Welcome to My Renaissance is an artist-in-residency featuring Calgary playwright Eugene Stickland and friends.
B House and the future and recent past of publishing in this day and age.
Guests: Kirk Miles, Neil Flemming, Tyler Perry, Derek Beaulieu and others
In 2009 we started B House Publications, with an eye on publishing primarily plays and poetry that otherwise might be forgotten. That was 15 years ago. More recently, I partnered with a theatre company to publish a play they had commissioned and produced the premier production. Whatever happened to B House and what does the future of publishing look like today? Are books necessary any longer? Are they important aspects of the writing process or merely quaint artifacts, reminders of a bygone age, an age most of us actually lived in and were certainly shaped by.
An informal discussion open to anyone interested in writing, in publishing, or in creating books and preserving a part of our local culture.
Afterwards, we will adjourn to the Ship and Anchor Pub on 17th and join the Drunken Poets Society for some poems and beer and continued convivial conversation.
About Eugene Stickland
Born and educated in Regina, after completing an MFA in Theatre at Toronto’s York University, Eugene arrived in Calgary in 1994 and began a ten year residency at Alberta Theatre Projects. During this time he wrote and saw produced ten plays — 6 for ATP, 3 for Lunchbox Theatre and 1 for Theatre Network in Edmonton. In total, he has written 19 plays that have been produced in Calgary, Edmonton or Toronto and then throughout the world, from London to Istanbul. Following the residency at ATP, Eugene wrote a feature weekly column for the Calgary Herald for 6 years, a total of approximately 250,000 published words. In 2015 Eugene published his only novel (to date), The Piano Teacher, recipient of the W.O. Mitchell Award. Plans are being made to make a movie of the Piano Teacher, with Eugene writing the screenplay. Eugene currently has several projects underway which he is excited to share over the course of his cSPACE Eau Claire residency. He lives in the Beltline area of Calgary with his wife Belina.
