OPENING NIGHT CELEBRATION
The Cherie Smith Memorial Lecture Evening Features Lilian Nattel, author of The Singing Fire and
The River Midnight
From
the shtetl to China: LILIAN NATTEL,
author of The River Midnight and The Singing Fire,
explores the vitality and endurance of our Jewish foremothers…their
friendships, their secrets, their loves and the magical power of
stories. In The Singing Fire, Nattel masterfully brings to
life a vanished world and the education of two determined women
as they navigate a dangerous realm. Embracing the dilemmas of class,
gender, culture and history, The Singing Fire reveals Nattel's
magical touch with her unique imagination and fearless voice. A
sweeping fin-de-siècle tale of two immigrant women, the adoptive
mother and the birth-mother of the child who unites them, The
River Midnight ushers us from 19th Century Eastern Europe into
the underbelly of London. A best selling novel, The River Midnight
won the Martin and Beatrice Fischer Award for Jewish Fiction as
well as wide international acclaim. Her books have been published
in eight countries. Nattel wrote about her experience of Yom Kippur
in China for Oprah Magazine. She lives in Toronto with her husband
and two daughters and is currently working on her third novel, set
in Stalinist Russia.
Musical Entertainment
by Swingamajig Swingamajig
is an inspiring father-son jazzy musical duo based in Vancouver.
Only fifteen years old, MICHAEL FRASER
plays violin with the jazz feel of someone who’s been improvising
his whole life. His dad, DON FRASER,
backs him with some solid guitar rhythm as they play tunes from
the Gypsy and Swing Jazz repertoires, as well as their own original
compositions. Michael started playing the violin at age 4 and by
age 9, he was already smitten with the old jazz standards, particularly
with the raunchy fiddling of his idol, Stuff Smith. In 2001, he
was the recipient of a B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame Foundation
Scholarship in recognition of his demonstrated talent, dedication
and future potential in the field of music. Swingamajig has delighted
audiences at a number of first-class music festivals including the
Kaslo Jazz Festival, Mariposa Folk Festival, and Denmark's Aarhus
Jazz Festival. Dessert Reception
This evening is supported by the Cherie Smith Memorial Lecture Evening
Endowment Fund.
Tickets can be purchased in advance at JCC Reception or by calling
604 257 5111.
Advanced tickets: $20 + GST - General admission; $18 + GST - JCC
members, students and/or seniors. Tickets at the door: $25+ GST. Location: Norman Rothstein Theatre
11:00 am
Join poets Isa Milman and Steven Michael Berzensky while they wrap
their words around a bagel and lox at a poetic Sunday brunch.
ISA
MILMAN is a poet, visual artist and occupational therapist.
Born in a Displaced Persons Camp in Germany in 1949, she immigrated
with her family to Boston in 1950, moved to Montreal in 1975 and
to Victoria in 1996. A family memoir, a tribute to resilience, a
song of gratitude, Between the Doorposts (Ekstasis Editions, April
2004) is her first full collection of poetry. It speaks of Jewish
identity transformed, and reminds us that poetry has the power to
move us, console us, and bring us exultation. Isa Milman's poetry
has been published in The Malahat Review, Arc, Other Voices, Zachor,
and in the anthologies Moving Small Stones, Masks, and Briefly Perfect,
all edited by Patrick Lane. Her letter press chapbook, Seven Fat
Years, was published by Frog Hollow Press in 2002.
STEVEN
MICHAEL BERZENSKY (MICK BURRS) is one of Canada's most
distinct literary voices. His sixth book, The Names Leave the Stones:
Poems New and Selected (Coteau, 2001) was the sole poetry finalist
for Book of the Year at the 2002 Saskatchewan Book Awards. In it,
Berzensky reveals a rare and beautiful reverence for the human spirit.
He gave his first poetry readings at Simon Fraser University and
Vancouver's Jewish Community Centre 37 years ago and he's returning
with his voice in fine form, dissecting history, exploring family
and whimsically observing everyday events. A critic has described
his work as "a victory for poetry over tyranny." His poems
and stories have appeared in over 40 anthologies. A former editor
of Grain, he's the subject of a feature documentary film, Real Live
Poet, now in production. Berzensky resides in Yorkton, Saskatchewan.
These readings
are supported by a Canada Council for the Arts Literary Reading
Grant. The readings are open to the general public.
Tickets for
the brunch ($10 + GST per person) should be purchased by Monday,
November 15 at JCC Reception or by calling 604 257 5111. A limited
number of seats are available. Location: L'Chaim Adult Day Centre Lounge
1:00 to 2:30
pm POETRY
WRITING WORKSHOP
(1210)
Instructor: Rhea Tregebov
Try your hand at the craft of writing poetry in an encouraging and
supportive environment. In addition to an introductory discussion
on the poetic process and how to access it, there will be an in-class
writing exercise which will allow you to get a sense of your own
poetic voice. Participants are asked to bring paper and pen.
