's drawing boards in favour of an untested electronic tool, a maneuver he characterizes as like Cortez "burning the ships." This fast-paced documentary also delves into Cardinal's controversial standoff with the Smithsonian and their botched collaboration on the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened September 2004 in Washington, DC.

Interviews with renowned architect Arthur Erickson, Cardinal's long-time colleague Satish Rao, Washington Post architecture critic Benjamin Forgey and representatives from the Smithsonian paint a complex picture of an uncompromising visionary and artist.

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Ravens and Eagles: Haida Art, Series Two (13-parts)

Jeff Bear/Marianne Jones
Ravens and Eagles Productions
2003

In this second Ravens and Eagles series, Haida filmmaker Marianne Jones and First Nations director Jeff Bear continue to explore the richness of Haida art and culture.

Stone Carver 24 min.

Alfie Collinson is a stone carver who transforms the Haida people's creation stories into art. Using argillite, a stone indigenous only to Haida Gwaii, he is among the best of contemporary carvers. Alfie journeys to sacred ground to quarry the stone, slabs of which are delicate and difficult to come by.

On the Trail of Property Woman 24 min.

It's rare to find a female carver of monumental art, but in the 1960s, Freda Diesing was among the vanguard of Haida artists whose talents sparked a revival of their culture's artwork. At the age of 42, she took up carving and established herself as not only an exceptional carver, but also an enthusiastic teacher and mentor. Some of today's emerging masters like Dempsey Bob and Stan Bevan thank Freda for their success.

In Our Blood 24 min.

Geoff Green, Tony Green and Eric Olson are brothers who share a passion for art. The three lived away from Haida Gwaii throughout their childhoods but their mother Roberta Olsen, determined to preserve their cultural roots, raised them in Haida ways. The three discuss their connection to their own work and the inspiration they receive from their culture, their traditional home and one another.

Haida Jewelers 24 min.

Carmen Goertzen and Frank Paulson are two contemporary carvers who specialize in silver and gold. Both are motivated to pursue jewelry making by a desire for independence. They discuss their own processes and inspirations, how Haida jewelry fits into the larger tradition of Haida art, and in a highly competitive marketplace, the need to maintain a profile with the city's galleries and private collectors.

NaXine Weaver 24 min.

Evelyn Vanderhoop creates the highly prized NaXine robe, or Chilkat blanket, a cedar bark and goat's wool textile that takes many years to complete. While many assert that this weaving style is the domain of the Tsimshian and Tlingit people, Evelyn believes there is a strong connection between Tlingit, Tsimshian and Haida weaving.

From Hand to Hand: The Legacy of Charles Edenshaw, Pts 1 & 2 46:30 min.

Perhaps the most prolific Haida artist to have ever lived, Charles Edenshaw played an enormous role in preserving his people's ancient art forms at a time when their very survival was in question. He endured the enormous challenges of his era—the onslaught of disease, the growing influence of Christianity, and the repressive policies of the Canadian government—to become a great innovator in Haida art. His descendants, celebrated artists in their own right, along with northwest coast art historians, discuss his profound legacy.

Athlii Gwaii: The Line at Lyell, Pts 1 & 2 46:30 min.

Athlii Gwaii tells the story of a line, a line drawn definitively by the Haida people to stop overlogging in their ancient forests—lifeblood of Haida art and culture. In the fall of 1985, a small but resolute troupe of Haida elders journeyed by helicopter to Athlii Gwaii (Lyell Island) to join their young counterparts in a stand against clearcutting. See above for a more detailed description.

The New Collectors: Repatriation, Part 1 24 min.

Nika, Tanya and Vince Collison and 23 other Haida delegates travel 3,000 miles to New York City to reclaim their ancestors' remains from the American Museum of Natural History. As part of their pilgrimage, they are also invited by the Smithsonian to view and handle precious Haida artifacts housed at the National Museum of the American Indian.

The New Collectors: Repatriation, Part 2 24 min.

Nika and Vince Collison visit the British Museum in London to open a discussion on repatriating Haida art and cultural artifacts. Intent on delivering a "global story to an international audience," this vast historical museum does not warm to the topic.

