Thank You for Supporting The Capilano Review in 2024!

Image credit: Jonathan Alfaro, *Avocado Stones*, monotype, 20.3 cm x 24.4 cm, 2024. From the series *Daylight Lover*, commissioned for the monthly reading series *Dear Friends &*. Image courtesy of the artist.

A Note from the Board Chair, Emily Dundas Oke

Dear Friends of TCR,

I’m writing on behalf of the staff and board at The Capilano Review to thank you for the essential support you have shown us through this year.

The community that supports and enables the work we do is made up of writers and artists, scholars and readers. It includes donors who are so essential and generous, and it includes, crucially, several levels of government that support the arts — Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts federally, the BC Arts Council and the BC Gaming Commission provincially, and the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Foundation locally. The generous anonymous Osbertus Fund, managed by the Vancouver Foundation, has given us hope in economically straitened times.

It also includes board members who have engaged in our work with energy, intensity, and vision, as well as members of our staff — Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross in our first dedicated Art Editor position; Deanna Fong, our Literary Editor; and Katherine Gear Chambers, our Managing Editor — who have all done so much to devise creative solutions to the multiple challenges associated with running our small but ambitious organization.

The Capilano Review is a vibrant and thriving organization thanks to you. Below — in a nutshell — is the 2024 you have made possible. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Emily Dundas-Oke
Chair, Capilano Review Contemporary Arts Society

2024 at The Capilano Review

This has been an eventful year, with opportunities for in-person as well as virtual community gatherings. We began the year with our first annual poetry marathon, programming eight continuous hours of readings, and raising nearly $7,000 for the magazine. We made the decision this spring to move to a biannual publishing schedule, releasing two issues, Issue 4.2: IT IS WHAT IT IS (Spring 2024) and Issue 4.3: Real Materials (Fall 2024), our first art-focused issue in nearly a decade.

We launched season two of our Roy Kiyooka-inspired reading series, Dear Friends &, in partnership with Western Front. Hosted in the Western Front’s Grand Luxe Hall and live streamed online, Dear Friends & ran monthly from June to November, featuring readings by 15 writers from across Canada including Fred Wah, Cody Caetano, River Halen, Zoe Imani Sharpe, and Gerry Shikatani. Each reading featured commissioned artwork by Jonathan Alfaro. We were thrilled to have Jordan Abel join us as Writer-in-Residence this October, offering a beautiful reading at Dear Friends & and a corresponding writing workshop in-person at Western Front.

We released a number of digital projects this year. Associate Editor Susan Blight continued to curate the Indigenous Places and Names web series, with generous funding from the Vancouver Foundation, featuring commissioned conversations, texts, and artworks with/by Robin Gray, Dylan Robinson, Laura Grier and Ayse Irem Karabag, Senaqwila Wyss, and others. We were excited to release two new web folios: ti-TCR 20: On Collective Care, edited by Associate Editor of Digital Projects Emma Jeffrey, and SMALL CAPS 6: The Library of Elemental Bending, Vol. I, convened by poet Hari Alluri and featuring the works of six other collaborating poets. The release of ti-TCR 20 concluded Jeffrey’s year-long editorial internship with The Capilano Review and was funded by the BC Arts Council’s Early Career Development program.

We continue to be challenged and inspired by the creative work that is sent to us through a variety of open submission periods each year, which we view as an invaluable way to welcome new and emerging voices into our programming. Our Spring 2024 writing contest, “Environments,” guest judged by Renee Gladman, welcomed a record 125 submissions, and our open submission window this September received over 250 submitted works. Our Fall 2024 contest, “Dedications,” guest judged by Shiv Kotecha, recently ran for the month of November. Selected works from each submission period will appear in our Spring and Fall 2025 issues.

It has been a pleasure to see so many new and old friends and readers out at our community tabling events this year, including at the Vancouver Art Book Fair and LitMag Fest, and we look forward to connecting with you in-person again soon!

Thank you to all who have supported The Capilano Review this past year. We are moved by your generosity and enthusiasm.

Highlights from 2024

Zoe Imani Sharpe reading at “Dear Friends &” in June 2024 at the Western Front. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography. Courtesy of Western Front.
River Halen reading at “Dear Friends &” in July 2024 at the Western Front. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography. Courtesy of Western Front.
Gerry Shikatani reading at “Dear Friends &” in September 2024 at the Western Front. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography. Courtesy of Western Front.
Phanuel Antwi reading at “Dear Friends &” in October 2024 at the Western Front. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography. Courtesy of Western Front.
Jordan Abel reading at “Dear Friends &” in October 2024 at the Western Front. With artwork by Jonathan Alfaro. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography. Courtesy of Western Front.
The Capilano Review’s Literary Editor Deanna Fong introducing “Dear Friends &” in September 2024 at the Western Front. With artwork by Jonathan Alfaro. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography. Courtesy of Western Front.
The Capilano Review’s Art Editor Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross introducing “Dear Friends &” at the Western Front. With artwork by Jonathan Alfaro. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography. Courtesy of Western Front.
The cover of Issue 4.2: IT IS WHAT IT IS (Spring 2024), featuring artwork by Derya Akay, from the series “Notebook Musings,” 2021/2023, sharpie on paper, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
From “Life is for Loving Around in a Rove” by Benjamin de Boer, SK Maston, and Ami Xherro, featured in Issue 4.2: IT IS WHAT IT IS (Spring 2024). Image courtesy of the artists.
The cover of Issue 4.3: Real Materials (Fall 2024) featuring artwork by Anne Low entitled “Clay suitcase” (detail), 2023, hand-woven cotton and silk, calcium carbonate, hide glue, wood, plaster, metal, 152.4 x 88.9 x 5.08cm. Photo by LFdocumentation. Courtesy of Franz Kaka, Toronto.
Atheana Picha, “May,” 2020, as featured in the Fall 2024 issue, Real Materials. Watercolour and gouache on paper, 22.4 × 28.4 cm. Courtesy of the City of Burnaby Permanent Art Collection and the Burnaby Art Gallery.