$25.00 + GST JCC members; $36.00 + GST NM. Registration deadline:
Monday, Nov.15. Space is limited so sign up early at JCC reception
or call 604 257 5111. The workshop will be cancelled if there is
insufficient registration. (min. 8, max.15) Location: Music Room
3:00 to 4:30
pm
WRITING FROM FAMILY STORIES (1220)
Instructor: Rhea Tregebov
An introductory discussion will give an overview of how the tools
of writing fiction can bring family stories to life. Participants
will have the opportunity to take part in an in-class writing exercise
to trigger memory and help move the lived experience from memory
to paper. Participants are asked to bring paper and pen.
$25.00 + GST JCC members; $36.00 + GST NM. Registration deadline:
Monday, Nov.15. Space is limited so sign up early at JCC reception
or call 604 257 5111. The workshop will be cancelled if there is
insufficient registration. (min. 8, max.15) Location: Music Room
RHEA
TREGEBOV's sixth collection of poetry, (alive): Selected
and New Poems, was just released by Wolsak and Wynn in September
2004. The Strength of Materials (Wolsak and Wynn) was published
in 2001. Tregebov has published five children's picture books and
is the editor of nine anthologies of essays, poetry and fiction,
most recently Gifts: Poems for Parents (Sumach Press, 2002). She
received Honorable Mention for the National Magazine Awards (poetry)
in 1998, is co-winner of the Malahat Review Long Poem Competition
(1994) and received the Readers' Choice Award for Poetry from Prairie
Schooner (1993). Her first poetry collection won the Pat Lowther
Award in 1983. Tregebov recently moved to Vancouver. In January
2005 she will begin teaching as Assistant Professor of Creative
Writing at UBC.
7:00 pm SEYMOUR
MAYNE is the author, editor or translator of more than
forty books and monographs. He co-authored Cinquefoil (2003), published
Light Industry I(2000) and Carbon Filter: Poems in Dedication (1999)
(Mosaic Press). A selection of his biblical poems, The Song of Moses
(1995) was one of the earliest illustrated books to appear in an
electronic edition. He co-edited the award-winning anthologies,
Jerusalem: A Jewish Canadian Anthology (1996) and A Rich Garland:
Poems for A.M. Klein (1999) (Vehicule Press). He is the recipient
of the J.I. Segal Prize, the Lockshin Memorial Award, the Fuerstenberg-Aaron
Prize and other literary honours. His latest book, Ricochet (Mosaic
Press 2004) from which he will read, is a collection of metaphorical
and witty 'word sonnets' on topics ranging from challenging weather
to sayings from Pirkei Avot. Audience members may be encouraged
to write a 'word sonnet' on demand and read it out to the audience.
Bring a pen and paper.
This reading is supported by a Canada Council for the Arts Literary
Reading Grant. The reading is open to the general public. Free Admission.
Everyone is welcome. Location:
Dayson Board Room
8:00 pm Join
JILL CULINER, author of Finding
Home: In the Footsteps of the Jewish Fusgeyers, for a book talk
and photography display. The Fusgeyers, Jews who fled persecution
in Romania in the early 1900s, found refuge in the New World. Culiner
retraces their steps, crossing Romania on foot in search of this
lost epic journey. Intriguingly, Culiner has worked in a series
of unsatisfying jobs as a file clerk, b-girl, go-go dancer, fashion
model, street vendor and cocktail waitress. She has lived in her
car in Paris, in a castle in Germany and was arrested in Turkey
on a trumped-up charge of espionage. She worked for Radio France
writing and broadcasting her own travel stories. Culiner has exhibited
her art and photography throughout Europe and Canada. She recently
prepared an exhibition, which is being shown in Hungary, about the
Hungarian Holocaust - the (now forgotten) ghettos and the vanished
synagogues. Born in New York, raised in Toronto, Culiner has lived
in Germany, France, Greece, Turkey, England, Holland and Hungary,
where she presently resides.
This reading is supported by a Canada Council for the Arts Literary
Reading Grant. The reading is open to the general public. Free Admission.
Everyone is welcome. Location: Dayson Board Room
1:00 pm LYNNE
KOSITSKY's novel The Thought of High Windows, though
a work of fiction, is based on the true story of a hundred children
who escaped Germany and Austria just before the War. It has been
nominated for a White Pine Award and has been optioned for a Movie
of the Week. Kositsky is an award-winning poet and children's novelist.
She has won the prestigious E.J. Pratt Medal and Award for poetry
and an international White Raven Award, given by the International
Youth Library in Munich, to authors who contribute to an international
understanding of a culture and a people. She has degrees in psychology,
education and English and has been a middle school, secondary school
and a university teacher, teaching English, drama and history. Kositsky
was born in Montreal, grew up in England and returned to Canada
in 1969. She currently lives in Toronto and works full time as a
writer.
This reading is supported by a Canada Council for the Arts Literary
Reading Grant. The reading is open to the general public. Free Admission.
