Struggling with substance use in his hometown of Regina, Saskatchewan, Spenser Smith decided to come to a residential treatment centre in Nanaimo.
Following his treatment, he made the decision to stay in the city after falling in love “with the rainforest, the wildlife and the small caring community.”
Vancouver Island University’s (VIU’s) student-run annual literary magazine, Portal, celebrates the release of its largest and 32nd issue at a new venue – the Bowen Park Auditorium.
Stephen Hume, a Vancouver Island University (VIU) Creative Writing and Journalism Professor, received the Bruce Hutchinson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jack Webster Foundation.
The award, which Hume received this July, recognizes the exemplary careers of BC journalists. It is presented to senior reporters and editors who have received distinction in their communities for work of long-lasting significance, clarity, fairness and innovation.
VIU’s Creative Writing program helped Margot Fedoruk achieve her lifelong dream of publishing a book. Fedoruk, who graduated in 2021, says much of the material in her memoir, Cooking Tips for Desperate Fishwives: An Island Memoir, was workshopped in various VIU classes. The book follows her adventures of raising a family on Gabriola Island with her husband, who is an urchin diver. Aside from her writing, she’s also a soap maker.
Délani Valin’s passion for words started at just 10 years old when she would find interesting words in the thesaurus and write poems about them or insert them into poems. Now, the VIU Creative Writing grad has released her first book of poetry, Shapeshifters.
Renowned poet, writer and anti-racism activist M. NourbeSe Philip is Vancouver Island University’s (VIU’s) Ralph Gustafson Distinguished Poet for 2022-23.
Joy Gugeler teaches Creative Writing, Journalism and Media Studies courses at Vancouver Island University (VIU).
This summer, Gugeler was nominated for the Karen Virag Award from the Editors’ Association of Canada. She also arranged a First Book Canada pop-up book event at the VIU Nanaimo campus to distribute free books to public schools, libraries and other non-profits.
Nicole DiCastri, a co-valedictorian for the Faculty of Social Sciences, is graduating this June with a Bachelor of Arts, major in Criminology and minor in Creative Writing. She plans on taking a year off from academics before applying to law schools with the goal of becoming a lawyer.
Vancouver Island University’s (VIU’s) student-run annual literary magazine is going to be celebrated in-person for the first time in three years thanks to the lifting of Covid restrictions and a desire for face-to-face festivities to mark the accomplishments of nearly 90 contributors since 2020.