Fall 2022 Newsletter
Our fall was stacked with events and announcements, including the winner of the VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award. Remnants by Celine Huyghebaert, translated from the French by Aleshia Jensen for Book*hug Press was selected by judge Susan Olding.
Susan Olding writes, “Memoir, auto-fiction, documentary, dream—Céline Huyghebaert’s Le drap blanc, ably translated in English as Remnants by Aleshia Jensen (Book*hug Press), is all these and more—an original, probing, and deeply moving attempt to come to terms with the death of a parent and a family fractured by poverty, alcohol, and loss. Through overlapping and sometimes contradictory accounts, an image of the father emerges for writer and reader alike—one that can never be fixed and absolute but must always remain mutable, blurred, and incomplete.”
VMI asked the author and the translator a few questions about their process:
VMI: Celine, thank you for corresponding with us. How do you think about genre?
Celine Huyghebaert: I don’t think about it much when I write. I need to find the form that will suit what I have to say. In an interview, the French writer Annie Ernaux answered: “It’s outside of any model,” when a journalist asked her about the form of her writing.
VMI: Why this book?
CH: I had been living in Montreal for two years when my father died. When I arrived at the hospital, directly from the airport, I just had the time to see his dead body lying on a bed before he disappeared completely. But, maybe he had already started to fade away during his lifetime. From that moment on, I have been haunted by this disappearance and I knew that I would need to do something with that, that I would have to tell that story.
VMI: How many unpublished or half-finished manuscripts have you written?
CH: I’ve written two unfinished manuscripts. I am glad they are not published.
VMI: What does success look like to you as a writer?
CH: I don’t know. Being on the subway and seeing someone sitting there reading your book?
Céline Huyghebaert is an artist and a writer. Her work, at the intersection of visual arts, language and literature, has been exhibited in France and Canada. In 2019, she won the Governor General’s Literary Award for French-language Fiction for her first novel, Le drap blanc, published by Le Quartanier, and she was awarded the Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art. Born in France in 1978, she has been living in Montréal since 2002.
Aleshia Jensen
VMI: Aleshia, how do you think about genre?
Aleshia Jensen: Genre feels most interesting to me at its intersections.VMI: Why this book?
AJ: Because it attempts to get to the root of an event, and of a life.
VMI: How many unpublished or half-finished manuscripts have you written?
AJ: No manuscripts but a dozen half-finished stories.
Aleshia Jensen is a French-to-English translator and former bookseller. Her literary translations include Explosions by Mathieu Poulin, a finalist for the 2018 Governor General’s Literary Award for translation; Prague by Maude Veilleux, co-translated with Aimee Wall; as well as graphic novels by Julie Delporte, Pascal Girard, Axelle Lenoir, and Camille Jourdy. Her translation of Remnants by Céline Huyghebaert and co-translation of This Is How I Disappear by Mirion Malle were both finalists for the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for translation. Her own writing has appeared in This magazine and Weird Era literary journal.
VMI Mentor News
Elee Kraljii Gardiner and Gary Barwin have a new collaborative chapbook of visual poems titled Watcher. It may be purchased through the publisher, Timglaset Editions. A series of photos from Elee’s project “Until the Book Faints” appears in illiterature, a journal of decomposition, issue 9, from Puddles of Sky Press. She also has a poem in Best Canadian Poetry (Biblioasis) and is interviewed here about it. Elee will be interviewing Harsha Walia (Border &Rule) and Ian Williams (Disorientation with Being Black in the World) for Storied, the BC and Yukon Book Prizes series on December 13, 2022. Info here.
Sarah Yi Mei Tsiang has a new book out, Grappling Hook. Grappling Hook can be purchased through Palimpsest or at your local bookseller.
Yosef Wosk VMI Fellowship
VMI is delighted to announce the recipient of the 2023 Yosef Wosk VMI Fellowship. Shantell Powell will be working with mentor Gurjinder Basran on her fiction project during the January-to-June Six Month Intensive.
We received applications from an international pool of talented authors seeking mentorship for their works-in-progress. We thank each person who applied and want to state what a pleasure it was to spend time with the submissions. We are encouraged to know how much fine work is taking place all around us, both in Canada and internationally. The abundant interest confirms our efforts to support authors at all stages of their careers. We wish each applicant continued success with their writing as we extend a warm welcome to Shantell.
Shantell Powell is an eclectic writer, multidisciplinary artist, and swamp hag who grew up in an apocalyptic cult while living on the land and off the grid. She is a graduate of the Writers’ Studio at Simon Fraser University, the LET(s) Lead Academy at Yale University, and holds a BA from the University of New Brunswick. Her writing is in Augur, Cloud Lake Literary Journal, Feminist Studies Journal, Prairie Fire, Yellow Medicine Journal, and more. When she’s not writing, she’s getting filthy in the woods. You can find her on YouTube, her occasionally-updated blog, and on an assortment of social media platforms as @shanmonster
Gurjinder Basran is the award-winning author of three novels: Everything Was Good-bye, Someone You Love is Gone and Help! I’m Alive. Her groundbreaking debut novel, was the winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and was listed on many must-read lists including Chatelaine magazine’s book club pick, and CBC’s Writers to Read. A Simon Fraser University, Writer’s Studio alumna, Gurjinder balances the demands of her career in connected technologies and her creative life as she writes her fourth novel. Gurjinder lives in Delta, B.C. Visit her site here.
For more information on the Yosef Wosk VMI Fellowship, our mentors, and VMI mentoring options please visit vancouvermanuscriptintensive.com
VMI Alumni News
Doris Corcese has a publication forthcoming in untethered magazine’s upcoming Winter 2022 issue.
Yaana Dancer has a story forthcoming in the anthology Don’t Tell: Family Secrets, www.demeterpress.org
Carole Harmon has an essay, Secrets Breed Questions, forthcoming in the anthology Don’t Tell, Family Secrets, https://demeterpress.org/books/dont-tell-family-secrets/ and an essay, BUFFALO SPIRIT roams this land, forthcoming in the online journal Dark Matter Women Witnessing: Issue #15, Being With Ancestors Part 111 https://darkmatterwomenwitnessing.com/
Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho has a publication forthcoming in PRISM international issue 61.1. The public is invited to the launch of issue 61.1 at Massy Arts Society on Saturday December 10 from 6-8 pm PST.
Alumni and mentors, we’d love to include your events and successes! Please keep an eye out for the next reminder to submit your news! Wishing you all a happy winter season.