Author, poet, educator, and West Ender Betsy Warland.

BETSY WARLAND
New Book “Lost Lagoon/lost in thought”

“Writing is my teacher,” says West End author, poet, and educator Betsy Warland, whose latest book Lost Lagoon/lost in thought (Caitlin Press / 2020) shares in her trademark lyric prose, Warland’s roving observations in and around Lost Lagoon, offering insights into nature, narratives, and the urban environment.

Betsy has published 12 books of poetry, creative nonfiction, and lyric prose. Among the leading lyric prose writers in Canada, her collection of essays on writing, Breathing the Page—Reading the Act of Writing (2010) became a bestseller. In 2016, Oscar of Between—A Memoir of Identity and Ideas was one of two books that launched Caitlin Press’ new imprint, Dagger Editions, dedicated to books about and by queer women. Reviews of Oscar of Between in the U.S., Germany and Canada called it “a roman a clef,” “truly luminous,” and a “tour de force.”

Betsy’s latest book, meditations on our favourite lagoon.

“I am endlessly challenged and intrigued by writing: my own, the writing of a writer I’m mentoring, or a published work that carries me beyond the edge of the world as I have previously known and understood it” she says.

“I frequently write across genres or in concert/conversation among more than one genre. I have written in all genres except fiction. In Oscar of Between, I write from the narrative position of person of between, which is another way to write into the interface between blank space and inscribed or written space. In other words, the book is both writing and the act of writing.”

In 2016 Betsy received the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Literature and in 2017 she was the Lyric Prose and Poetry Mentor for The Writer’s Studio at S.F.U.

A professional creative writing teacher and manuscript consultant and editor for the past 30 years, throughout her career Betsy has been dedicated to supporting emerging writers. In 1975, she initiated the Toronto Women’s Writing Collective which produced numerous literary events and publications. She also initiated and co-coordinated the Women and Words—les femmes et le mots conference (Vancouver 1983), that brought together one thousand women from across Canada involved in all aspects of contemporary literature.

Betsy designed and directed The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University from 2001-2012. where she initiated the annual two-day DTES Writers’ Jamboree at Carnegie Centre (2008-2012) which spawned the ongoing and highly successful Thursdays Writing Collective (Carnegie Centre) lead by TWS alumni Elee Krajlii Gardiner. In 2004, she co-founded the cross-Canada Creative Writers Nonfiction Collective and in 2007 she founded and continues to mentor in the six-month Vancouver Manuscript Intensive program.

You can purchase Lost Lagoon and view her April 2020 online book launch here, and learn more about your talented and accomplished West End neighbour at her website here.