From the Coordinator
Catherine Bush
This fall, we celebrated the program’s first five years with a party in downtown Toronto. Five years ago, in the fall of 2006, we welcomed the first cohort in the University of Guelph’s Creative Writing MFA to the program’s home in the Guelph-Humber building on the Humber College north campus in Toronto, and what an amazing five years it has been.
This fall, our newest cohort draws students from across the country, from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Vancouver, British Columbia, and from as far away as Jamaica: a diverse and impressively talented group of poets and playwrights, writers of fiction and creative non-fiction. Our students and alumni continue to astonish, leaping to new literary heights with their many accomplishments.
First-year student Robert Chafe, already a noted playwright and Governor-General’s award winner, has been short-listed for this year’s prestigious Siminovitch award in playwriting, and has a production, Oil and Water, upcoming at the Factory Theatre in Toronto in spring 2012. Jeff Latosik, of the first cohort, has won the 2011 Trillium Prize for poetry for his first collection, Tiny, Frantic, Stronger (Insomniac Press). Meanwhile, 2010 graduate Tanis Rideout’s first novel, Above All Things, to be published in spring 2012 by McClelland & Stewart, created big buzz at the Frankfurt Book Fair and has been sold at auction internationally. Matt Lennox’s first novel, The Carpenter, will be published by HarperCollins, also in spring 2012, and others with forthcoming books include Grace O’Connell (Knopf), Aga Maksimowska (Pedlar), Nancy Jo Cullen (Biblioasis), and Stacey J Madden (ECW).
I would also like to congratulate faculty members Dionne Brand on her Griffin Poetry Prize win for Ossuaries, and Judith Thompson on the recent revival of White Biting Dog by Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre.
Russell Smith returns to teach the fiction workshop in the fall, and Michael Winter takes over the fiction workshop in the winter. Margaret Christakos joined the program to teach the fall poetry workshop, with Judith Thompson teaching the drama workshop, and Karen Connelly the creative non-fiction workshop. I continue to teach the Plenary, this year, Writers in the World, in which visitors have included author Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer on navigating the digital realm, Biblioasis publisher Dan Wells, theatre director Ross Manson, and Andrew Westoll, author of the Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary. Our annual Master Classes at the International Festival of Authors featured Francisco Goldman and Clark Blaise. We’ve hosted panels on How to Make a Living as a Writer and Teaching Writing. Recent mentors in the program include Griffin-short-listed poet Suzanne Buffam and GG-winner Douglas Glover.
This year, we’re launching the new Parkdale Public School project, in which MFA students teach writing workshops to Grade Eight students in a downtown Toronto school. And our very successful reading series, Speakeasy, enters its second year at the Magpie Tavern, drawing crowds to readings by students, alumni, and featured readers associated with the program, its success a testament to the thriving literary community created through the Creative Writing MFA. Find Speakeasy on Facebook, and come out and join us if you’re in town.
If you’re interested in applying to the program for admission in 2012, this year’s deadline is December 15, 2011. We welcome your interest and applications.
With best wishes,
Catherine Bush
Program Coordinator
Please contact Meaghan Strimas, Program Assistant, at mstrimas@uoguelph.ca or 647.459.1331 for more information about the program.
