On Nov. 3 and 4, UFV will be hosting their annual literary festival that celebrates two days of discussion on literature, poetry, and various types of media. This year, the Fraser Valley Literary Festival has invited Jordan Abel on board as one of the keynote speakers.
Abel, a queer Nisga’a writer from Vancouver, is located in Edmonton on treaty six territory. He writes creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, and is the author of several publications including Un/inhabited and Injun, which won the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize. He currently teaches at the University of Alberta as an associate professor in the Faculty of Arts, English & film studies department.
“I’m looking forward to teaching problem-based writing,” Abel said, outlining the poetry workshop he plans to teach at the festival. “Writing that originates with an interest in solving particular problems or answering particular questions. So writing that is motivated by an interest in social change and social justice.”
“In my book NISHGA, one of the things I talk about is writing this book because I have heavy questions about my life that I’m really interested in trying to answer. And the questions are, what does it mean to be Indigenous? To be severed and dispossessed from my own territory? What does it mean to be an intergenerational survivor of residential schools, and what does it mean to be an urban Indigenous person? So those questions are guiding forces in the book, and every page attempts to answer those questions.”
“My approach to teaching poetry is about trying to get students to ask similarly meaningful questions about their own lives and their own projects, and to build their writing outwards from those questions.”
In 2017, Abel stayed at UFV as part of the Writer in Residence fellowship program. He described his experience as being “super cool,” stating, “ I really loved it there. I met a lot of really interesting students, staff, faculty members, and people just from the community, and I thought it was a really amazing, welcoming environment.”
The Fraser Valley Literary Festival will include workshops and panel discussions ranging from “The Fantastic & the Mundane: Symbolism in the Everyday,” to “Lie to Me: Truth and Fiction in Writing.” The festival, which has been ongoing since 2018, has brought talented authors together from across the country as a way of sharing similar stories, and passions, in both literature and the creation of it.
“I’m always interested in the way that these types of festivals bring people together. You know, writers from the area and also writers from elsewhere,” Abel said.
“I think that cross-pollination of writers from all over the place come together, including Edmonton which is where I’m at now, those conversations I always find really meaningful and productive when you get a chance to move outside of your usual circles and ways of being.”
For those interested in attending the festival and checking out Abel, along with other guest speakers, tickets can be reserved on Eventbrite.