Everyone is welcome. Location: Dayson Board Room
LITERARY READINGS 7:00 pm The
Canadian Jewish Studies Reader, edited by RICHARD
MENKIS and Norman Ravvin, is a collection of essays on
literature, visual arts, historical writing on the Holocaust, feminist
research, ethnic studies and other related fields. The role of Yiddish
in Canadian Jewish identity, postwar developments in ethnic relations,
scandals like the little-known Yom Kippur Balls, the role of the
Jews in Quebec history and culture are a few of the subjects examined.
Richard Menkis is an Associate Professor at the University of British
Columbia. He was founding editor of Canadian Jewish Studies and
is currently conducting research on scholarly and popular recreations
of the Canadian Jewish past. Norman Ravvin is a writer, critic and
teacher. His books include the novel Lola by Night and the essay
collections A House of Words: Jewish Writing, Identity and Memory
and Hidden Canada: An Intimate Travelogue. He is Chair of the Institute
for Canadian Jewish Studies at Concordia University. Location:
Dayson Board Room
8:00 pm HEATHER
LASKEY's latest book is Night Voices: Heard in the Shadow
of Hitler and Stalin, the little-known story of young Polish Jewish
idealists, survivors of the Holocaust, who chose to support Poland's
post-war communist government in the belief that socialism offered
the path to a more just society. Her first book, entitled The Children
of Poor Clares: The Story of an Irish Orphanage, was published in
Ireland in 1985 and broke the story of the abuse of children in
Ireland's church-run institutes. Heather Laskey has been both a
staff and freelance journalist in Ireland, Britain, and Canada in
both print and radio. Heather Laskey lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
This reading is supported by a Canada Council for the Arts Literary
Reading Grant. The reading is open to the general public. Free Admission.
Everyone is welcome. Location:
Dayson Board Room
10:00 am No
One Must Know, EVA WISEMAN's
third novel is about a young girl whose world is turned upside down
by her family secret. Her second novel, My Canary Yellow Star, a
historical novel set in Budapest in 1944, centres on Marta, a 15-year-old
Jewish girl who sought help from Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
It received several awards and honours including the McNally Robinson
Book for Young People Award and like her first novel, A Place Not
Home, was included in the New York Public Library Best Books for
the Teen Age list. Born in Hungary, Eva Wiseman moved to Canada
as a young girl. She began writing at a young age, and showed an
early passion for journalism as a teenager, interviewing teen movie
stars, like Annette Funicello & Frankie Avalon for The Winnipeg
Free Press. Wiseman lives in Winnipeg.
This reading
is supported by a Canada Council for the Arts Literary Reading Grant.
Vancouver Talmud Torah grades six and seven students will attend
this reading which is also open to the general public. Free admission.
Everyone is welcome. Location: Dayson Board Room
12:00 pm Join
PAMELA REISS, author of Soup:
A Kosher Collection (Whitecap Books, 2004) for a cooking demonstration
and enjoy a savory soup and salad lunch topped off with a surprise
dessert. Pamela Reiss grew up in Winnipeg where her parents ran
Desserts Plus, a kosher catering company and restaurant. Pam grew
up - weekends spent washing dishes at weddings or waiting tables
and prepping food in the restaurant. After earning a Bachelor's
Degree in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management, she started
taking on more responsibilities in the family business. It didn't
take long to discover that what she enjoyed most was creating new
recipes.
This reading
is presented in association with Congregation Beth Israel.
Course #1230: $10 + GST - JCC /Beth Israel members, seniors, students;
$12 + GST - NM. Cost includes cooking demo plus a soup and salad
lunch with a surprise dessert. Registration deadline: Mon., Nov.
15. Register at JCC reception or call 604 257 5111. Location: Wosk Auditorium
4:00 - 6:00
pm 'Coming Out' Teens: Are We Ready?
(1240) Workshop for Mental Health Professionals, Teen Workers, Clergy
and Educators
Presented by Rabbi Steven Greenberg (see next item for bio)
Gay and Lesbian youth face a daunting array of challenges. They
typically suffer from isolation, fear, and enormous anxiety. The
burden of carrying this secret leads to academic, social and familial
problems, health risks, and even substance abuse and suicide. Teens
dealing with issues of sexual orientation can turn to educators,
religious leaders, youth workers or mental health professionals
and when they do the responsibilities are enormous. How can an atmosphere
of tolerance and safety be engendered in a school? in a youth group
or camp? When teens come out, how should professionals respond?
Cost: $20 +
GST for workshop plus $12 + GST for 'paper bag dinner' (salmon,
assorted salads, beverage) Dinner is optional. Register at JCC Reception
or call 604 257 5111. Registration deadline for workshop and
advance dinner orders is November 15.
This workshop is being presented in association with the Jewish
Family Service Agency. Location: L'Chaim Adult Day Centre Lounge
7:00 pm Can One Achieve Social Change through Writing
& Filmmaking?
