3rd Annual Atlin Lit Up 2019

Reaching out from and into the North

Where:

St. Martin’s Anglican Church, Atlin, BC

When:

July 13 & 14, 2019

Author readings are free to the public. To register for workshops, or one-on-one manuscript pitch sessions, please contact lilygontard@gmail.com

STAY TUNED FOR 2019 info!
(keep reading below for 2018 info…)

The Presenters:

Bev Sellars is a former councillor and chief of the Xat’sull (Soda Creek) First Nation in Williams Lake, BC. She worked as a community advisor for the BC Treaty Commission and served as the representative for the Secwepemc communities on the Cariboo Chilcotin Justice Inquiry in the early 1990s. Sellars has spoken out on racism and residential schools and on the environmental and social threats of mineral resources exploitation in her region. Sellars is the author of They Called Me Number One (2013, Talonbooks), a memoir of her childhood experience in the Indian residential school system and its effects on three generations of women in her family. Her book, Price Paid: The Fight for First Nations Survival (2016, Talonbooks) looks at the history of Indigenous rights in Canada from an Indigenous perspective.

Jan Redford lives with her family in Squamish, BC, where she mountain bikes, trail runs, climbs, and skis. Her stories, articles, and personal essays have been published in the Globe and Mail, National Post, Mountain Life, Explore, and anthologies, and have won or been shortlisted in several writing contests. She is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at SFU and holds a master’s in creative writing from UBC. End of the Rope (2018, Random House) is her first book.

Joanna Lilley, from Whitehorse, YT, is the author of the poetry collection, If There Were Roads (Turnstone Press), and the poetry collection, The Fleece Era (Brick Books). She is also the author of the short story collection, The Birthday Books (Hagios Press). Joanna helped to found the Yukon Writers’ Collective Ink and has coordinated the Whitehorse Poetry Festival. Her first novel, Worry Stones will be published by Ronsdale in fall 2018.

Kate Harris, from Atlin, BC, is a writer with a grudge against borders and a knack for getting lost. Her writing has been featured in The Walrus, Canadian Geographic, Sierra, CutBank, and The Georgia Review, among other publications, and cited in Best American Essays and Best American Travel Writing. A Rhodes scholar and Morehead-Cain scholar, she was named one of Canada’s top modern-day explorers and has won several awards for her nonfiction writing, including the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award. She lives off-grid in a log cabin in Atlin, British Columbia. Lands of Lost Borders (2018, Penguin/Random House) is her first book.

Marilyn Biderman, from Toronto, ON. Before joining Transatlantic Literary Agency, Marilyn worked at her own literary agency and consultancy practice for seven years, where she helped launch the careers of début and prize-winning authors. She had previously worked at McClelland & Stewart for twelve years, most recently as Vice President, Director, Rights and Contracts. At M&S she handled the international rights for many renowned authors, including Leonard Cohen, Alistair MacLeod, and Madeleine Thien. She has mentored many publishers under the auspices of the Association of Canadian Publishers and the Canada Council, and has acted as a juror in literary competitions. She has authored several papers on copyright law; is Secretary of the recently-formed Professional Association of Canadian Literary Agents; and served for many years on the organizing committee for the International Visitors Program of Toronto’s International Festival of Authors.

Michele Genest, from Whitehorse, YT, moved to the territory from her hometown of Toronto in 1994. Her non-fiction has been published in enRoute, The Globe and Mail, Up Here, and Yukon North of Ordinary. She also co-edited anthologies of Yukon writing, Urban Coyote and Urban Coyote, New Territory (Lost Moose, 2001 and 2003). Michele cooks and writes about it; her cookbooks include The Boreal Gourmet and The Boreal Feast (Harbour Publishing, 2010 and 2014), Vadzaih, Cooking Caribou from Antler to Hoof, with Kelly Milner (Porcupine Caribou Management Board and Vuntut Gwich’in Government, 2017), and with Dan Jason, Awesome Ancient Grains and Seeds (Douglas and McIntyre, 2018). Her recent projects are cocktail books, Cold Spell and Add Light and Stir (Borealchemy Press, 2017 and 2018) co-authored with Jennifer Tyldesley.

Peter Jickling was born at Whitehorse General Hospital and graduated from Vanier Catholic Secondary School in 1999. In 2005 he began freelance writing and in 2011 served as Associate Editor of Up Here magazine. That same year his first play, Syphilis: A Love Story, was produced by Ramshackle Theatre. In 2013 his play won Best Comedy at the Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival. Between 2012 and 2015 he served on the editorial staff of What’s Up Yukon, and wrote the weekly column, “Jickling’s Jabberings.” In the winter of 2016 he relocated to Toronto where he worked on a poetry collection. The resulting manuscript, Downtown Flirt, is forthcoming from Guernica Editions.