GiiahlGalang: The State of the Haida Language 24 min.

Pre-contact, the Haida language flourished with as many different dialects as there were villages. Today, however, few fluent speakers remain. Some worry that the Haida people stand to lose a unique world view that is embodied in their indigenous tongue. Elementary school teachers in both Old Masset and Skidegate try to remedy a waning interest in the Haida language by making it a part of everyday lessons, bringing elders into the class to assist in teaching songs, dance and prayer.

Defining Haida Art (Ravens & Eagles Finale) 24 min.

An impressive array of artists—Robert and Reg Davidson, Guujaaw, Frank Paulson, Nika Collinson, Irene Mills, April Churchill, Victoria Moody and Evelyn Vanderhoop—discuss the importance of form and process in Haida art, the recovery from the repressive influences of church and government, the excavation of songs and language, the spiritual connection to art through dance and ceremony, and the vital relationship to the land when carving and weaving.

For more detailed descriptions of Series One and Series Two, download our Ravens and Eagles: Haida Art brochure in PDF.

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Vagina Dentata

Gillian Matheson
2:20 min. 2003

Following an early morning argument, a man cunningly plays the part of his lover's vagina to win back her affection. Vagina Dentata is a short and charming scene of power exchanges and sentimentality within a sexual relationship.

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The Writing Life, A 13-part series

Michael Glassbourg
TickleScratch Productions
2004

Some of Canada's most exciting writers—both the established and rising stars—reveal their approach to writing, where they find inspiration, how they nurture the self-discipline their work requires, and the pressures of success. Poets, novelists, short fiction writers, playwrights and song writers, these artists hail from all parts of Canada, bringing a multiplicity of experiences to their craft.

Guy Vanderhaeghe 24 min.

Recent winner of CBC's Canada Reads contest and twice recipient of the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction, Guy Vanderhaeghe lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. His novels, The Last Crossing and The Englishman's Boy, have both been international bestsellers. With intelligence, passion and self-deprecating wit, Vanderhaeghe explains his writing process in the Spartan surrounds of his office.

Douglas Glover 24 min.

"There is no other writer in Canada working so imaginatively with language, nor any to match his trenchant wit." – The Financial Post

Born in 1948, Douglas Glover grew up on the family tobacco farm in southwestern Ontario, studied philosophy at York University and in Edinburgh, then worked on a series of daily newspapers across Canada before earning his MFA. His ninth novel, Elle, was the 2003 winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction. In the intimacy of his family's 150-year-old Loyalist home, Glover reads from a selection of his writing.

Camilla Gibb 24 min.

Camilla Gibb was born in London, England, grew up in Toronto and earned a Ph.D. in social anthropology from Oxford University. Her first and second novels were selected by the Globe & Mail as best books of 1999 and 2002 respectively. Since the release of Mouthing the Words, winner of the City of Toronto Book Award, she has been in the limelight. At work on a new novel, she discusses her meteoric rise and the road from academia to the writing life.

Tim Lilburn 24 min.

"Tim Lilburn brings us face to face with the beguiling, bewildering strangeness of the world." – The Fiddlehead

Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Tim Lilburn's most recent collection of poems is the greatly acclaimed Kill-Site which won the 2003 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry. With an MA in Philosophy, he has taught in West Africa and lectured in China and is currently a philosophy and literature instructor at St. Peter's College in Muenster, Saskatchewan. His life has intertwined Jesuit studies and a simple non-literary childhood.

Kristen den Hartog 24 min.

"Kristen den Hartog's dark, tender first novel reveals her as a sort of literary younger sister to Alice Munro [with] a knack for dropping shocks into a plot as casually as pebbles from a dock." – Quill & Quire

Hailing from Deep River, Ontario, Kristen den Hartog now lives in Toronto. Her work has been published throughout Canada in literary magazines and anthologies, including the Journey Prize Anthology. Water Wings is her first novel. Although called an overnight sensation, she has been writing seriously for years and talks in great depth about her process.

Michael Crummey 24 min.

