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Black Bear Review launch party showcases diverse Kootenay talent

The new issue launches virtually April 22
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First-year Selkirk College student Terra-Mae Box is one of many talented writers who will read their work at the Black Bear Review’s annual (virtual) launch on April 22. Photo: Submitted

Submitted by Selkirk College

The West Kootenay’s only literary magazine, Black Bear Review, is celebrating five years of brilliant creativity with the launch of its spring print edition.

Recently published authors from the fresh edition of the magazine will celebrate by reading selections of their work via Zoom on Thursday, April 22. Featured writers joining the 7 p.m. event include Bella Schacher, Terra-Mae Box, Alan Ross, Bre Harwood, Ariel Stuart and local novelist Anne DeGrace. The evening will also offer opportunities for interactive poetry and a chance to connect with other creative individuals from the West Kootenay and beyond.

“This year’s print publication really goes deep into the mission of the magazine, which is to showcase unexpected literature from the West Kootenay and beyond,” says this year’s managing editor, Carina Costom.

Started as an initiative to give Selkirk College students experience as writers, publishers, editors and designers, the magazine now serves as an important cultural hub, publishing fiction, non-fiction, poetry, art and comics in addition to supporting a new arts and culture podcast called This Black Bear Has 28 Minutes.

The magazine received numerous submissions from Selkirk College students and community writers for its most recent edition. Contributors came from as far as the Shuswap, and in one case a professional ballet dancer in Amsterdam who is Selkirk College alumni. The content published in this year’s issue ranges widely in topic from poetic meditations on this pandemic year, an insider’s look into life in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side, agendered asexuality, a murder in Nakusp by a disgruntled writing group, and an organ farming fairy’s courtroom defence.

The April 22 launch party is free and open to the general public. For more information and to obtain the event’s Zoom link, go to www.blackbearreview.ca. For questions about the magazine or distribution, email Leesa Dean at ldean@selkirk.ca.

Magazines are available for sale through Selkirk College’s online bookstore (https://selkirk.bookware3000.ca/) and will arrive in bookstores across the West Kootenay by the end of April.