Join us Tuesday, April 26 at 7pm for Regional Spotlight: Royal City Literary Arts Society with host Meaghan Hackinen. Register here (bcwriters.ca/events-for-writers) and a link will be sent to you. When it's time for the event, click on the link to join the live Zoom event. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Digital Doors Open at 655pm!
Carol Johnson and Janet Kvammen (co-hosts): Royal City Literary Arts Society board members
Alan Hill was born in the UK and immigrated to Canada in 2005 after meeting his wife while working in Botswana. He is the former Poet Laureate of the City of New Westminster, BC (2017-2020), former president of the Royal City Literary Arts Society (RCLAS), and was the editor and curator of A Poetry of Place: Journeys Across New Westminster, published in partnership with New Westminster Arts Services. His writing has been published internationally and his poetry has appeared in Event, CV2, Canadian Literature, The Antigonish Review, subTerrain, Poetry is Dead, among others. He works in the field of community development and immigrant settlement and lives in New Westminster, BC. https://www.facebook.com/alan.hill.108
Jessica Lee McMillan (she/her) is an emerging poet with an MA in English. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Blank Spaces, pocket lint, Goat's Milk Magazine, Tiny Spoon, The South Shore Review, Dream Pop Journal, Pinhole Poetry and Blue Heron Review, among others. She is currently working on her first poetry collection. Jessica lives in New Westminster, British Columbia on stolen and unsurrendered lands of the Coast Salish and Halkomelem-speaking Peoples, in particular, the QayQayt and Kwikwetlem First Nations. https://www.jessicaleemcmillan.com
Margaret (Steinhauser) Franz, the youngest daughter of European immigrants to Canada, was born on Vancouver Island and raised in the West Kootenay area of British Columbia. She has a BA (Geog) from Simon Fraser University, a Teaching Cert in Elementary School Education and an MEd (SFU). Franz first taught at elementary schools in Toronto then, after returning to BC and raising a family, began lecturing at post-secondary institutions, finishing up her career as a teaching faculty at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey BC. Taking a brief hiatus from teaching mid-career, Franz became an arts administrator, successful fundraiser and avid promoter of the community arts in BC. Franz is currently retired, and lives with her husband and extended family in southwestern British Columbia. Between Blade & Bullet: The Mary Steinhauser Story is her first book. Website: https://www.margaretfranz.ca/
Leah Ranada’s stories have been published in On Spec, Room, Santa Ana River Review, Scarlet Leaf Review, emerge 2013, eastlit.com, and elsewhere. Born in the Philippines, she moved to Vancouver in 2006 and made writing her permanent home. She attended The Writer’s Studio (TWS) at SFU. Her debut novel The Cine Star Salon (NeWest Press) is a graphic and engaging depiction of the importance of women’s work and the loyalties that connect friends across oceans. The Cine Star Salon marks the entry of a vital new voice in Canadian literature. Website: https://leahranada.com/
Meaghan Hackinen (FBCW host): Meaghan is a writer and ultra-endurance cyclist whose two-wheeled adventures have taken her from Haida Gwaii to Mexico’s high plateaus, across Canada and the United States, and from North Cape to Tarifa along Europe’s highest paved roads. Her debut travel memoir, South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels (NeWest Press, 2019) was a finalist for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and an Alberta Book Publishing Award. Meaghan has an MFA in Writing from the University of Saskatchewan and lives on the traditional territory of the Syilx (Okanagan) People in Kelowna, British Columbia.
*This event will not be recorded.
