Thursday, May 4, 2023
Doors at 7 pm / Readings at 7:30 pm
Free admission
Watch the video documentation of this event on our YouTube channel here.
Dear Friends,
The Capilano Review and Western Front are pleased to invite you to the first reading in our new monthly reading series, Dear Friends &. Please join us at 7 pm on Thursday, May 4th, 2023 at Western Front for an evening of poetry by Billy-Ray Belcourt, Brandi Bird, and beni xiao.
The evening will be hosted by Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross and Kiel Torres.
Admission is free, but registration is required for in-person attendance. The event will also be available to virtual audiences by livestream.
We can’t wait to see you,
The Capilano Review
Readers’ Biographies
Billy-Ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is an Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of four books: This Wound is a World, NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field, A History of My Brief Body, and A Minor Chorus.
Brandi Bird is an Indigiqueer Saulteaux, Cree, and Métis writer and editor from Treaty 1 territory. They currently live and learn on Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, & Musqueam land. Their work has been published in Catapult, Poetry is Dead, Room Magazine, and others. Their first book of poetry, The All + Flesh, is coming out with House of Anansi in the fall of 2023. They like to listen to the same song over and over again and love their three cats Babydoll, Burt, and Etta.
beni xiao is a virgo, artist, and author of Bad Egg (Rahila’s Ghost, 2017). they live on the traditional and unceded territories of the Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam, and Squamish First Nations people. beni is usually asleep, but you can find them on the internet @verysmallbear.
COVID-19 Safety
To help prevent the spread of COVID-19, we strongly encourage the use of masks at this event. Masks will be available free-of-charge at the venue for anyone who would like one. The windows of the Grand Luxe Hall will also be open for this event.
Accessibility
The Grand Luxe Hall is located on the second floor of Western Front, which is accessed by a flight of 26 stairs. While plans for a full building upgrade to facilitate access for wheelchair and scooter users are still underway, all events in the Luxe are made available virtually via high-quality livestream (see link above). Further details about accessibility at Western Front can be found here. Please feel free to contact Western Front directly at info@westernfront.ca or +1 (604) 876-9343 for specific access requests in advance of your visit. We are grateful for your patience as we work towards securing the long-term accessibility of this historic space.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Western Front for collaborating with us on this series and to The Kootenay School of Writing for its additional support.