An Interview with JOEL BAKAN and RABBI STEVE GREENBERG
Interviewer: JERRY WASSERMAN
Join Jerry Wasserman as he explores with guest authors, Joel Bakan
and Rabbi Steve Greenberg the potential for books and film to stir
readers and audiences to social action. The authors will read excerpts
from their books and show clips from the films with which they have
been associated. JOEL
BAKAN is author of The Corporation: The Pathological
Pursuit of Profit and Power and co-creator of the film of the same
name. Bakan is professor of law at UBC and an internationally recognized
legal scholar. Bakan's previous book, Just Words: Constitutional
Rights and Social Wrongs, was widely and favourably reviewed. A
former Rhodes Scholar, he has law degrees from Oxford, Dalhousie
and Harvard Universities. He has won numerous awards for his scholarship
and teaching, has worked on landmark legal cases and government
policy and frequently serves as a media commentator. Bakan's work
examines the social, economic and political dimensions of the law.
RABBI
STEVE GREENBERG is the author of Wrestling with God and
Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition. A well known educator
and presenter on gay issues, New York’s Rabbi Greenberg has
conducted hundreds of programs for communal lay and professional
leaders of Jewish Federations, synagogues and philanthropic institutions
in over fifty cities in North America. He was featured in the acclaimed
documentary film, Trembling Before God, by Sandi Simcha DuBowski.
Greenberg came out publicly as the first openly gay Orthodox Rabbi
in March 1999 and has since become a public advocate for ending
the silence in the Orthodox community on the issue of homosexuality
in the US and abroad.
JERRY
WASSERMAN has wrestled with corporations public (UBC,
CBC) and private (Paramount, Disney, Fox) in his roles as English
professor, theatre critic, and actor. He is editor of Modern Canadian
Plays, and last summer he trembled before Will Smith in I, Robot.
Advance tickets:
$10 + GST; at the door: $12 + GST.
For tickets and information, visit JCC reception or call 604 257
5111.
This event is
being presented in association with the Jewish Family Service Agency. Location:
Norman Rothstein Theatre
10:00 am
Join author, IRENE N. WATTS and illustrator, KATHRYN E. SHOEMAKER
for a launch of their new book, A Telling Time (Tradewind Books,
2004). A Telling Time, a story about two miracles, one set in ancient
times in Persia and the other set in Vienna in 1939, celebrates
courage in times of darkness, and the power of story to change people's
hearts. This event will be a combination reading and illustrating
as well as a
discussion on how a writer and illustrator work together and influence
each other.
IRENE
N. WATTS
arrived in England from Berlin, Germany by Kindertransport in 1938.
She has lived and worked in Canada since 1968 as a playwright, educator
and writer. Her trilogy about refugee children, Good-Bye Marianne,
Remember Me, and Finding Sophie (Tundra Books) has won numerous
honours including: The Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction,
The Isaac Frischwasser Award for Historical Fiction for Young People,
and BC's Chocolate Lily Award. Tapestry of Hope (Tundra Books 2003),
compiled with Lillian Boraks Nemetz, was a Finalist for the Sheila
A. Egoff Children's Literary Prize, is an International Association
of Librarians' Honor Book, and was awarded the Canadian Jewish Book
Award for Holocaust Studies. In 2004, she compiled Volume 1 &
2 of an anthology of Holocaust plays under the title of A Terrible
Truth (Playwrights Canada Press).
KATHRYN
E. SHOEMAKER
is the illustrator of over thirty books for children, among them
A Telling Time, My Animal Friends (Tradewind Books) and Jenny's
Neighbours (Annick Press). She has had broad experience as an art
teacher, curriculum specialist, filmmaker, and exhibit/event designer.
Her published works include books, filmstrips, greeting cards, posters,
calendars, magazine illustrations and articles, and hundreds of
educational illustrations and in-service materials. Her paintings,
illustrations and multi-media creations are in public and private
collections around the world. She has been active throughout North
America as a speaker and consultant. For the past six years she
has taught illustration at local colleges. She currently sits on
several non-profit Boards in Vancouver and is completing work on
a MA in Children's Literature at the University of British Columbia.
Vancouver Talmud Torah grade threes will attend this reading.
This reading is open to the general public. Free Admission. Location: Dayson Board Room
7:00 pm PEI's
award-winning popular playwright, poet and fiction writer J.J.
STEINFELD will read from his most recent short story
collection, Would You Hide Me? (Gaspereau Press, 2003). Steinfeld
has published a novel, nine short story collections, as well as
two chapbooks. Over thirty of his plays have been performed in various
forms in Canada and the United States, ranging from staged readings
to full productions. He was the 2003 recipient of the Award for
Distinguished Contribution to the Literary Arts on PEI and the winner
of Regina Little Theatre's 2003 National Playwriting Contest. His
most recent plays are The Golden Age of Monsters (Pinking Shears
Productions/Hamilton Fringe Festival and Toronto Fringe Festival,
summer 2003), and The Franz Kafka Therapy Session, (Gemini Theatre
Company/Pittsburgh New Play Festival, 2003). In September 2004,
he received the Whip City Radio Theatre Drama Award from the Theatre
Arts Program, Westfield State College, Westfield, Massachusetts
for Diogenes' Lantern. Steinfeld lives in Charlottetown, PEI.
