Elee Kraljii Gardiner Double Launch w/ Melissa Bull and Guests!

Please join us for an evening of bilingual readings (French- and English-language) to celebrate the launch of Vancouver-based writer’s Elee Kraljii Gardiner’s poetry book Trauma Head and the anthology Against Death: 35 Essays on Living. Invited readers are Anita Anand, Françoise Major, and Chloé Savoie-Bernard. The event will be hosted by Melissa Bull.
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Vous êtes convié.e.s à une soirée de lectures bilingues (en français et en anglais) à l’occasion du lancement du recueil de poèmes Trauma Head de l’écrivaine vancouvéroise Elee Kraljii Gardiner, et du collectif Against Death: 35 Essays on Living, qu’elle a dirigé. Anita Anand, Françoise Major et Chloé Savoie-Bernard se joindront à elle au micro lors de cette soirée animée par Melissa Bull.

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ELEE KRALJII GARDINER is a creative mentor, poet, and editor living in Vancouver. Her books include the poetry collections Trauma Head (2018), a chapbook of the same name (Otter Press, 2017), serpentine loop (Anvil Press, 2016), and the anthologies Against Death: 35 Essays on Living (Anvil Press, 2019) and V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2012). She founded Thursdays Writing Collective, a beloved non-profit organization, and through its ten years, she edited and published nine of its anthologies. She is an associate director of Vancouver Manuscript Intensive and is the non-fiction editor at Chapter House, the online journal of the Institute of American Indian Arts where she is an MFA candidate in poetry.
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Elee Kraljii Gardiner est une mentore en création, poète et éditrice établie à Vancouver. Elle a publié le recueil de poèmes Trauma Head (2018), une brochure sous le même titre (Otter Press, 2017), le recueil serpentine loop (Anvil Press, 2016), et dirigé les collectifs Against Death: 35 Essays on Living (Anvil Press, 2019) et V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2012). Elle a fondé l’organisation à but non lucratif réputée Thursdays Writing Collective, où elle a dirigé neuf collectifs depuis dix ans. Elle est directrice associée de Vancouver Manuscript Intensive et éditrice de la non-fiction au Chapter House Journal, le périodique en ligne du Institute of American Indian Arts où elle est candidate à la maîtrise ès arts en poésie

MELISSA BULL is a writer and editor, as well as a French-to-English translator of fiction, essays, and plays. Melissa is the editor of Maisonneuve magazine’s “Writing from Quebec” column. Her fiction, nonfiction, interviews, translations, and poetry have also appeared in such publications as Event, Nouveau Projet, Joyland, NewPoetry, SubTerrain, Lemon Hound, Urbania, The Puritan, and Prism International. She is the author of a collection of poetry, Rue (2015), and a collection of fiction, The Knockoff Eclipse (2018), which will be published in French by Boréal in 2020. Melissa is the translator of Pascale Rafie’s play, The Baklawa Recipe (2018), Nelly Arcan’s collection Burqa of Skin (2014), and her translation of Marie-Sissi Labrèche’s novel, Borderline, is forthcoming (2019). Melissa lives in Montreal.
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MELISSA BULL est écrivaine, éditrice, et traductrice de fiction et de théâtre du français vers l’anglais. Elle est l’éditrice de la chronique « Writing from Quebec » du magazine Maisonneuve. Ses textes de fiction, ses essais, entrevues, traductions et poèmes ont été publiés dans diverses revues telles Event, Nouveau Projet, Joyland, NewPoetry, SubTerrain, Lemon Hound, Urbania, The Puritan, et Prism International. Elle est l’autrice du recueil de poésie Rue (2015) et du recueil de fictions The Knockoff Eclipse (2018), lequel sera publié en traduction française chez Boréal en 2020. Melissa est la traductrice de la pièce de Pascale Rafie La recette de baklawas (The Baklawa Recipe, 2018) et du recueil d’essais de Nelly Arcan Burqa de chair (Burqa of Skin (2014). Sa traduction du roman Borderline de Marie-Sissi Labrèche paraîtra en 2019. Melissa vit à Montréal.

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TRAUMA HEAD
In 2012, poet Elee Kraljii Gardiner precipitously lost feeling in, and use of, her left side. The mini-stroke passed quickly but was symptomatic of something larger: a tear in the lining of an artery that opened an examination of mortality and crisis. This long-poem memoir tracks the author’s experiences with un/wellness and un/re-familiarity with herself. Shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, Trauma Head disturbs and disorders language and syntax to reconcile appearance with experience.

AGAINST DEATH
The nimble, serious play of the title, Against Death: 35 Essays on Living, is an accurate reflection of the range of tones, approaches, and experiences with death (which is to say, living) inside this vibrant, tender collection. While one need not be grieving to find resonance here, those who grief has touched will not feel silenced or pushed outside. In eloquent, luminous prose, these essays will be a companion to many and will be a collection to return to (againlives inside against). As editor Elee Kraljii Gardiner reminds us, “To be against something can be to reject or refute it. But to be against death can also mean to be in contact with, pressed up next to, to be intimately proximate with mortality.” This is all of us. I am grateful for this gathering and for this expansive (re)framing. —TC Tolbert, author of Gephyromaniaand co-editor of Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics.