TLC and the Historic Joy Kogawa House Society are thrilled to welcome local author Nancy Lee as our 2010 writer-in-residence. Nancy Lee is the author of Dead Girls, a collection of short stories that earned the 2003 VanCity Book Prize for books pertaining to women’s issues. Dead Girls was also chosen as one of the best books of 2002 by The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and Vancouver Sun, and Now Magazine named it Book of the Year.
Nancy Lee and friends at a recent ‘Writing for Social Change’ event at the Historic Joy Kogawa House.
Commenting on her appointment as writer-in-residence, Lee said: “It is an honour to be writing in the childhood home of Joy Kogawa, an author whose work opened doors for so many female writers for women of colour of my generation. I look forward not only to intensive work on my own novel but also to connecting with writers in the community.”
Joy Kogawa’s Obasan gave voice to social injustice unknown to many Canadians more than 25 years ago. To further Kogawa’s work, Nancy Lee will engage in a series of conversations during her residency with writers who use their work as a means of social change. Writers in this series include Steven Galloway, local author of The Cellist of Sarajevo, in conversation on Monday, May 17, and Karen Connelly, the Toronto author of Burmese Lessons, in conversation on Monday, June 14. The reading list that emerges from these conversations will be available on the www.kogawahouse.com website and will also be distributed through libraries across Canada in order to guide readers who want to explore socially conscious writing.
Lee will also lead a postcard memoir-writing workshop from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 26, and she will participate in a spectacular book sale and open house event with other local writers from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 27.
Lee’s residency wraps on the evening of Monday, June 28, with a reading from work in progress during her residency, the novel Born Slippy, forthcoming with McClelland & Stewart. Throughout Lee’s residency, opportunities for consultation on work in development are also available.
Lee is an accomplished writing educator and her ability to work with other writers distinguished her application from others received in a cross-Canada call for proposals. “In our call for applicants we had intended to select a writer from out of town in order to inspire and energize the local writing community,” said Historic Joy Kogawa House Society executive director Ann-Marie Metten. “But we received a balance of applications from British Columbia writers (10 out of the 22 applications received), even though the geographic distribution of writers is much different (one in four writers live in British Columbia, according to membership in The Writers’ Union of Canada). This response reflects strong local interest in our writing program at Joy Kogawa House, and we are excited that Nancy Lee will welcome a significant community of writers and readers to the house.” Lee lives in Steveston, B.C., with her husband, author John Vigna, but will live and work at Historic Joy Kogawa House throughout her residency, from April 1 to June 30, 2010.
Historic Joy Kogawa House is the former home of the Canadian author Joy Kogawa (born 1935). It stands as a cultural and historical reminder of the expropriation of property that all Canadians of Japanese descent experienced after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Between 2003 and 2006, TLC and a grassroots committee (now known as the Historic Joy Kogawa House Society) fundraised in a well-publicized national campaign and managed to purchase the house in 2006.
Together with Joy Kogawa, the various groups decided that the wisest and best use of the property would be to establish it as a place where writers could live and work. Following the models of the writer-in-residence programs in place at the Berton House Writers’ Retreat in Dawson City, Yukon, and Roderick Haig-Brown House in Campbell River, B.C., the Historic Joy Kogawa House writer-in-residence program brings well-regarded professional writers in touch with a local community of writers, readers, editors, publishers, booksellers and librarians. While in residence, the writer works to enrich the literary community around him or her and to foster an appreciation for Canadian writing through programs that involve students, other established and emerging writers and members of the general public.
Beginning in March 2009, as a partner with TLC, the Historic Joy Kogawa Society began hosting writers to live and work in the house on a paid basis. Funding is provided through the Canada Council and through donations from the general public.
