71. Blending Genres: VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award

Each of these authors combine the unexpected—either writing in many genres across works, or blending multiple genres in one book. The result, in every case, is a work as fascinating for its form as for its story. We delve into these kaleidoscopic offerings before a ceremony for the VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award. Alison McCreesh’s Degrees of Separation and Sarah Leavitt’s Something, Not Nothing both defy expectations of what a graphic novel can be, and the depths of creativity and poignancy they exude. Canisia Lubrin’s Code Noir is a masterpiece of 59 braided fictions that speak to the colonial empire and those who transcend it. Michael Turner’s Playlist blends poetry, memoir, and music journalism to consider a writing life immersed in music. Discover new horizons in writing and celebrate craft with these talents. Moderated by Elee Kraljii Gardiner.

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Elee Kraljii Gardiner

ELEE KRALJII GARDINER is an author, editor, and creative mentor living in Vancouver, Canada. She is the author of two poetry books, Trauma Head, winner of the Cogswell Award for Literary Excellence and a finalist for the Souster Award, and serpentine loop, also nominated for the Souster Award. She is editor of the anthologies Against Death: 35 Essays on Living and V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. A frequent collaborator with choreographers, musicians, sound and visual artists, Elee is currently collaborating with nature via a series of durational art installations that investigate the law of thermodynamics and cultural ideas regarding the passing of time. eleekg.com

Sarah Leavitt

SARAH LEAVITT is the author of the graphic memoir Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer's, My Mother, and Me (Freehand Books, 2010), which is currently in production as a feature-length animation, and the award-winning historical fiction comic Agnes, Murderess (Freehand Books, 2019). She is an assistant professor in the School of Creative Writing at UBC in Vancouver, BC, where she has developed and taught undergraduate and graduate comics classes since 2012.

Canisia Lubrin

CANISIA LUBRIN’s books include Voodoo Hypothesis and The Dyzgraphxst. Lubrin’s work has been recognized with the Griffin Poetry Prize, OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry, the Derek Walcott Prize, the Writer’s Trust of Canada Rising Stars prize, and others. She studied at York University and the University of Guelph, where she now coordinates the Creative Writing MFA in the School of English & Theatre Studies. In 2021, Lubrin received a Windham-Campbell prize for poetry, and the Globe & Mail named her Poet of the Year. Code Noir: Metamorphoses is her debut fiction, and includes stories listed for the Journey Prize (2019, 2020), Toronto Book Award (2018) and the Shirley Jackson Award (2021). Born in St. Lucia, Lubrin now lives in Whitby, Ontario, and is poetry editor at McClelland & Stewart.

Alison McCreesh

Over the past fifteen years, ALISON MCCREESH has extensively travelled around the Arctic and sub-Arctic and contemporary day-to-day life in the North is a theme that carries through her creative work. Alison currently lives in Yellowknife where she creates comics and illustrations surrounded by her two dogs and three small children. Alison’s past books include the award-winning graphic novel Ramshackle: A Yellowknife Story, as well as the travelogue Norths, Two Suitcases and a Stroller around the Circumpolar World.

Michael Turner

MICHAEL TURNER lives in the garrison town of Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territories. His books include Hard Core Logo, The Pornographer’s Poem and, more recently, 9×11 and Other Poems Like Bird, Nine, x and Eleven. His wartime journal mtwebsit.blogspot.com continues to cause him problems.