My friend Ann-Marie is helping The Land Conservancy of BC (TLC) fundraise to rescue the childhood home of author Joy Kogawa, which happens to sit around the corner from her home in a lovely neighbourhood in Marpole.
On November 3, 2005, Ann-Marie and others convinced Vancouver City Council to delay approval of a demolition permit on the house until March 31, 2006. Now they are working to raise money to buy the property at 1450 West 64th Street so they can designate it as a heritage property.
The idea is to establish a writers’ retreat at Kogawa House, where established writers could stay while completing manuscripts for publication, as they do at Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon, and at Wallace Stegner House in Eastend, Saskatchewan.
What they need now is private donations and attendees for Saturday’s reading at Chapters Robson in Vancouver.
Date: Saturday, February 11, 2006
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Location: Chapters Bookstore, 788 Robson St., 3rd Floor
*Free admission*
The Land Conservancy of BC along with the Save Kogawa House Committee are hosting an up-close and personal reading & book signing with award-winning Canadian author and poet, Joy Kogawa. Kogawa will read from her second novel Emily Kato (formerly Itsuka). Other guest authors will include Roy Miki, Governor General Award Winner for Poetry, reading from Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice and Daphne Marlatt, Vancouver poet, novelist and oral historian, reading from Steveston. Retired school teacher and counsellor, Ellen Crowe-Swords will also speak to her familyís past experience of being interned at Hastings Park.
For more information about this event or to donate, call (604) 733-2313 or visit www.conservancy.bc.ca.