Award-winning poet will read from her latest collection Kissing Keeps Us Afloat
What: Poetry reading
Who: Laurie MacFayden reads from her second book of poetry Kissing Keeps Us Afloat
When: Friday, Aug. 22, 7 p.m.
Where: Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre, 969 Raymer Road, Kelowna, BC
Award-winning Edmonton poet and visual artist Laurie MacFayden will bring the summer evening alive when she reads from her second book of poetry Kissing Keeps Us Afloat.
The event, free and open to the public, is part of a busy lineup of activities at UBC’s Eco Culture Centre at Woodhaven Nature Conservancy. Kissing Keeps Us Afloat is a series of love poems that encapsulates the joys of summer love. From joyous red lipstick to night swimming, first love to last rites, Kissing Keeps Us Afloat is awash in the things that buoy us and the things that nearly destroy us.
MacFayden is a painter, poet and photographer who spent more than 30 years as a sports journalist and continues to work as a copy and web editor at the Edmonton Journal.
Accompanying MacFayden at the event is musical guest Karen Donaldson Shepherd. The singer-songwriter plays fiddle, guitar, and the gayageum—a traditional Korean stringed instrument. With her group, The Crow Girls, she received a 2008 Native American Music Award for “Best Folk Recording” and the 2007 Canadian Folk Music Awards nominated her for “Best Aboriginal Songwriter.” She has performed in the FINA Gallery, at the Woodhaven Summer Solstice concert with Herald Nix, and for UBC Okanagan’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission tree-planting ceremony.
MacFayden and Donaldson Shepherd perform Friday, August 22 at 7 p.m. at the Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre located at Raymer Road in Kelowna. Woodhaven is located in a 3.5-hectare wildland corridor along Bellevue Creek.
An agreement with the Regional District of the Central Okanagan allows UBC Okanagan’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies to manage a heritage home on the property, which has become the venue for small retreats, art projects, events, and performances.
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