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Black Bear Review launches annual print magazine

Launch party will take place at Booksmyth Used Books on April 7
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Some of this year’s writers and editors with the 2022 Black Bear Review print edition, L-R, Shanna Wilson, Katie Dyck, Oshi Spring, Leesa Dean, Terra-Mae Box, Kody Brunner, and Blaze Cloutier. Photo: Submitted

Submitted by the Black Bear Review

The West Kootenay’s only literary magazine, the Black Bear Review, will be celebrating its sixth annual print magazine with a launch party on Thursday, April 7th, starting at 7:00 p.m. at Booksmyth Used Books in Nelson.

Recently published authors from the new edition will read selections of their work at the event and copies of the magazine will be available for sale for $10 each. All proceeds earned will be put towards future print costs.

“It’s been a long few pandemic years,” says this year’s managing editor, Terra-Mae Box. “This highly anticipated in-person event offers an opportunity for writers and creative collaborators to get together and celebrate the written word.”

The evening’s featured readers are Oshi Spring, John Huizinga, Leannah Fidler, Gwen Higgins, Katie Dyck, Lizzy Whitehouse and Shanna Wilson.

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

This year, the magazine received numerous submissions from Selkirk College students and West Kootenay writers. Contributors came from as close as Selkirk College student housing to as far away as Washington and Ontario. The content published in this year’s issue ranges widely in topic from ecopoetry, gritty poems that reflect the secrets among us, nonfiction about conserving wild horses in the Chilcotin and immigrating to Canada from Lebanon, and fictional tales grounded in complex characters.

Admission to the April 7 launch party is by donation. For questions about the magazine or distribution, email Leesa Dean at ldean@selkirk.ca or go to www.blackbearreview.ca.

For those who cannot attend the launch party and want a copy of this year’s magazine, they will be available for sale through Selkirk College’s online bookstore and in select bookstores in Nelson and Castlegar by the end of April.