Sad Mag sits down with the founder and master of literary “Realness”, Sean Cranbury, about their five year anniversary party this Saturday.

 

SAD Mag: First of all, congrats on turning 5! We are co-toddlers in this city, also turning 5 this year. Can you tell me a bit about where you were in 2009 and how Real Vancouver started? There are rumors that Real Vancouver was born in a burning building. Is that true?

 

Sean Cranbury: Thank you for the kind words. In 2009 I was beginning to build projects like Real Vancouver Writers’ Series via my main project Books on the Radio, a radio show, blog, and literary project incubator.

 

That year (2009) I had created BOTR, helped to plan the first Bookcamp Vancouver Unconference, created the Advent Book Blog, and I also started writing and speaking publicly on things like digital file-sharing, piracy. It was a creative time and I had a certain amount of momentum.
In early 2010, with the Olympics on the doorstep, I helped to create the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series as a response to the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad’s decision to ignore our city’s incredible and world-class literary community with their programming during the games.

 

The original Olympics Editions of the RVWS were held in the Perel Gallery in the W2 Culture and Media House at 112 West Hastings Street. The building was the site for an installation by Quebec artist Isabel Hayeur. The piece was called Fire with Fire and it consisted of a digital projection of flames looping across the windows of the building’s top three floors.

It’s a powerful image and one that reflects the circumstances of our origin.

 

SM: Give us a snapshot of where you are now:

 

SC: Real Vancouver is growing but still very much a grassroots, volunteer-based literary reading series. We are now a non-profit society with a Board of Directors that we’re very proud of and who will help to steer the series into the future.
We’re still putting on events with the best writers in the city and we’re still collaborating with the likes of Project Space, Verses Festival of Words, Geist, SAD Mag, and others.

We’re still learning but we’re getting there.

 

SM: And what’s on your hit list for the next 5 years?

 

SC: We’re looking at doing unique events and collaborations that draw in other art forms and interesting, perhaps unexpected, venues. We’ll stay true to our roots by supporting emerging writers and more contemporary voices from across genres, schools, and sensibilities, and mixing poetry with non-fiction, fiction, memoir, spoken word, short stories, whatever people who are talented with the language are producing.

We’re going to get better and we’re going to try new things and we’re going to try to change people’s perceptions of what a literary reading can be.

 

SM: Tell us what we can expect by attending the 5 year anniversary party this Saturday at 434 Columbia.

 

SC: Good times! You’re going to be in a room full of good music, great writing, and even better people. We’ve got lots of prizes and gifts to give away. We’ve got a special occasion license and we’ll be selling beer and wine. And books. But even those things are beside the point.

We’re going to have a warm room full of great and talented people.

You’ll hear some of the best contemporary writing in the city and country and you’ll get to meet great new friends. It’s going to be an amazing night.

 

SM: All of your authors at these events are outstanding, but is there one particular reading you are extra excited about?

 

SC: I’m more interested in the chemistry that we can create on the stage and in the room by curating the placement of the writers throughout the night. Any time you can put put Chris Walter on same stage as Jennica Harper and Jen Sookfong Lee you’ve got yourself an interesting mixture. Sun Belt is a very interesting project and I’m curious to see what they do. I know that Daniel and Dina have something weird and probably ridiculous planned. The roster is stacked. I can’t wait.

 

SM: In your opinion, what is the single most important thing someone can do to help the literary scene in vancouver become the pinnacle of awesome?

 

SC: Come out to one of our events, or to any of the other amazing literary events that are currently being put on in Vancouver, and meet writers. Talk to them, listen to them reader their work, buy their books, take them home with you – the writers and the books, I mean.

We want to reduce the distance between the writer and the fan. We want to create a new kind of intimacy in the world of literature and books. Books and writing are very sexy things and we want people to understand and explore that perspective.

Read the books, share them with your friends, get to know the writers. Put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Get involved. Treat it like it matters.

 

SM: What do you do when you’re not working on Real Vancouver?
I work on my radio show, Books on the Radio, and my podcast, The Interruption, which is a collaboration with 49th Shelf. I also freelance as a communications consultant and I advise arts organizations on technology, social media, and stuff like that.

I am also the General Manager of the Storm Crow Tavern where I work with the greatest team in the city.

 

THE DEETS

Hosted by Dina Del Bucchia and Sean Cranbury.
Doors at 7PM. Saturday February 28th.
434 Columbia Street, Chinatown.

$5+ donation PWYC. All funds raised go to paying the writers and supporting future RVWS events. 

SRSLY, LOOK AT THIS LINE-UP AND RSVP

Carleigh Baker – indefatigable bookseller, canoeist, confidante of Carrie Brownstein, crafter of memoir.
Jennica Harper – poet, RVWS alumni from the original Olympics Editions, pure sunshine.
Jen Sookfong Lee – novelist, broadcaster, RVWS alumni from the original Olympics Editions, haunter of hospitality suites.
Amber McMillan – poet, islander, friend of many Easterners, our friend, too.
Rachel Rose – Poet Laureate of Vancouver, award-winning poet, essayist, fictionist, literary sh*t disturber.
Sun Belt – experimental literary multi-media project.
Chris Walter – the O.G. of independent authors. Been doing it since before you even thought of it. He wrote East Van, Beer, and I was a Punk Before You Were a Punk. Self-published under GFY Press. RVWS Alumni from the original Olympics Editions.
Daniel Zomparelli – yes, that Daniel Zomparelli. Honcho of Poetry Is Dead Magazine, author of Davie Street Translations. Serial collaborator. RVWS Alumni.