Upcoming events.
Reading -- Kingston
A super night of readings at Novel Idea in Kingston. Jason Heroux, Grace, Stuart Ross, and me (I’ll be reading from my experimental novel, A Mouth of Vowels.
Writing Like an Ecosystem Workshop - In person, Kingston
The biotic world is characterized by fluid, porous, interconnected, interspecies systems. How might our writing benefit from thinking like/with/in conversation with ecological processes? How might our writing be less static, less linear? In this workshop, artists and writers of all experience levels are invited to experiment. We’ll wade into the porosity of language, the fluid boundaries between image and text. We’ll explore how different mediums speak to and through each other. Guided by a range of prompts, we’ll experiment, converse, and share our experimentations.
“Subversive, risk-taking, restlessly immersive, Sophie Anne Edwards’ Conversations with the Kagawong River presents an ecological practice of radical site-specific engagement. Driven by a desire to “fill language with the body,” and informed by local Anishinaabe and settler history, she brings to these encounters with the river an ontological urgency and fierce energy. Here is a bold category-crossing work to cherish and also heed.” Don McKay, poet, 2x Governor General winner
“The river speaks through and with Sophie Anne Edwards in Conversations with the Kagawong River. In this field study combining historiographic research, local storytelling, and gorgeous poetic experimentation, we are called to immerse ourselves and listen. Flow with the current, dig your fingers in the silt, heed the warning of its song.” Kate Sikloski, author of Selvege, co-publisher Gap Riot Press
Sophie Anne Edwards’ was the inaugural Geopoet in Residence at Queen’s U with the Department of Geography and Planning. Her environmental poetry – visual poems, video poems and text-based work – has been published by Gap Riot, Blasted Tree, and Jack Pine presses, as well as by a range of literary magazines across Canada. Her full-length book of hybrid/experimental environmental poetry — Conversations with the Kagawong River (Talonbooks) was a CBC and Quill & Quire most anticipated read. A Mouth of Vowels, an experimental novel (1366/Guernica Editions) was longlisted for Omnidawn’s 1st/2nd book prize. She has also been longlisted for a CBC Poetry Prize, a CBC Nonfiction Prize, and shortlisted for Arc Magazine Poem of the Year. As the founding AD/ED of 4elements Living Arts she curated, designed and led dozens of environmental arts projects, including Elemental Festival and The Connections Trail (which won an Ontario Lieutenant Governor Award for Cultural Landscape Heritage Preservation). She has also written/edited four non-fiction books about environmental, creative and community-based engagement and research. A PhD candidate in Geography, she earned a Certificate in Creative Writing from Humber College and has attended writing residencies with the Banff Centre for the Arts, Sage Hill, and the Al Purdy A-Frame.
Image credit: Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik with my alphabet riffs.
Chamomile (anthemis nobilis) illustration from medical botany (1836)
Book Signing
Join me at Chapters/Indigo in Sudbury for a book signing of both Conversations with the Kagawong River, and my forthcoming title, A Mouth of Vowels! Copies will be avi
Conversations with the Kagawong River -- Reading, Q+A
Join me for a reading and Q+A at Algoma University.
Sponsored by the Instituto de Pueblos, Territorios y Pedagogias para la Paz, and the Faculty of Cross-Cultural Studies, the event will be live-streamed with simultaneous translation English/Spanish.
Northwing 201. Refreshments will be served.
An Evening with Sophie Edwards
Have you ever considered turning your knowledge and experiences into a book? Sophie Anne Edwards did just that, using her passion for art and land-based pedagogy to create the acclaimed resource, “The Art of Land-based Early Learning”. Join us for an inspiring evening with Sophie as she shares her journey to becoming an author. Learn about the process of transforming ideas into published work, the challenges and rewards of writing, and how you, too, can bring your own story or expertise to life in book form!
Conversations with Rivers, Novel Idea Bookshop, Kingston
Come out to hear the acclaimed and award-winning Helen Humphreys, and me, read from our river books. Q+A, book signing.
The River, by Helen Humpheys
Learning to Listen to Rivers, Workshop
Learning to Listen to Rivers, Kingston
January 16 and 17th
9:30-4
The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts
https://www.queensu.ca/theisabel/
Hosted by the Department of Geography, Queen’s U and the Office of Vice-Principal Research
Water has no static boundaries or firm edges. Water moves between solid, liquid and gas. River becomes Lake, a lake feeds a river. Water seeps into land, memory, body and returns to River. Water invites us to understand listening as multi-directional, fluid, multi-vocal, with reciprocal movements and moments.
