The Royal City Literary Arts Society is honouring the winners of its Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry this weekend.
The society is holding an awards show on Saturday, Nov. 22 at the Richmond Cultural Centre, 7700 Minoru Gate in Richmond.
Doors open at 12:30 p.m., and the show will run from 1 to 4 p.m. with an intermission.
Candice James and Kyle McKillop will serve as MCs for the occasion, which will honour award winners and recognize society members and sponsors.
The Fred Cogswell Award was open to all Canadian poets who had a book published in 2013.
First place, and a $500 prize, goes to Ken Howe for The Civic-Mindedness of Trees (published by Wolsak & Wynn), while second place ($250) goes to Murray Reiss for The Survival Rate of Butterflies in the Wild (Hagios Press).
Runners-up are Al Rempel for This Isn't The Apocalypse We Hoped For (Caitlin Press), Susan Andrews Grace for Philosopher at the Skin Edge of Being (Signature Editions), Mary Dalton for Hooking (Signal Editions) and Dennis Cooley for The Stones (Turnstone Press).
The awards were judged by George Bowering, Canada's first parliamentary poet laureate and the author of more than 100 books. Bowering will also be the keynote speaker for the occasion.
The ceremony will also include an open mike session.
For more details, see www.rclas.com or email [email protected].
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Members of a New Westminster-based vocal ensemble are lending their voices to help L'Arche Greater Vancouver.
VanDeca - a young choir that's been profiled in these pages before - is singing a holiday concert to benefit L'Arche on Sunday, Nov. 30.
The 3 p.m. concert will include Christmas and holiday songs, along with some VanDeca favourites and a couple of songs that will be featured in the choir's upcoming concert in January.
The concert is free, but donations will be accepted for L'Arche - an organization that works with people with developmental disabilities.
The concert is being held at Sherbrooke Mennonite Church, 7155 Sherbrooke St. in Vancouver.
The concert is set to run from 3 to 4:30 p.m., with a reception from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Check out the Facebook invite at tinyurl.com/VanDecaLArche for all the details.
The choir is also getting into the Christmas spirit by singing at the Vancouver Christmas Market at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre plaza - they're set to appear Dec. 3 and 13 at 7 p.m.
Check out www.vandecachoir.com for all the details about the choir. You can also see a feature I wrote on the choir here.
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Want to create a website that wows?
Sylvia Taylor, an award-winning writer, editor, coach and educator, will be leading a workshop on just that very thing on Saturday, Nov. 29.
The Royal City Literary Arts Society workshop is set to run from 1 to 3 p.m., at a cost of $15 for members and $25 for non-members.
It's being held in the MLA's office at 737 Sixth St - enter from the back.
Pre-register by emailing [email protected], and see www.rclas.com for more details.
Do you have an item for Lively City? Send arts and entertainment ideas to Julie, [email protected], or find her on Twitter,@juliemaclellan.
