April 5, 2019
Announcing the BETWEEN THE LINES LITERARY FESTIVAL April 15th-18th
The NWSS English Department is delighted to announce the inaugural Between the Lines Literary Festival. We are thrilled to welcome award winning creative professionals to speak with classes during C and D blocks in the library. Our festival welcomes writers to share their work and experiences from a range of forms including: poetry, prose, drama, graphic arts and journalism.
Our Outside the Lines event on Monday April 15th (for C and D block classes) will feature novelist Danny Ramadan and journalist Tessa Vikander. After school that Monday, we will also host Drag Queen Storytime where queens, Dust and Mx Bukuru, will read to students from their favorite SOGI inspired storybooks. On Tuesday April 16th, panelists in the Drawing the Line program include an inspiring panel with Kim Senklip Harvey (a proud Syilx, Tshilqot’in, Ktunaxa and Dakelh artist), Jonina Kirton (a Metis-Icelandic poet) and Sean Karemaker (a Vancouver based graphic novelist). Between the Lines will bring it home on Wednesday with our Local Lineup panel including the award winning novelist and New Westminster native, JJ Lee, Matt Hern, a writer on the politics of place and Isabella Wang, a celebrated poet and essayist. On Thursday April 18th we will move to the choir room, where our Line Break Poetry Slam will wrap up our festival with an impressive array of local poets including Noor Fadel, Thor Polukoshko, Kelsey Savage, Kevin Spenst and Isabella Wang. On this evening event, each professional will perform their poems and judge our student performers on their contributions.
Our week long celebration will be highlighted with several contests and celebrations, including: Tuesday Haikusday (a Haiku challenge Tuesdays in April), Go Online (our panelist selfie contest) and Shakespeare’s 455th Birthday Party on April 23rd. Follow us on @nwsswordsmiths for Between the Lines Literary Festival updates. We would like to thank the NWSS community for their enthusiasm and support for this exciting event. Please email Ms. Isaak or Ms. McGhee for further information.
Hope to see you there, Hyacks!