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‘Pearls’ of panache

Creative writing students perform at LitFest New West

 

By Sharon Miki, Assistant Editor

a pretty penny, a poem read

aloud is surely worth a pearl.
Accordingly, an erudite group of
past and present students who
were featured in the latest edition
of Douglas’s annual anthology of
student creative writing, Pearls 31,
gathered for a celebration of poems
and stories on April 14.

Seven readers—Laura Cuthbert,
Kyle Derochie, Matthew Burgess,
Trudy Noort, Carleigh Baker,
Morgan Nicholsfiguieredo, and
myself—tread their stories and

|: a poem on paper is worth

poems to a lecture hall full of
family, friends and fans of the Fest.
Each reader regaled the room with
a short selection of poems or prose,
with most readers including work
that was featured in Pearls 31.
Pearls is an annual anthology
of the best and brightest work
from Douglas College creative
writing students. Contributions,
which range this year from poems
to fiction to personal narratives to
scripts, are selected by instructors in
the Creative Writing Department.
The Pearls reading was held
as part of the Arts Council of
New Westminster’s “LitFest New

Cees wae ee

West”—an annual free public
event celebrating writers and their
accomplishments. The event, which
this year was held at Douglas
College’s New Westminster
campus, featured a variety of
readings, speakers, and workshops
from the literary arts community.
Carleigh Baker, reader and
the 2011 gold winner of Douglas’
Maurice Hodgson Memorial Award
for Creative Writing, spoke to The
Other Press about the experience.
“The Douglas creative writing
program is producing some real
talent, and it was great to see us
represented at LitFest...[and] it’s

   

NEWWES

always a pleasure to read to a large
and receptive crowd.”

I’m thankful to Theresa [Henry-
Smith] for organizing the reading,
and I’m very thankful for the large
and receptive crowd that came out.
Douglas creative writing students
can feel confident about the skills
they will bring to the next level of
their education. One only has to
browse through Pearls to see this.”

Indeed, as a reader at this
event, I’m honoured and grateful
to Henry-Smith and department
head Calvin Wharton for giving me
the chance to showcase my work as
part of this larger festival. As anew
poet and a student, opportunities
to read for a crowd are often as
sparse as Jason Statham’s hairline—
which is to say quite thin. With
friends, family and LitFest visitors
in the crowd, we were able to get
feedback that is, frankly, priceless.
To me, this exhibition of Pearls was
simply full of gems.

Pearls 31 can be purchased at
the Douglas College bookstore.

 

 

Get a look at his typ

eface!

An interview with 2012 Maurice Hodgson Award winner, Brock Zawila

By Angela Espinoza, Arts Editor

ach year, the Maurice
HE Hodgson Creative Writing

Award is handed to one
Douglas College student who has
displayed a fantastic growth in their
creative writing abilities. This year’s
winner is soon-to-be graduate
Brock Zawila. Zawila has spent his
last few years at Douglas tackling
the Associate of Arts Degree and
spending a respectable amount of
time taking on a number of creative
writing courses.

Of maintaining his focus on

this particular skill, Zawila states,
“T guess the best way I could say it
is... everyone’s got that one thing
they’re good at. Writing’s just that

8

thing for me.” He was inspired to
further explore creative writing
after an experience he had in high
school.

“First thing I ever wrote was a
play in twelfth grade, and I asked
my drama teacher if I could put it
on for the school. I got to direct it,
act in it... all this stuff. [But out of
everything], the writing process
was the most interesting to me.”

In honour of his abilities,
Zawila was recently published
in Pearls 31, the latest issue of an
annual anthology. His excerpt is
taken from an original screenplay
entitled Rum for Wisdom, but Zawila
stresses the piece was not the reason
for his success.

“The faculty judges] it based

on improvement of the writer’s
ability from the time [that] they
start [at Douglas]. I sent a number
of things in through a portfolio...
some from my [time in Introduction
to Writing Plays] course, which I
took at the very beginning... [to]
some short stories from a course |
just took.”

As Zawila will be graduating
from Douglas this summer, I asked
him what his future plans are.

“I’m hoping to get into [the
University of Victoria] and get a
creative writing degree from there.”
Beyond that, Zawila states that the
door is pretty much open.

“I’ve been thinking about a lot
of grey areas that go into creative
writing. I’m going to continue

writing short stories and stuff that
[will] hopefully get published, and
probably take the route of going
through a creative writing journal—
[just] trying to get my work out.

“T’ve also really considered
looking into writing for video
games, maybe films, but video
games especially; it’s like an
untapped new source for writing.”

When asked of his influences,
Zawila firmly stated that, “I
can’t... directly cite my influences
at this point,” but named Hunter
S. Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut
amongst some of his favourites.

Congratulations again to
Brock Zawila, and may his creative
writing career only continue to
flourish from here!