This reading
is supported by a Canada Council for the Arts Literary Reading Grant.
Free admission. Everyone is welcome. Location: Dayson Board Room
8:00 pm DR.
RON BURNETT, President of Vancouver’s Emily Carr
Institute of Art and Design will read excerpts from his newly published
book, How Images Think (MIT Press, 2004). In today's world digital
images are an integral part of all media including television, film,
photography, animation, video games, data visualization, and the
Internet. Spectators become navigators winding their way through
a variety of interactive experiences, and images become spaces of
visualization with more and more intelligence programmed into the
very fabric of communication processes. In How Images Think, Burnett
examines this development and how it affects the relationship between
humans and machines. Also author of Cultures of Vision, Burnett
is a recipient of the Queen's Jubilee Medal, Chair of the Association
of Canadian Art and Design Institutes and Colleges, member of the
Royal Canadian Academy of Art, photographer and author of over 150
published articles in the fields of Art, Design, Media, Communications,
New Media and Cultural Studies.
Free admission. Everyone is welcome. Location: Dayson Board Room
7:00 pm Discover
the musicality and lucidity that shines through SUSAN
GLICKMAN's writing. Glickman is best known and loved
for her five volumes of poetry published by Vehicule Press of Montreal.
Running in Prospect Cemetery: New and Selected Poems (2004), her
most recent collection showcases the wide breadth of her verse.
In it she tackles the tension and compromise of relationships, the
everyday mysteries of
parenting, romance, cancer, death and infertility. Glickman won
both the Raymond Klibansky and the Gabrielle Roy prizes for her
work of literary critcism, The Picturesque & the Sublime: A
Poetics of the Canadian Landscape (1998). She is a third-generation
Jewish Montrealer who has spent her life traveling in books and
on land. She just finished her first novel, The Violin Lover, and
is working on her second as well as some stories and poems for children.
Governor
General award nominee, EDEET RAVEL
will read excerpts from her newest novel, Look For Me, published
by Random House in 2004. She received wide acclaim for Ten Thousand
Lovers (Headline, 2003) which was chosen for Hadassah WIZO's top
four novels of the year, Quill and Quire's five best novels of the
year and was among the top ten in the Globe & Mail's 100 Best
Books of the Year. Quill and Quire called Ten Thousand Lovers, 'stunning',
and the Globe and Mail praised it as 'bold and beautiful'. Born
on a kibbutz, Edeet moved to Montreal at age seven, returned to
Jerusalem at 18 to do a BA and MA in English Literature and after
five years of studies moved back to Canada where she completed an
MA and PhD in Jewish Studies at McGill, in Biblical Exegesis, and
an MA in Creative Writing at Concordia University. She has taught
for two decades - Holocaust Studies, Hebrew Literature and Biblical
Exegesis at McGill, Creative Writing at Concordia University, and
English Literature at John Abbott College. A wine and cheese reception to honour the volunteers of our community
will follow in the atrium.
These readings
are presented with support from a Canada Council for the Arts Literary
Reading Grant. This evening is presented in association with Hadassah-Wizo
Council of Vancouver.
Admission is free. Everyone is welcome. However, as this will be
a popular event, please assure yourself of a seat by reserving a
ticket. Call the Hadassah-Wizo office at 604-257-5160 by November
15, 2004. Location:
Norman Rothstein Theatre
From
the shtetl to China: LILIAN NATTEL,
author of The River Midnight and The Singing Fire,
explores the vitality and endurance of our Jewish foremothers…their
friendships, their secrets, their loves and the magical power of
stories. In The Singing Fire, Nattel masterfully brings to
life a vanished world and the education of two determined women
as they navigate a dangerous realm. Embracing the dilemmas of class,
gender, culture and history, The Singing Fire reveals Nattel's
magical touch with her unique imagination and fearless voice. A
sweeping fin-de-siècle tale of two immigrant women, the adoptive
mother and the birth-mother of the child who unites them, The
River Midnight ushers us from 19th Century Eastern Europe into
the underbelly of London. A best selling novel, The River Midnight
won the Martin and Beatrice Fischer Award for Jewish Fiction as
well as wide international acclaim. Her books have been published
in eight countries. Nattel wrote about her experience of Yom Kippur
in China for Oprah Magazine. She lives in Toronto with her husband
and two daughters and is currently working on her third novel, set
in Stalinist Russia. 
Swingamajig
is an inspiring father-son jazzy musical duo based in Vancouver.