Indigenous cultures have long known that Rivers and other ecosystems are animate, alive, agential. Science has recently been able to glimpse into these complex communications systems, by using a range of instruments to listen to trees, mycelial networks, ice and other agents.
How do we learn to listen to River? How do we recognize what we observe? How do we enact reciprocity with a river ecosystem? What do various tools, methods, forms, instruments and disciplinary practices help us to hear? What do these not allow us to hear? Together we will dip our toes into these questions through a lively, collaborative, interdisciplinary gathering of writers, scientists, artists, geographers and historians. Join us for conversation, creative prompts along the River, and sharing.
The workshop is free, but space is limited — register soon! Registration is now open!
Please note that in signing up you are committing to participating for the entirety of the two-day workshop.
Guest contributors include:
sophie anne edwards, geopoet: https://talonbooks.com/books/?conversations-with-the-kagawong-river, www.sophieanneedwards.ca
Sebastian De Line, Associate Curator, Care and Relations (Agnes Etherington): https://agnes.queensu.ca/connect/news-and-stories/meet-sebastian-de-line-research-associate-indigenous-art/
Matt Rogalsky, composer, sound artist and musicologist / DAN School/Film and Media: https://sdm.queensu.ca/people/rogalsky-matt
Linsday Borrows, Faculty of Law, Queen’s U: https://law.queensu.ca/directory/lindsay-borrows
Laura Thomson, glaciologist, Geography and Planning: https://www.queensu.ca/geographyandplanning/people/thomson-laura
Laura Murray, Belle Park Project / English/Cultural Studies https://www.queensu.ca/english/people/laura-murray
Laura Jean Cameron, Geography and Planning: https://www.queensu.ca/geographyandplanning/people/cameron-laura-jean
Hugh Christopher Brown, songwriter, musician, producer / Wolfe Island Records: https://www.queensu.ca/geographyandplanning/people/cameron-laura-jean
Dorit Naaman, Belle Park Project / Film and Media Studies: https://www.queensu.ca/filmandmedia/people-search/dorit-naaman
Geopoet in Residence, Queen's U
I’ll be spending a couple of weeks at in Kingston, hosted by the Geography Department at Queen’s University. While there I’ll be co-facilitating a 2-day workshop, Learning to Listen to Rivers, which I’ve been co-designing with Dr. Laura Cameron. I’ll also meet with students, provide talks and engagements for students in Laura’s Geographical Imaginations classes, AND along with the amazing Helen Humphreys (whom I’ve long admired!) give a reading at Novel Idea Bookshop. For more deets, see the events below.
Manitoulin Book Launch
Head over to Split Rail Brewing in Gore Bay for the Island launch of Conversations with the Kagawong River. Enjoy the super locally-brewed, award-winning beer, music by Natalie Edwards, a reading, Q +A, book signing and food!
Early Learning Cafe Online Workshop
An online workshop! In this participatory and hands-on virtual workshop, we’ll dig into ecological engagements with children. Together we’ll explore the voices of natural materials and share our thoughts in small groups. You’ll leave feeling connected and reinvigorated and prepared to engage your children with the natural environment. To learn more or to join, visit the Early Learning Cafe.
Words Aloud - Book reading
Join me at The Ginger Press in Owen Sound, hosted by Words Aloud Festival for a reading from my book Conversations with the Kagawong River.
Keynote + Workshop
I’ll be joining early childhood educators at the annual conference hosted by the District of Muskoka. Along with a keynote talk to the participants, I’ll be facilitating an interactive, hands-on workshop to engage educators to reflect on creative ecological engagements with children.
Wordstock Sudbury
Wordstock Festival - Join me for a reading and panel discussion with Ariel Gordon, author of and Yvon Blommer author of The Last Show on Earth. author of Treed: Walking in Canada’s Urban Forests, shortlisted for the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award.
To learn more and get your tickets, visit the Festival website.
Book Launch
Vancouver launch at Pyatt Hall, with Steve Collis, Oana Avasilichioaei, Anahita Jamali Rad, and Mercedes Eng