Joy Kogawa House

Historic Joy Kogawa House, 1450 West 64th Avenue, Vancouver, BC V6P 2N4 (604) 263-6581.  Open to writers who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada with substantial publications or other credits.  Accepts writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.  Residencies of 3 or 6 months for one writer at a time. Pays monthly stipend. The aims of the residency are to foster greater appreciation for Canadian writing within the Metro Vancouver community, offer members of the community an opportunity to interact with the resident author, and to provide the space, time and resources for a Canadian author to write. The writer-in-residence is expected to provide advice to emerging and other writers through one-to-one consultations, seminars and school visits. This full-time position (35 hours per week) requires 40 percent of the author’s time be spent on public programs or projects, leaving 60 percent of the work week available for creative writing. Applicants are encouraged to identify innovative ways their residency would foster an appreciation for Canadian writing and involve communities not typically exposed to Canadian literature. The house, where Kogawa lived as a child, stands as a cultural and historical reminder of the expropriation of property that all Canadians of Japanese descent experienced after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, and as a place of healing and reconciliation. (literary arts)