Only fifteen years old, MICHAEL FRASER
plays violin with the jazz feel of someone who’s been improvising
his whole life. His dad, DON FRASER,
backs him with some solid guitar rhythm as they play tunes from
the Gypsy and Swing Jazz repertoires, as well as their own original
compositions. Michael started playing the violin at age 4 and by
age 9, he was already smitten with the old jazz standards, particularly
with the raunchy fiddling of his idol, Stuff Smith. In 2001, he
was the recipient of a B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame Foundation
Scholarship in recognition of his demonstrated talent, dedication
and future potential in the field of music. Swingamajig has delighted
audiences at a number of first-class music festivals including the
Kaslo Jazz Festival, Mariposa Folk Festival, and Denmark's Aarhus
Jazz Festival.
ISA
MILMAN is a poet, visual artist and occupational therapist.
Born in a Displaced Persons Camp in Germany in 1949, she immigrated
with her family to Boston in 1950, moved to Montreal in 1975 and
to Victoria in 1996. A family memoir, a tribute to resilience, a
song of gratitude, Between the Doorposts (Ekstasis Editions, April
2004) is her first full collection of poetry. It speaks of Jewish
identity transformed, and reminds us that poetry has the power to
move us, console us, and bring us exultation. Isa Milman's poetry
has been published in The Malahat Review, Arc, Other Voices, Zachor,
and in the anthologies Moving Small Stones, Masks, and Briefly Perfect,
all edited by Patrick Lane. Her letter press chapbook, Seven Fat
Years, was published by Frog Hollow Press in 2002. 
STEVEN
MICHAEL BERZENSKY (MICK BURRS) is one of Canada's most
distinct literary voices. His sixth book, The Names Leave the Stones:
Poems New and Selected (Coteau, 2001) was the sole poetry finalist
for Book of the Year at the 2002 Saskatchewan Book Awards. In it,
Berzensky reveals a rare and beautiful reverence for the human spirit.
He gave his first poetry readings at Simon Fraser University and
Vancouver's Jewish Community Centre 37 years ago and he's returning
with his voice in fine form, dissecting history, exploring family
and whimsically observing everyday events. A critic has described
his work as "a victory for poetry over tyranny." His poems
and stories have appeared in over 40 anthologies. A former editor
of Grain, he's the subject of a feature documentary film, Real Live
Poet, now in production. Berzensky resides in Yorkton, Saskatchewan.
RHEA
TREGEBOV's sixth collection of poetry, (alive): Selected
and New Poems, was just released by Wolsak and Wynn in September
2004. The Strength of Materials (Wolsak and Wynn) was published
in 2001. Tregebov has published five children's picture books and
is the editor of nine anthologies of essays, poetry and fiction,
most recently Gifts: Poems for Parents (Sumach Press, 2002). She
received Honorable Mention for the National Magazine Awards (poetry)
in 1998, is co-winner of the Malahat Review Long Poem Competition
(1994) and received the Readers' Choice Award for Poetry from Prairie
Schooner (1993). Her first poetry collection won the Pat Lowther
Award in 1983. Tregebov recently moved to Vancouver. In January
2005 she will begin teaching as Assistant Professor of Creative
Writing at UBC.
SEYMOUR
MAYNE is the author, editor or translator of more than
forty books and monographs. He co-authored Cinquefoil (2003), published
Light Industry I(2000) and Carbon Filter: Poems in Dedication (1999)
(Mosaic Press). A selection of his biblical poems, The Song of Moses
(1995) was one of the earliest illustrated books to appear in an
electronic edition. He co-edited the award-winning anthologies,
Jerusalem: A Jewish Canadian Anthology (1996) and A Rich Garland:
Poems for A.M. Klein (1999) (Vehicule Press). He is the recipient
of the J.I. Segal Prize, the Lockshin Memorial Award, the Fuerstenberg-Aaron
Prize and other literary honours. His latest book, Ricochet (Mosaic
Press 2004) from which he will read, is a collection of metaphorical
and witty 'word sonnets' on topics ranging from challenging weather
to sayings from Pirkei Avot. Audience members may be encouraged
to write a 'word sonnet' on demand and read it out to the audience.
Bring a pen and paper.
Join
JILL CULINER, author of Finding
Home: In the Footsteps of the Jewish Fusgeyers, for a book talk
and photography display. The Fusgeyers, Jews who fled persecution
in Romania in the early 1900s, found refuge in the New World. Culiner
retraces their steps, crossing Romania on foot in search of this
lost epic journey. Intriguingly, Culiner has worked in a series
of unsatisfying jobs as a file clerk, b-girl, go-go dancer, fashion
model, street vendor and cocktail waitress. She has lived in her
car in Paris, in a castle in Germany and was arrested in Turkey
on a trumped-up charge of espionage. She worked for Radio France
writing and broadcasting her own travel stories. Culiner has exhibited
her art and photography throughout Europe and Canada. She recently
prepared an exhibition, which is being shown in Hungary, about the
Hungarian Holocaust - the (now forgotten) ghettos and the vanished
synagogues. Born in New York, raised in Toronto, Culiner has lived
in Germany, France, Greece, Turkey, England, Holland and Hungary,
where she presently resides.
