The annual anthology from The Writer’s Studio at SFU will launch Oct. 15, and will feature contributions by four Maple Ridge writers: Lynn Easton, Rebecca Jamieson, Annette LeBox, and Katherine Wagner.
They are among the 36 students featured in the annual anthology, titled emerge 15.
Easton has lived in Maple Ridge for 20 years, and has worked as a local columnist and as an editor. She has been published in local, regional, provincial and national periodicals and newspapers, and has won several B.C. and Canadian community newspaper awards. She is also the editor and co-author of Moments in Time, a book about Maple Ridge.
“It has been an incredible experience to join with so many other writers and try to stretch my creative writing muscles at TWS,” said Easton.
Jamieson grew up in Maple Ridge.
“I like to define myself first as being a writer,” she said. “But if I’m being honest, I’m just a procrastinator who likes to tell stories.”
At The Writer’s Studio, she is working on her first book, a humorous novel combining ancient Irish folklore with modern-day Vancouver. An excerpt from her novel will appear in emerge 15.
Annette LeBox is the author of seven books, including Salmon Creek, winner of the B.C. Book Prize for Illustrated Children’s Literature. She has lived in Maple Ridge for over 35 years and has been a leading stakeholder for the conservation of two regional parks, Blaney Bog and Codd Island Wetlands. Many of her books are about sacred places in her community.
She also writes poetry, for which she has twice won the Maple Ridge Poetry Contest. Two of her poems will be featured in emerge 15.
Katherine Wagner has lived in Maple Ridge since 1991 and is one of the founders of Golden Ears Writers, a local writers’ organization.
For many years she wrote non-fiction articles and columns – mostly about public education and gardening – before taking fiction classes to help improve her non-fiction. She has been writing fiction for about five years, and has published several short stories.
“Writing fiction is much more challenging, and rewarding, than I ever dreamed it would be.”
In emerge 15, writing as KT Wagner, she shares an excerpt from her alternate-history steampunk novel, set locally during the 1860s.