Symposium

Friday, November 13, 2015
2:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Room 2M70, The University of Winnipeg

Two public panel discussions explore the history and future of literary publishing in Canada as part of Gallery 1C03 and Contemporary Verse 2’s fall 2015 project A Putting Down of Roots.

   
1st Panel (2:30 – 3:45 p.m.)

40 years and still counting: the importance of CV2 and Canadian literary magazines

Panelists: Dennis Cooley, Michelle Elrick, Katherena Vermette
Moderator: Clarise Foster

In 1975, when CV2 was established in Winnipeg, Canadian literary magazines had a very important role in promoting new writers and new writing. While it is still true, 40 years later, that literary magazines  play an important role in the support of new writers and new work, the proliferation of independent book publishers, new technologies, and more recently self-publishing have greatly changed writers’ expectations of publication and their understanding of the importance of literary magazines. This panel will explore the traditional role of literary magazines in the writing life of a poet and how it has changed over the past several decades. They will discuss their experience of literary magazines as it relates to the support of their own writing as well as their work experience with CV2 and other literary magazines as editors, managers, and arts administrators, looking at how literary magazines work and how that work has also contributed to their own writing.   The discussion will address concerns with literary magazines past and present including cultural and stylistic diversity, changes in readership, and other challenges that writers and literary publishing face currently.

The key focus of this panel is why literary magazines are still important to the promotion and support of new writing and new writers and how they can continue support and promote Canadian writing going forward.
             

Break (3:45 – 4:00 p.m.)

2nd Panel (4:00 – 5:30 p.m.)

Moving CV2 forward: the next 40 years

Panelists: Jonathan Ball, Ray Hsu, Jennifer Still
Moderator: Maurice Mierau

Moving forward, what might the next forty years of poetry look like? What might literary magazines like CV2 look like? The advance of new technologies—the innovation of performance, new ideas about poetry—how  to make it and the possibilities of what it could do—abound and continue to greatly impact literary publishing including literary magazines like CV2. So what do opportunities like digital publishing, self-publishing, on-line publishing, performance, collaboration as well as new and divergent styles and forms of writing and genres offer today’s poets and what do they mean for the future of writing—for literary magazines like CV2? Members of this panel will discuss their own poetic practices. They will discuss the role that literary magazines have played in their own careers. They will address questions such as how literary magazines might or might not be uniquely positioned to support new writing in the future, what changes might be needed to ensure literary magazines maintain engaged representation, and whether they are in their present, largely print format, still relevant.  The panel will also address other challenges for writers and literary publishers such as diversity, changes in readership culture, and the support of alternative creative practice.

The key focus of this panel is the discussion of the future of poetry and CV2 in Canada.

Admission is free and everyone is welcome. The location is wheelchair accessible.

For more information contact:
Jennifer Gibson, Director/Curator
Gallery 1C03, The University of Winnipeg
515 Portage Avenue
Winnipeg MB R3B 2E9
Phone: 204.786.9253