Chan’s residency promises to be one of EPL’s most interactive and accessible as he has agreed to work closely with the Library to create new programs that will showcase a writer’s process.  He will take aspiring writers through the development stages on a number of his writing projects including a new play he is writing for the Fringe festival.   The series is scheduled for this summer and will be a new and fresh addition to EPL’s Behind the Scenes (BTS) series.   Chan’s series will not only take you behind the scenes of the play but will also give the audience a chance to participate in the development process – they will listen to table readings, provide feedback on the script and attend rehearsals.

For the annual NaNoWriMo challenge next November, Chan will write 50,000 words toward the first draft of a new novel.  The general public will have a chance to watch him in action as he visits a different library branch every day.  He invites budding authors to join in and work on their own novels.

Through the use of social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter, Chan will keep writers and fans abreast of his year.   They will be able to follow his EPL WIR blog and listen to podcasts.  In mid-January, Chan and EPL will host a Meet, Greet and Tweet-up to kick off his residency.

For more information about Chan, please visit www.martychan.com.

Brunch  11 am, Performance 12 pm.

The University of Alberta Faculty of Extension: Winter Term

Registration Deadline December 15, 2010

This course will provide students and practitioners with insights into the role of new media in the practices and processes of writing and experimenting with new narrative formats and platforms. The course will focus on the very nature of narrative and how new media affects story; its creation and dissemination. A key aspect centres on a critical assessment of current developments in new media narrative alongside interpretations, transformations and challenges of traditional concepts and functions of publishing. As such, a main aim of the course is to promote and transform the thinking of narrative in light of new media. An element necessary to this transformative thinking revolves around the developing concept of transliteracy. As noted by Thomas, Joseph, Laccetti et al., transliteracy may be seen as a unifying perspective for literacy today: it is the “ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.”

Brunch 11 am, Performance 12 pm