ARTISTS AMONG US

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“A Wedding Song for Poorer People”. (Mixed Messages Press / 2014)

by Karen Petersen
(click any image to enlarge)
You’ve seen him striding around the ‘hood. Hands clasped behind his back, left in right, perhaps chasing le mot juste on down the street. Perhaps working out a thorny knot in his latest work-in-progress, a collection of essays entitled I Wonder, which is, notably, being written on a manual typewriter from his home west of Denman Street.  

Before Alfred (who is an American-born Canadian and refers to himself as a “migrant cultural worker”) fetched up in Vancouver in 2007, he taught English and Liberal Arts at the Maine College of Arts for 20 years. He has also instructed at the Universities of Maine and New Hampshire, the Salt Institute For Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine, in addition to giving journaling workshops at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, also in Maine. Such is his talent in education that he has also taught in England, France, Spain, Estonia and Russia.

Alfred’s very first book, The Melancholy of Departure, won the Flannery O’Connor Award in 1992, which opened the door to a wee bout of writer’s block that he eased by further developing his painterly skills in Taos, New Mexico and through three separate visits to Russia where he took in the art and studied in Moscow, Tallinn, Leningrad and St. Petersburg.

Alfred at Denman Mall’s Lost Lagoon Frames, which carries a selection of books by West End artists, including Nina Shoraplova, Bob Molavi, Kevin Spenst, and Bill Richardson. (Nina and Bill have been featured previously in “Artists Among Us” and the links will take you to their stories.

Alfred’s next book, Wild & Woolly: A Journal Keeper’s Handbook [2004] was also very well-received, and more collections of stories followed in A Wedding Song for Poorer People (2014) and Odalesque in 2018. 

He also had a regular column in the Vancouver Observer between 2009 - 2015 (archives of these columns can be found here.)

He is currently on the faculty of the Center for Right Relationship, where he teaches organization and relationship systems coaching. He is an Organization and Relationship Systems Certified Coach (ORSCC) as well as a Professional Co-Active Coach. (PCC)

Alfred is also well-versed in Evolutionary Astrology, dreamworks, discerning spiritual direction, process facilitating, visionary leadership, and much much more.

Alfred’s books are available online, and better still, at Lost Lagoon Frames in the Denman Mall.

And in case you were wondering, Depew tells us that you too can procure typewriter ribbons from Staples, should you have an old-school hunger to drag out your ancient Remington and giving that memoir another go.

Below is a selection of Alfred’s recent works. Click on images to enlarge.

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