LYNNE
KOSITSKY's novel The Thought of High Windows, though
a work of fiction, is based on the true story of a hundred children
who escaped Germany and Austria just before the War. It has been
nominated for a White Pine Award and has been optioned for a Movie
of the Week. Kositsky is an award-winning poet and children's novelist.
She has won the prestigious E.J. Pratt Medal and Award for poetry
and an international White Raven Award, given by the International
Youth Library in Munich, to authors who contribute to an international
understanding of a culture and a people. She has degrees in psychology,
education and English and has been a middle school, secondary school
and a university teacher, teaching English, drama and history. Kositsky
was born in Montreal, grew up in England and returned to Canada
in 1969. She currently lives in Toronto and works full time as a
writer. 
The
Canadian Jewish Studies Reader, edited by RICHARD
MENKIS and Norman Ravvin, is a collection of essays on
literature, visual arts, historical writing on the Holocaust, feminist
research, ethnic studies and other related fields. The role of Yiddish
in Canadian Jewish identity, postwar developments in ethnic relations,
scandals like the little-known Yom Kippur Balls, the role of the
Jews in Quebec history and culture are a few of the subjects examined.
Richard Menkis is an Associate Professor at the University of British
Columbia. He was founding editor of Canadian Jewish Studies and
is currently conducting research on scholarly and popular recreations
of the Canadian Jewish past. Norman Ravvin is a writer, critic and
teacher. His books include the novel Lola by Night and the essay
collections A House of Words: Jewish Writing, Identity and Memory
and Hidden Canada: An Intimate Travelogue. He is Chair of the Institute
for Canadian Jewish Studies at Concordia University.
HEATHER
LASKEY's latest book is Night Voices: Heard in the Shadow
of Hitler and Stalin, the little-known story of young Polish Jewish
idealists, survivors of the Holocaust, who chose to support Poland's
post-war communist government in the belief that socialism offered
the path to a more just society. Her first book, entitled The Children
of Poor Clares: The Story of an Irish Orphanage, was published in
Ireland in 1985 and broke the story of the abuse of children in
Ireland's church-run institutes. Heather Laskey has been both a
staff and freelance journalist in Ireland, Britain, and Canada in
both print and radio. Heather Laskey lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
No
One Must Know, EVA WISEMAN's
third novel is about a young girl whose world is turned upside down
by her family secret. Her second novel, My Canary Yellow Star, a
historical novel set in Budapest in 1944, centres on Marta, a 15-year-old
Jewish girl who sought help from Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
It received several awards and honours including the McNally Robinson
Book for Young People Award and like her first novel, A Place Not
Home, was included in the New York Public Library Best Books for
the Teen Age list. Born in Hungary, Eva Wiseman moved to Canada
as a young girl. She began writing at a young age, and showed an
early passion for journalism as a teenager, interviewing teen movie
stars, like Annette Funicello & Frankie Avalon for The Winnipeg
Free Press. Wiseman lives in Winnipeg.
Join
PAMELA REISS, author of Soup:
A Kosher Collection (Whitecap Books, 2004) for a cooking demonstration
and enjoy a savory soup and salad lunch topped off with a surprise
dessert. Pamela Reiss grew up in Winnipeg where her parents ran
Desserts Plus, a kosher catering company and restaurant. Pam grew
up - weekends spent washing dishes at weddings or waiting tables
and prepping food in the restaurant. After earning a Bachelor's
Degree in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management, she started
taking on more responsibilities in the family business. It didn't
take long to discover that what she enjoyed most was creating new
recipes. 
JOEL
BAKAN is author of The Corporation: The Pathological
Pursuit of Profit and Power and co-creator of the film of the same
name. Bakan is professor of law at UBC and an internationally recognized
legal scholar. Bakan's previous book, Just Words: Constitutional
Rights and Social Wrongs, was widely and favourably reviewed. A
former Rhodes Scholar, he has law degrees from Oxford, Dalhousie
and Harvard Universities. He has won numerous awards for his scholarship
and teaching, has worked on landmark legal cases and government
policy and frequently serves as a media commentator. Bakan's work
examines the social, economic and political dimensions of the law.
RABBI
STEVE GREENBERG is the author of Wrestling with God and
Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition. A well known educator
and presenter on gay issues, New York’s Rabbi Greenberg has
conducted hundreds of programs for communal lay and professional
leaders of Jewish Federations, synagogues and philanthropic institutions
in over fifty cities in North America. He was featured in the acclaimed
documentary film, Trembling Before God, by Sandi Simcha DuBowski.
Greenberg came out publicly as the first openly gay Orthodox Rabbi
in March 1999 and has since become a public advocate for ending
the silence in the Orthodox community on the issue of homosexuality
in the US and abroad. 
JERRY
WASSERMAN has wrestled with corporations public (UBC,
CBC) and private (Paramount, Disney, Fox) in his roles as English
professor, theatre critic, and actor. He is editor of Modern Canadian
Plays, and last summer he trembled before Will Smith in I, Robot.
