You are invited to the 5th and the final event of the first session of Word Arts LIVE! at Alexandra Neighborhood House. Our features include Author Deborah Stacey, Poet Heidi Greco, Performer Celeste Snowber, Open Mic Openers Celina Strachan & Shonna Morgan, with Host Virginia Gillespie.
Deborah Stacey
Deborah is a writer, editor, educator, and the creator of Horse Lover’s Math. Her essays and articles have appeared in various publications including the Vancouver Sun, and one of her short stories received an honorable mention in the Writer’s Digest Magazine writing competition. Deborah graduated with an Honors Degree in Horsemanship from Humber College in Toronto in the mid-seventies. Her two children were born in the early 80’s, and living in Ottawa at that time, she joined Mothers Are Women (MAW), a feminist group of women at home. Starting out contributing articles to their quarterly magazine Homebase, she went on to become editor until she and her family moved to BC in 1992. Here, she took several writing courses and joined a local writers group. Her ongoing work, Horse Lover’s Math, is a website with over 350 posts and a Math Club with members from Alaska to Australia, and it offers downloadable math worksheets and a 175 page Level 1 math workbook while a workbook for Level 2 is coming soon.
horseloversmath
Heidi Greco
Heidi writes in many genres – poetry, fiction, essays, reviews and blog posts. She has just published Flightpaths: The Lost Journals of Amelia Earhart (Caitlin Press, 2017), an extended poem, expanding on the work begun earlier. The book is a collection of journal entries, poems, letters and other bits and pieces, addressing the question, What became of Amelia Earhart? Heidi’s other titles include Rattlesnake Plantain (poetry), published by Anvil Press in 2002; Shrinking Violets (novella), winner of the Ken Klonsky Award, published by Toronto’s Quattro Books in 2011; several chapbooks including A: The Amelia Poems, published by Lipstick Press (Gabriola Island) in 2009. Heidi also works as an instructor, leading workshops on a range of topics from exploring creativity to making chapbooks. A long-time resident of Surrey, she’s an arts activist who has contributed to several projects in the city – helping to establish two literary reading series and working to convince the City of Surrey to hire a Poet Laureate.
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Celeste Snowber 
Celeste, PhD is a dancer, poet, writer and educator who is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. Among her books, are Embodied Prayer, Embodied Inquiry: Writing, living and being through the body and a collection of poetry, Wild Tourist. Celeste loves connecting dance, improv, comedy and spoken word as well as doing site-specific performance. She is presently the Artist in Residence in the UBC Botanical garden creating and performing poetry and dance out of each season. (Photo by Michele Mateus)
celestesnowber
Celina Strachan
Celina is a singer and an actor who has performed with VG Playroom’s devised theatre and was a part of the cast for the curated reading of Virgina Gillespie’s short play Hoarder. As a member of Voices Wild, Celina explores and co-creates vocal soundscapes, and she is a Soprano Singer with Soul of the World Community Choir. She also facilitates a women’s group, and she supports and participates in several projects that bring people together. Last year, she performed in several Student Showcases with the Drama Class in White Rock, and she continues to fulfill her creativity through Improv acting. At this time, among other things, Celina is developing a stage performance with Shonna Morgan.
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Shonna Morgan 
Supporting her 5 children in the performance world for years, Shonna began to follow their lead a year ago, at first intrigued by the fun of theatre games. This interest quickly led to live stage showcases at The Drama Club, and a handful of independent and student film roles in the Vancouver film community. Shonna also volunteers with the RCMP, the Vancouver Sun Run, her Strata Council, and she helps organize homeschool conferences. At this time, Shonna is developing another stage performance with Celina Strachan.
shonnalee@gmail.com
Virginia Gillespie
Virginia is a writer, arts advocate and the Artistic Director of VG PlayRoom, a multi-disciplinary arts incubator with a Word Studio to develop projects and events in the Verbal Arts. She is a co-founder, co-organizer and the host of Word Arts LIVE! series.
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Word-Arts LIVE!
Sunday June 25, 2017
4-6 pm, Media Room
Upstairs The Lodge
Alexandra Neighborhood House
2916 McBride Avenue, Surrey BC
Series co-founded and co-organized by Fauzia Rafique
Word-Arts LIVE! is a collaboration between Surrey Muse At Large (SMAL) and VG PlayRoom. We are grateful to the City of Surrey for the 2017 Cultural Project Grant for Word-Arts events, forums and training. Alexandra Neighbourhood House is home base and a strong supporter.
Surrey Muse At Large (SMAL) is a project of Surrey Muse.
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Surrey Muse At Large (SMAL) 