Workshops and presentations:

Saturday, July 7

Pitch Your Manuscript to a Publishing Pro
10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Pitch your manuscript to Marilyn Biderman, literary agent with Transatlantic Agency at Atlin Lit Up. During your fifteen-minute session with Marilyn she can provide feedback on your pitch and/or manuscript, insight into the viability of the project and potential markets. Prior to your session with Marilyn, you’ll provide her with an excerpt from your manuscript via email. Manuscripts can be non-fiction, literary fiction, or genre fiction. (Sorry, no YA or kids lit, this year). Only six sessions available, sign up today.

Pre-register
Fee: $40
Participant limit: 6
Length: 15 minutes

Workshop: How to Write a Memoir in Less Than Twelve Years
12:30 p.m.-2 p.m.

With Jan Redford, author of End of the Rope: Mountains, Marriage & Motherhood (Random House).

As an author who spent approximately twelve years to write her memoir of love and loss in the mountains, Jan Redford is full of ideas of what NOT to do next time. She will share the biggest brick walls she encountered, and how she scaled them to land a book deal with Random House Canada. Come prepared to share your own brick walls so we can pool our collective wisdom and brainstorm our way to solutions with the liberal use of Crayola markers, stickies, huge rolls of paper, and laughter.

Pre-register
Fee: $40
Participant limit: 10
Length: 1.5 hours

Publishing Brain Cram: Learn about contracts, copyright, submissions, rights, and more with literary agent Marilyn Biderman
3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Are you puzzled about exactly what it is that a literary agent does? Would you like to understand more about the business side of book publishing and what’s involved in author / publisher contracts? Marilyn Biderman of the Transatlantic Agency will cover the basics. Topics include the author / agent relationship, what an agent is looking for in a client, how an agent approaches the submission process, and the differences between having a publisher sell your rights and having an agent do so. With lots of time for questions, this workshop will give you the basics of what an author needs to know about the business of book publishing.

Pre-register, or drop in
Fee: $40
Seating limit: 50
Length: 1.5 hours

Sunday, July 8

The Art of Science Writing: Putting the Weirdness and Wonder of the Universe on the Page, a workshop with Kate Harris
12:15 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.

Description: If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry,” said Rachel Carson—and the same holds for writing truthfully, or scientifically, about anything in the universe. This workshop will explore ways of translating the technical insights of science into compelling prose, with the idea that good writing, like science itself, is less about providing answers than provoking questions.

Pre-register, or drop in
Fee: $40
Participant limit: 15
Length: 1.5 hours

Pitch Your Manuscript to a Publishing Pro
2 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Pitch your manuscript to Marilyn Biderman, literary agent with Transatlantic Agency at Atlin Lit Up. During your fifteen-minute session with Marilyn she can provide feedback on your pitch and/or manuscript, insight into the viability of the project and potential markets. Prior to your session with Marilyn, you’ll provide her with an excerpt from your manuscript via email. Manuscripts can be non-fiction, literary fiction, or genre fiction. (Sorry, no YA or kids lit, this year). Only six sessions available, sign up today.

Pre-register
Fee: $40
Participant limit: 6
Length: 15 minutes

Readings/interviews:

Saturday July 7, 11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

Bev Sellars from Soda Creek First Nation, BC, author of They Called Me Number One, and Michele Genest from Whitehorse author of the Boreal Chef cookbook series will each read from their work and discuss writing about the hard and easy topics, and what it’s like to share your life on the page. Hosted by Yukon author Joanna Lilley.

Saturday July 7, 2:15 p.m. to 3:15 p.m.

Yukon’s own Michele Genest, author of the Boreal Chef cookbook series and other books, and Peter Jickling, a playwright and poet, will each read from their work and discuss inspiration and making the leap to take their writing outside the territory. Hosted by Joanna Lilley.

Saturday July 7, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Bev Sellars from Soda Creek First Nation, BC, author of They Called Me Number One, and Kate Harris from Atlin, BC, author of Lands of Lost Borders became friends when they participated in the Canada C3 Coast-to-Coast Expedition in 2017. Come hear these two memoirists and activists read their work and discuss their experience on that once-in-a-lifetime, at times bumpy, at times smooth journey. Hosted by Yukon author Joanna Lilley.

Sunday, July 8, 11:00 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Jan Redford, from Squamish, BC, author of End of the Rope and Peter Jickling, poet and playwright from Whitehorse, will each read from their work and talk about what it feels like to be a new author exposing your soul in prose and in verse, when you’re not so new to the writing scene. Hosted by Yukon author Joanna Lilley.

Acknowledgments

Atlin Lit Up would like to acknowledge that the festival is taking place in the territory of the Taku River Tlingit. Thank you for hosting us.

Thanks to our sponsors:

• Aasman
• Mark Kelly Photography
• Air North
• Falcon-A Painting
• Mac’s Fireweed Books
• Northern Vision Development
• Integraphics

Funding for this event is provided by Access Copyright and Government of Yukon

Special thanks to the Atlin Arts and Music Festival for providing our venue.

Atlin Lit Up is presented by Yukon Writers’ Collective Ink.

Contact Atlin Lit Up:
867-332-4919
writeyukonink@yahoo.com