Rungh Readings @ Vancouver Art Book Fair

Join Rungh as it “pops up” at the Vancouver Art Book Fair in a tent on the front steps of Emily Carr University.

Archival print Rungh Magazines for sale and view. Readings and performances.

Saturday, October 19: 1pm Jessica Johns, 1:30pm Sadhu Binning 2pm Phinder Dulai, 3pm Patrick Pouponneau, 4pm Isabella Wang.

Sunday, October 20: 1pm Sunera Thobani, 2pm Shazia Hafiz Ramji, 3pm Joseph Dundurand, 4pm Carolyn Nakagawa.

Sadhu Binning is a Burnaby, B.C. bi-lungal (Punjabi/English) author. He has published several books of poetry, fiction, plays, translations and research. Works included in more than fifty anthologies both in Punjabi and English. Edited and co-edited a literary monthly Watno Dur and co-edit a quarterly, Watan. Founding member of Vancouver Sath, a theatre collective and Ankur, an English quarterly. Taught Punjabi language and literature at UBC From 1988 to 2008. Active member of PLEA, struggling to change the status of Punjabi language from a foreign language to a Canadian language. Also promoting Punjabi in local educational institutions. He was awarded an Honourary Doctorate by the Unviersity of British Columbia in 2019 in recognition of his numerous contributions to arts, culture and education.

Phinder Dulai is a writer, poet, editor and cultural connector. latest collection of poetry dream/arteries was published by Talonbooks in October 2014. soul/journ to the end of the pacific (a komagata maru archive), is part of this collection. 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the Komagata Maru’s arrival in Vancouver on May 23, 1914. Recently Dulai took part in the In(ter)ventions Literary Residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, where he worked on the Komagata Maru poems. His most recent poetry is published in a number of journals: Canadian Literature, Offerings and Cue Books Anthology. His previous work has been been published in Ankur, Matrix, Memewar Magazine, Rungh, The Capilano Review, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Toronto South Asian Review, subTerrain and West Coast LINE. He is a co-founder of the Surrey-based inter-disciplinary arts group – The South Of Fraser Inter Arts Collective (SOFIA/c), and is the author of two previous poetry books: Ragas from the Periphery (Arsenal Pulp Press, 1995) and Basmati Brown (Nightwood Editions, 2000). He lives in Surrey, B.C.

Jessica Johns is a nehiyaw aunty and a member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory of Northern Alberta. She is the managing editor of Room magazine and a co-organizer of the Indigenous Brilliance reading series, a collaborative series between Room and Massy Books celebrating Indigenous women/2SQ storytellers. She has been published in Cosmonauts Avenue, Glass Buffalo, CV2, SAD Magazine, Red Rising Magazine, The Rusty Toque, Poetry is Dead, and Bad Nudes, among others. Her short story, “The Bull of the Cromdale” was nominated for a 2019 National Magazine Award in fiction and her debut poetry chapbook, How Not to Spill, is out now with Rahila’s Ghost Press.

Isabella Wang’s debut poetry chapbook is On Forgetting a Language (Baseline Press 2019). At 18, she is a two-time finalist and the youngest writer shortlisted for The New Quarterly’s Edna Staebler Essay Contest. Her poetry and prose have appeared in over twenty literary journals, including CV2, The Puritan, and carte blanche, and she holds a Pushcart Prize Nomination for poetry. She has poems forthcoming in the What You Need to Know About Me Anthology (The Hawkins Projext, co-founder Dave Eggers). She is studying English and World Literature at SFU, working as an RA for SpokenWeb and assistant editor with Room Magazine, and co-ordinating the bi-monthly Dead Poets Reading Series with VPL.

Patrick Pouponneau is a writer, poet, activist, and musician based in Vancouver, Canada. Patrick works alongside marginalized populations and channels the beauty found at the bottom of oppressive societal structures into hopeful pieces based on the written word. Patrick is a winner of the Lynn Edwards Award, holds a Business Degree from Camosun College, and is currently walking beside the residents of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side.

Sunera Thobani is Associate Professor in the Department of Asian Studies and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia. Her research and scholarship focus on critical race, postcolonial and feminist theory; globalization, citizenship and migration; and violence, media, Muslim women and the War on Terror. Dr. Thobani has served as Director of the RAGA (Race, Autobiography, Gender and Age) Centre at UBC, and as the Ruth Wynn Woodward Endowed Chair in Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University.

Shazia Hafiz Ramji was a finalist for the 2018 Alberta Magazine Awards, received the 2017 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, and was a finalist for the 2016 National Magazine Awards. Her writing has appeared in Quill & Quire, Canadian Literature, The Puritan, and Metatron’s ALPHA and OMEGA. She lives in Vancouver where she works as an editor and teaches creative writing. She is at work on a book of stories and a second book of poems. She is the author of Port of Being (Invisible Publishing)

Joseph A. Dandurand is a Kwantlen Aboriginal (Xalatsep) from Kwantlen First Nation in British Columbia. He is a poet, playwright, and archaeologist Dandurand received a Diploma in Performing Arts from Algonquin College and studied Theatre and Direction at the University of Ottawa. His produced plays include Shake, Crackers and Soup (1994), No Totem for My Story (1995), Where Two Rivers Meet (1995), and Please Don’t Touch the Indians (1998) for the Red Path Theater in Chicago. He has also authored a radio script, St Mary’s which was produced by CBC Radio in 1999. His latest play Shake, was featured at the 20th Weesageechak Begins to Dance festival of new plays in Toronto, Ontario. His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and are collected in Upside Down Raven, I Touched the Coyote’s Tongue, and burning for the dead and scratching for the poor, Looking into the eyes of my forgotten dreams, Shake, 2005, Buried, 2007, and I Want, published by Leaf Press in 2015. He was the Indigenous Storyteller in Residence at Vancouver Public Library in 2019.

Carolyn Nakagawa is a poet, playwright, and cultural organizer. She is fourth-generation Japanese Canadian and third-generation Vancouverite and holds a degree in English Literature and Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies from the University of British Columbia. Her writing can also be found in The Malahat Review, PRISM International, and SAD Mag, among others.