June 25, 2009

Media contact: Kim Lawrence
604-504-7441 ext. 4611
kim.lawrence@ufv.ca

UFV’s Literary Cafe has Mennonite flavour this year

Just after the University of the Fraser Valley strengthened its ties with one of the major cultures in its community by signing an agreement to develop a Centre of Mennonite Studies, the focus at the annual Literary Cafe will be Mennonite authors.

Andreas Schroeder, Elsie K. Neufeld, and Leonard Neufeldt will read at the Lit Cafe, to be held as part of the Harrison Festival of the Arts on Mon, July 13 at 7:30 pm at the Harrison Memorial Hall. The theme for the evening is Reverence and Mirth, reflecting both a respect for life and the ability to laugh about it.

The Nelson Boschmann Trio will also perform as part of the evening.

The event grew out of good old-fashioned networking between UFV continuing studies director Cheryl Isaac, who has Mennonite roots, and Neufeld.

Neufeld (the K in her Elsie K is to distinguish her from two other locals with the same name) contacted her buddy Andreas Schroeder, who has a long-standing connection to UFV as a continuing studies instructor and honorary doctorate holder. Schroeder’s latest book, Renovating Heaven (Oolican Press, 2008), is a fictionalized account of growing up Mennonite in the Fraser Valley and Vancouver in the 1950s and ’60s. The book was nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize in 2009 BC Book Prize awards and went into second printing as a result.  

 “It is a hilarious and yet also poignantly accurate account of growing up Menno,” notes Neufeld.

Leonard Neufeldt is a poet who lives in Gig Harbour, just outside Seattle, but who was born in Yarrow, BC and went on to teach university in the US and publish poetry on the side.  Since retirement he continues to publish prolifically, in the US and Canada. His most recent book is The Coat is Thin (Cascadia Press, 2008).

“Len was co-editor with me for Half in the Sun: an Anthology of Mennonite Writing and I consider him a friend and mentor. We often exchange writing by email to critique one another,” Neufeld says. “Len's poetry is nature-oriented, and he is very influenced by New England writers.  His poetry is reverent, as some of mine is, so that's where the idea came from for the theme, coupled with the hilarity in Andreas's writing.”

Neufeld is well known locally as an editor and in the field of life-story writing, and is currently editing a 222-page tome by a man who grew up in Yarrow, whose family is the one that Harder Road is named after.

“The evening will be filled with laughter, reverence and great music,” promises Neufeld. “Reverence not meaning religious, but reverence for life and this earth, in particular the land that includes gardening, the ocean, and the west coast. There will also be stories about our past, which has shaped each one of us in very particular ways.”

Tickets for Reverence and Mirth, a Mennonite-flavoured evening at the UFV Literary Cafe at the Harrison Festival o f the Arts, are available online at www.harrisonfestival.com or by phone at: 604-796-3664.

-30-

News Archives

For news published August 2011 and onward, search the UFV Today blog. Older news releases are below.

UFV Today Archives

For UFV Today e-newsletters published August 2011 and earlier, visit the UFV Today archives.