"Michael Crummey is a tremendously gifted writer." – Alistair MacLeod

Born in Buchans, a mining town in the interior of Newfoundland, Michael Crummey grew up there and in Labrador. He is the author of three books of poetry and a collection of short stories, Flesh and Blood. He is a winner of the Bronwen Wallace Award and was nominated for the 1998 Journey Prize. In 2001, his novel River Thieves was nominated for the prestigious Giller Prize.

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer 24 min.

Toronto writer Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer has been published in literary magazines such as Descant, Prairie Fire and Prism International. Her first book of short stories was released in 2003. A former fiction editor for The Literary Review of Canada, this one-time tree planter, lumberjack and baker is also well known for book reviews. She shares her thoughts on the juggling act of being a writer and a mother.

Stephanie Bolster 24 min.

"Bolster simply dazzles with technical virtuosity.…" – Judith Fitzgerald, Toronto Star

Vancouver-born Stephanie Bolster has been the recipient of the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry and the Archibald Lampman Award. A graduate of UBC's MFA program in Creative Writing, she now teaches at Concordia University. Her book White Stone: The Alice Poems was inspired by visions of Lewis Carroll's famed character both in and out of Wonderland. She delves into to the world of Alice in an entirely innovative way, allowing a window into her poetic process.

Jonathan Bennett 24 min.

Jonathan Bennett was born in Vancouver, raised in Sydney, Australia, and is now a resident of Port Hope, Ontario. He has published two works of fiction—After Battersea Park and Verandah People: Stories. His first collection of poetry, Here is my street, this tree I planted, will soon be available. He currently teaches writing at George Brown College. From his Port Hope lawn to a downtown Toronto bar to his office, he describes his road to becoming a published writer.

Cathy Stonehouse 24 min.

Vancouver-based writer and poet Cathy Stonehouse has found local and international praise. Originally from northwest England and a graduate of Oxford, she came to Canada upon receiving a Commonwealth Scholarship at UBC, where she obtained her MFA. Her first poetry collection, The Words I Know, was published in 1994. She won the Grain Prose Poem Competition in 1999. She currently works as the editor of Event Magazine, a literary journal published by Douglas College in New Westminster, BC.

Tess Fragoulis 24 min.

Tess Fragoulis was born in Crete, but grew up in Montreal, where she still resides. After several non-writing related jobs, she began public readings and put together the cabaret series, "The Absinthe Saloon." Her first novel, Stories to Hide from Your Mother, was inspired by a return trip to her motherland, and dealt with the mythology and superstitions of Greek culture. It was nominated by the Québec Writer's Federation for Best First Book. She discusses her reputation as both a wild person and a wild writer, integrating the public persona with the private person.

George Murray 24 min.

"He has the poet's instinct, the knack for turning a good phrase and the verbal grit and suppleness to keep the reader engaged. . . An important talent." – National Post

Raised in rural Ontario, George Murray has made a name for himself in Canada and the United States. In the last few years, at what might be seen as breakneck speed, George has generated three acclaimed books of poetry—Carousel (2000), The Cottage Builder's Letter (2001), and his powerful new book of poems, The Hunter (2003). He shares his work in the diverse settings of his study, a raucous Toronto bar and a quiet café in Guelph.

Robert Priest 24 min.

"Passionate, hilarious, kick-ass poetry." – Susan Musgrave, The Vancouver Sun

Robert Priest is one of the few Canadian artists who has been successful as both a writer and a musician. A composer of lush love poems and a widely quoted aphorist, he is the author of 14 books and numerous recordings. His aphorisms have found their way into The Farmer's Almanac and Colombo's Canadian Quotations, while a song he wrote for rock diva Alannah Myles was a number one hit. Robert is also a beloved children's author whose songs and poems are often played on Sesame Street.

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Zarra

Yasmin P. Karim
4 min. 2002

Zarra explores how every particle in existence, be it animate or inanimate, has a soul which continuously connects to the matrix of the Universal Soul. Through constant change and interplay, soul takes infinite shapes and forms that manifest as a visual symphony of light. The poetry of movement within each particle unfolds the abstract knowledge of the invisible universe and the mysteries within ourselves.

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March 2004

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