Now a staple of the Festival, this interactive, unpredictable workshop offers writing tips, tricks, and cues from five members of UBC School of Creative Writing’s illustrious department: Whitney French, Frances Koncan, Mandy Len Catron, Jen Moss and Alix Ohlin. Participants will learn key writing skills in five minutes or less through nimble, electrifying craft, and rapid-fire creativity. Try out concepts and follow the lead of these creative writing teachers and authors. Full of invigorating thought exercises, Night Class explores a wide array of styles and genres, from poetry and song to comics and speculative fiction. This workshop is suitable for new and established authors. Hosted by Cecily Nicholson.
Presented in collaboration with UBC School of Creative Writing.
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Event Participants:
WHITNEY FRENCH (she/her) is a writer, educator and publisher. She is the editor of the award-winning anthology Black Writers Matter (2019) and Griot: Six Writers Sojourn into the Dark (2022). Her novel-in-verse, Syncopation is forthcoming with Wolsack and Wynn Press (2025). Whitney French is also the co-founder and publisher of Hush Harbour Press. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor teaching creative writing at the University of British Colombia.
FRANCES KONCAN (she/they) is an Anishinaabe and Slovene playwright and theatre artist. Originally from Couchiching First Nation, they grew up on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg, MB and attended the University of Manitoba (BA Psychology) and the City University of New York Brooklyn College (MFA Playwriting). They are currently an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. Select plays include: Women of the Fur Trade, Space Girl, and zahgidiwin/love.
MANDY LEN CATRON is the author of the critically-acclaimed essay collection How to Fall in Love with Anyone. The book was listed for the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize and the Kobo Emerging Writer Award. Her writing can be found in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Rumpus, Catapult, and The Walrus as well as other newspapers, literary journals, and anthologies. Her essays and talks have been translated into more than thirty languages.
JEN MOSS spent many years creating audio documentaries and supporting current affairs shows for CBC and Roundhouse Radio. She has worked on award-winning interactive projects for the NFB Digital Studio, CBC, Al Jazeera, and The Guardian. In 2017, she co-founded the podcasting agency JAR Audio. She lectures on writing for new media and podcasting at the UBC School of Creative Writing.
CECILY NICHOLSON is the author of four books and past recipient of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry. She is an assistant professor in the School of Creative Writing at UBC and the 2024/2025 Holloway Lecturer in Poetry and Poetics at UC Berkeley.
ALIX OHLIN is the author of six books of fiction, most recently the novel Dual Citizens and the story collection We Want What We Want. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Walrus, Best American Short Stories, and many other places. She teaches fiction and climate writing at UBC.
