Conversations With Poets

Join three award-winning poets Jane Byers, Leesa Dean and Rayya Liebich for an evening of all things poetry: author readings, discussions, poetry mad libs, writing prompts and more!

Bring your notebooks for interactive activities.

#fhlconnects

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Poet biographies:

Jane Byers lives with her wife and teenagers in Nelson, BC. Her memoir Small Courage: A Queer Memoir of Finding Love and Conceiving Family (Caitlin Press-Dagger Editions) was released in September 2020. She has also published two poetry collections, Acquired Community, (2016, Caitlin Press-Dagger Editions), a 2017 Goldie Award Winner for lesbian poetry and Steeling Effects (2014, Caitlin Press) and a chapbook, It Hurt, That’s All I Know (Nose in Book Publishing, 2017). She was the 2018 Writer-in-Residence for Simon Fraser University’s Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony (ALOT). She has had poems and essays published in anthologies and literary journals in Canada, the U.S. and England, including Best Canadian Poetry 2014.

Leesa Dean is a graduate of the University of Guleph’s Creative Writing MFA program and an instructor at Selkirk College in Castlegar, BC. Her first book, Waiting for the Cyclone, was a finalist for the 2017 Trillium and Relit Awards. Her novella-in-verse, The Filling Station, was recently published by Gaspereau Press and is based on the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop. She is also the author of two poetry chapbooks. Her fiction and poetry has been nominated for numerous awards, and she was runner-up for the 2022 Pacific Spirit Prize. She lives in Krestova, BC (unceded Sinixt territory) with her partner and daughter.

Rayya Liebich is a Canadian poet of Lebanese and Polish descent. Winner of The International Amy MacRae Award for Memoir and The Federation of BC Writers Literary Contest (2022), the Richard Carver Award for Emerging Writers (2019), The Geneva Literary Award (2015), and The Golden Grassroots Chapbook Award (2015), her poetry and prose have appeared in literary journals internationally. Her debut full-length collection of poems, Min Hayati, was released by Inanna Publications in 2021. Passionate about writing as a tool for transformation, she teaches creative writing classes to youth, adults and seniors in Nelson, BC.

Financial support for this event has been generously provided by the Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance (CKCA)—funded by Columbia Basin Trust.