Memory, imagination, and the pull of place converge in this reading featuring Aaron Cully Drake, Dennis E. Bolen, and Heather Ramsay.
Moving through landscapes both physical and emotional, these writers explore longing, transformation, wilderness, and the quiet strangeness of everyday life.
Their work is lyrical, haunting, and deeply attentive to how memory and imagination can shift the way we see the world, opening onto unexpected forms of meaning and connection.
Location: Room C440 UBC Robson Square
Type: Fiction, Reading
Moderator: Leanne Boschman
Readers: Aaron Cully Drake, When the World Was Twice as Big (Nightwood Editions) | Dennis E. Bolen, Amaranthine Chevrolet (Dundurn Press) | Heather Ramsay, A Room in the Forest (Caitlin Press)
About The Moderator
Leanne Boschman
Leanne Boschman is a poet living, working, and writing on the traditional, unceded lands of the Cowichan Tribes and Malahat Nation. Her poetry has been long-listed for the CBC Poetry Prize and the ReLit Award. Her poems have been awarded the 2022 Delta Literary Arts Society Poetry contest and Pulp Literature’s 2023 Kingfisher Poetry Contest. She is the author of two collections of poetry. Her chapbook Household Dangers was published by JackPine Press in Fall 2025. Boschman earned her PhD in Languages, Cultures, and Literacies at SFU and works in the SOAR Program on the Malahat First Nation.
About The Readers
Aaron Cully Drake
Aaron Cully Drake's first novel, Do You Think This Is Strange was shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and long-listed for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal For Humour. Drake is a former newspaper and editor. He lives in Coquitlam with his wife, two children and a mortgage.
Dennis E Bolenwords
Dennis E. Bolen has published six novels, two books of short fiction and a poetry collection. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and was fiction editor at sub-TERRAIN for ten years. At times he has been part-time editorial writer for The Vancouver Sun, university writing instructor, literary reviewer for the Georgia Straight, and a freelance critic for numerous publications. His latest novel is Amaranthine Chevrolet, released by Dundurn Press in May 2025, wherein his writing has been described thusly: ‘paired-down syntax, like a poem by ee cummings straightened out, with clipped dialogue from Cormac McCarthy.’
Heather Ramsay
Heather Ramsay writes some things that are true and some that are not. Her fiction, non-fiction and poetry have appeared in The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, carte blanche, The Antigonish Review, Canadian Geographic and more. She grew up in Calgary and learned virtually nothing about Treaty 7 or her neighbours, the Tsuutʼina, back then and has a long way to go in that regard. Since moving to BC, she has become heavily influenced by place, especially Haida Gwaii where she lived for 10 years. While there, she worked as a reporter for the local newspaper and collaborated on two books at the Haida Gwaii Museum: Gina ’Waadluxan Tluu: The Everything Canoe and gyaaGang.ngaay - The Monumental Poles of Skidegate. Her debut novel, A Room in the Forest, is set on these islands of the people. writes some things that are true and some that are not. Her fiction, non-fiction and poetry have appeared in The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, carte blanche, The Antigonish Review, Canadian Geographic and more. She grew up in Calgary and learned virtually nothing about Treaty 7 or her neighbours, the Tsuutʼina, back then and has a long way to go in that regard. Since moving to BC, she has become heavily influenced by place, especially Haida Gwaii where she lived for 10 years. While there, she worked as a reporter for the local newspaper and collaborated on two books at the Haida Gwaii Museum: Gina ’Waadluxan Tluu: The Everything Canoe and gyaaGang.ngaay - The Monumental Poles of Skidegate. Her debut novel, A Room in the Forest, is set on these islands of the people.
