By Valerie Franklin (The Cascade) – Email
Vancouver-based novelist and CBC radio broadcaster Jen Sookfong Lee has been announced as this year’s recipient of the Kuldip Gill Writing Fellowship, and will serve as UFV’s writer-in-residence for the Winter 2016 semester.
Lee is the author of novels The End of East, Shelter, and The Better Mother, which was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. Her upcoming novel The Conjoined is set for release in September 2016. A native of East Vancouver, Lee sets many of her written works in local landscapes such as Stanley Park, Chinatown, and the Downtown Eastside.
““I write a lot about Vancouver and B.C. and about race and gender, about sexuality, about poverty in particular,” says Lee.
Beyond writing, Lee is also involved in broadcasting, publishing, teaching, and editing; among other radio projects, she has been the voice of West Coast Words to CBC Radio One for several years, and is a regular contributor to The Next Chapter, a radio program on literature. She has previously held a writer-in-residence position at the West Vancouver Library, and is set to take on another writer-in-residence position at the Port Moody Library in May following her term at UFV.
UFV’s writer-in-residence position is an annual three-month term funded by the Kuldip Gill Writing Fellowship, and is selected by a committee of faculty from the English department. The position is open to any published Canadian author, and the writer-in-residence’s genre and style can vary widely; former UFV writers-in-residence include young-adult author Emily Pohl-Weary, poet Daniela Elza, and First Nations novelist Richard van Camp.
The writer-in-residence’s duties include providing mentorship to student writers, visiting classes, hosting workshops and readings, and working on their own literary projects, but Lee says she is most looking forward to helping student writers with their projects during her office hours.
“The best part is the one-on-one conversations that you have with emerging writers. What’s so lovely about it is they’re so enthusiastic,” she says, adding that students are welcome to bring not just completed works, but outlines of future projects.
“What really motivates me is talking to young writers, or new writers, and sort of figuring out what they need to continue on with their projects or writing careers, and helping them find that,” she says. “[The writer-in-residence is] part therapist, part writing teacher, part mentor, which is really rewarding because I was that person 15 years ago. So it’s kind of nice to be able to recognize myself in them and give them what I wanted.”
Lee’s office hours will start at 10:30 a.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays in room D3009, starting January 18.