IRENE
N. WATTS
arrived in England from Berlin, Germany by Kindertransport in 1938.
She has lived and worked in Canada since 1968 as a playwright, educator
and writer. Her trilogy about refugee children, Good-Bye Marianne,
Remember Me, and Finding Sophie (Tundra Books) has won numerous
honours including: The Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction,
The Isaac Frischwasser Award for Historical Fiction for Young People,
and BC's Chocolate Lily Award. Tapestry of Hope (Tundra Books 2003),
compiled with Lillian Boraks Nemetz, was a Finalist for the Sheila
A. Egoff Children's Literary Prize, is an International Association
of Librarians' Honor Book, and was awarded the Canadian Jewish Book
Award for Holocaust Studies. In 2004, she compiled Volume 1 &
2 of an anthology of Holocaust plays under the title of A Terrible
Truth (Playwrights Canada Press). 
KATHRYN
E. SHOEMAKER
is the illustrator of over thirty books for children, among them
A Telling Time, My Animal Friends (Tradewind Books) and Jenny's
Neighbours (Annick Press). She has had broad experience as an art
teacher, curriculum specialist, filmmaker, and exhibit/event designer.
Her published works include books, filmstrips, greeting cards, posters,
calendars, magazine illustrations and articles, and hundreds of
educational illustrations and in-service materials. Her paintings,
illustrations and multi-media creations are in public and private
collections around the world. She has been active throughout North
America as a speaker and consultant. For the past six years she
has taught illustration at local colleges. She currently sits on
several non-profit Boards in Vancouver and is completing work on
a MA in Children's Literature at the University of British Columbia.
PEI's
award-winning popular playwright, poet and fiction writer J.J.
STEINFELD will read from his most recent short story
collection, Would You Hide Me? (Gaspereau Press, 2003). Steinfeld
has published a novel, nine short story collections, as well as
two chapbooks. Over thirty of his plays have been performed in various
forms in Canada and the United States, ranging from staged readings
to full productions. He was the 2003 recipient of the Award for
Distinguished Contribution to the Literary Arts on PEI and the winner
of Regina Little Theatre's 2003 National Playwriting Contest. His
most recent plays are The Golden Age of Monsters (Pinking Shears
Productions/Hamilton Fringe Festival and Toronto Fringe Festival,
summer 2003), and The Franz Kafka Therapy Session, (Gemini Theatre
Company/Pittsburgh New Play Festival, 2003). In September 2004,
he received the Whip City Radio Theatre Drama Award from the Theatre
Arts Program, Westfield State College, Westfield, Massachusetts
for Diogenes' Lantern. Steinfeld lives in Charlottetown, PEI. 
DR.
RON BURNETT, President of Vancouver’s Emily Carr
Institute of Art and Design will read excerpts from his newly published
book, How Images Think (MIT Press, 2004). In today's world digital
images are an integral part of all media including television, film,
photography, animation, video games, data visualization, and the
Internet. Spectators become navigators winding their way through
a variety of interactive experiences, and images become spaces of
visualization with more and more intelligence programmed into the
very fabric of communication processes. In How Images Think, Burnett
examines this development and how it affects the relationship between
humans and machines. Also author of Cultures of Vision, Burnett
is a recipient of the Queen's Jubilee Medal, Chair of the Association
of Canadian Art and Design Institutes and Colleges, member of the
Royal Canadian Academy of Art, photographer and author of over 150
published articles in the fields of Art, Design, Media, Communications,
New Media and Cultural Studies. 
Discover
the musicality and lucidity that shines through SUSAN
GLICKMAN's writing. Glickman is best known and loved
for her five volumes of poetry published by Vehicule Press of Montreal.
Running in Prospect Cemetery: New and Selected Poems (2004), her
most recent collection showcases the wide breadth of her verse.
In it she tackles the tension and compromise of relationships, the
everyday mysteries of 
Governor
General award nominee, EDEET RAVEL
will read excerpts from her newest novel, Look For Me, published
by Random House in 2004. She received wide acclaim for Ten Thousand
Lovers (Headline, 2003) which was chosen for Hadassah WIZO's top
four novels of the year, Quill and Quire's five best novels of the
year and was among the top ten in the Globe & Mail's 100 Best
Books of the Year. Quill and Quire called Ten Thousand Lovers, 'stunning',
and the Globe and Mail praised it as 'bold and beautiful'. Born
on a kibbutz, Edeet moved to Montreal at age seven, returned to
Jerusalem at 18 to do a BA and MA in English Literature and after
five years of studies moved back to Canada where she completed an
MA and PhD in Jewish Studies at McGill, in Biblical Exegesis, and
an MA in Creative Writing at Concordia University. She has taught
for two decades - Holocaust Studies, Hebrew Literature and Biblical
Exegesis at McGill, Creative Writing at Concordia University, and
English Literature at John Abbott College.