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The On Edge readings series at Emily Carr has announced their lineup for this spring. On Edge presents free public readings by a range of Canadian writers. Here is the schedule at a glance, with more information below.

Jan 22 - Dionne Brand

Jan 29 - Gregory Scofield

Feb 12 - Jen Sookfong Lee

Feb 26 - Taien Ng-Chan

March 12 - Weyman Chan

April 2 - Shirley Bear

All readings are at 7 pm on Thursday evenings in SB 406 at Emily Carr University, Granville Island, Vancouver.

The On Edge series gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council and Emily Carr University.

There is free parking in the parkade under the ECU South Building after 7 pm.

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Bios of writers:

Dionne Brand is a poet and novelist living in Toronto. Her nine volumes of poetry include Land to Light On, winner of the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium Book Award in 1997; thirsty, winner of the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and a finalist for the Trillium Book Award and the Griffin Poetry Prize; and, most recently, Inventory, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. Dionne Brand’s most recent novel, What We All Long For, was published to great acclaim in Canada and Italy in 2005, and won the Toronto Book Award. In 2006, she was awarded the Harbourfront Festival Prize.

Gregory Scofield (Calgary) is a Metis poet, writer, activist and community worker whose maternal ancestry can be traced back five generations to the Red River Settlement and to Kinesota, Manitoba. He has published five much-praised and award-winning books of poetry--The Gathering: Stones for the Medicine Wheel (1993), Native Canadiana: Songs from the Urban Rez (1996), Love Medicine and One Song (1997), I Knew Two Métis Women (1999) and Singing Home the Bones (2005)--as well as a memoir, Thunder in My Veins: Memories of a Metis Childhood. He is also featured in a 2006 documentary entitled Singing Home the Bones, which follows the poet's journey toward a sense of wholeness from the discovery of the identity of his estranged father.

Jen Sookfong Lee’s novel, The End of East (Knopf Canada, New Face of Fiction 2007), delves into the underside of Chinese Canadian history through the eyes of the Chan family. The National Post calls The End of East “impressive, both in terms of its accomplished prose and its ambitious three-generational scope.” The Calgary Herald notes that "Jen Sookfong Lee is aware, it would seem, of the dark side of mythmaking, its distorting and even parasitic price. It's one of many things that make her a novelist to watch." Jen, who edits two online magazines, Schema and Wet Ink, is a member of the noted writing group SPiN. To find out more, visit www.sookfong.com.

Taien Ng-Chan is the author of Maps of Our Bodies and the Borders We Have Agreed Upon, anthology editor of Ribsauce, and co-editor with Dana Bath of Navigating Customs. She has written drama for stage, screen, and radio, and her short films have played at festivals in Canada and the US. Based in Montreal, she currently writes a regular movie column in Matrix Magazine, and is in post-production on a trilogy of videopoems called Sum-tung (heartache). As well, she is trying to finish her first collection of stories, Blueprints for a Red Paper House.

Weyman Chan is the author of Before A Blue Sky Moon, the 2002 recipient of the Alberta Book Award for best book of poetry. Noise From the Laundry, his latest book of poems, was published by Talonbooks in 2008 and shortlisted for the Governor General's Prize in Poetry. Rain doubt, more poetry,will be released in 2009. Weyman Chan lives and works in Calgary.

The author of a book of poems entitled Virgin Bones (McGilligan Press, 2007), Shirley Bear is a multi-media artist, writer, activist, and native traditional herbalist. Born on the Tobique First Nation, she is an original member of the Wabnaki language group of New Brunswick, Canada. Shirley Bear was the 2002 recipient of the Excellence in the Arts Award from the New Brunswick Arts Board.

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