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The performance artist and choreographer Ralph Escamillan discusses NEXT: New Dance in Development, a virtual showcase this Wednesday, 15 December 2021, with Joseph Planta.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

This Wednesday, 15 December 2021, DanceHouse and 149 Arts Society will be presenting NEXT: New Dance in Development. It’ll be presented virtually, and tickets are free and can be viewed across Canada. It’ll be 4.00pm here in Vancouver (7.00pm Eastern etc). It’ll be a 75-minute program and will feature emerging creatives including Ralph Escamillan, who joins me now. I’ll ask Ralph about what to expect Wednesday, as well what’s happening with works in the spring and fall of 2022 and beyond. NEXT is made possible with support from the National Arts Centre, and Canadian Heritage. The other artists on the program include All Bodies Dance Project, Shion Skye Carter, and Zahara Shahab. Visit www.dancehouse.ca on how to reserve free tickets and for more information. I’ll also ask Ralph about dance, and his work thus far. He is a queer, Canadian-Filipinx performance artist, choreographer, and teacher. He has worked and toured for Vancouver companies: Company 605, Co. Erasfa Dance, Kinesis Dance Somatheatro, Out Innerspace Theatre, and apprenticed with Kidd Pivot. He is on contract with Wen Wei Dance, Mascall Dance, and was recently a guest dancer with Ballet BC. Visit www.ralphescamillan.com for more information. We recorded this two weeks ago. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Ralph Escamillan; Mr. Escamillan, good morning.

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The writer and poet Renée Sarojini Saklikar discusses her new book Bramah and the Beggar Boy (Nightwood Editions, 2021), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Bramah and the Beggar Boy

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Renée Sarojini Saklikar joins me again. She recently published a new book, the first in an epic fantasy series in verse, Bramah and the Beggar Boy. The series is called THOT J BAP, The Heart of This Journey Bears All Patterns. Its story is told in traditional poetry forms, such as blank verse and the sonnet, combined with news reportage and the science of climate change. I’ll get Ms. Saklikar to tell us about this book, the central characters therein, especially Bramah, a locksmith who is brown, and supported by her Grandmother, and the Four Aunties of the Wishing Well. I’ll ask Renée about why her main characters are female, as well we’ll talk about the various themes that are touched upon in the book. For example, the Aunties foretell the future and teach survival skills, such as saving seeds, and making soap. These are skills necessary in a world battling contagion and eco-catastrophes that are around the characters in the book in the future, not to mention very near future. The book also touches on climate activism, gender and race politics, all timely subjects. I’ll talk to Renée about reading dystopian fiction in a time where a lot of it is around us. Renée Sarojini Saklikar is a poet and lawyer. Her first book children of air india, a book of poetry on the bombing of Air India Flight 182 was critically acclaimed. Her poetry and essay collection with Dr. Mark Winston, Listening to the Bees, was also a critical success. She is an instructor for SFU and VCC, and was the first poet laurate of the City of Surrey (2015-2018). Visit https://thecanadaproject.wordpress.com/ for more. This new book is published by Nightwood Editions. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Renée Sarojini Saklikar; Ms. Saklikar, good morning.

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The actor and artistic director of Mitch and Murray Productions Aaron Craven discusses their latest production, one he’ll be appearing in, Snowflake by Mike Bartlett, running 10-23 December 2021 at the Red Gate Revue Stage on Granville Island, with Joseph Planta.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Starting this Friday at the Red Gate Revue Stage on Granville Island is the latest production from Mitch and Murray Productions, the Canadian premiere of Snowflake. By the Olivier Award-winning playwright Mike Barlett, the play is a story about generational conflict, fathers and daughters, and the politics of today. Bartlett by the way, among his other works, wrote the British television miniseries Press, and the play King Charles III, which was also adapted for television. Aaron Craven, one of the stars of the production, joins me now to talk about the show, that also stars Natasha Burnett, and Anni Ramsay. I’ll ask him about the show, and about playing the role of the father and the exploration of that relationship that fathers have with daughters. Aaron is also the Artistic Director of Mitch and Murray, and I’ll ask him about Acting Atypical, a workshop they run for teens and adults on the autism spectrum, as well as the company’s Young Actors Scholarship. I’ll also ask him about what it’s like to be back. We taped this interview last month, just as the company was starting rehearsals, so I’ll get him to reflect on the experience of theatre in a pandemic too. This production is directed by Jennifer Copping, and will run until 23 December 2021. Visit www.mitchandmurrayproductions.com for tickets. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Aaron Craven; Mr. Craven, good morning.

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The writer and historian Aaron Chapman discusses his new book Vancouver Vice: Crime and Spectacle in the City’s West End (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2021), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Vancouver Vice

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Aaron Chapman joins me again. The bestselling and award-winning author has a new book out, Vancouver Vice: Crime and Spectacle in the City’s West End. It’s a lively, fascinating, and fast-paced look at a time and place in Vancouver that was volatile as the city and the world around it was changing rather dramatically. Aaron opens his book with the discovery of a body in Stanley Park near Lost Lagoon. It’s May 1984, and from there, he paints a colourful tale taking the reader back to the past and forward, to a changed Vancouver. By the early 1970s, the West End was home to a gay population, as well as sex workers. Comparisons to the Greenwich Village in New York or Castro Street in San Francisco were not only apt but sought. There was a lively music and club scene, and as some of the people Aaron talks to like Pamela Post or Doug Sarti, who both grew up in the area, it wasn’t as menacing as the media of the day might have portrayed it. But with the sex trade flourishing and a turf war between some residents, it invited the ire of the politicians and moralists, what with crime increasing. The book does a good job of telling the social, political and cultural history of this place and time, as well as offer a hell of a good crime story. Yes, there’s murder, deaths, and the sort of crimes that a city’s vice squad would pay attention to. Aaron Chapman is a writer, historian, and musician. He is the author of Vancouver After Dark: The Wild History of a City’s Nightlife, winner of the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award in 2020; The Last Gang in Town, the story of Vancouver’s Clark Park Gang; Liquor, Lust, and the Law, the story of Vancouver’s Penthouse Nightclub; and Live at the Commodore, a history of the Commodore Ballroom that also won a BC Book Prize in 2015. The book will be launched at the Penthouse, Thursday evening, 09 December 2021. Keep up-to-date on Twitter; his handle is @TheAaronChapman. This new book is published by Arsenal Pulp Press. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Aaron Chapman; Mr. Chapman, good morning.

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The author Judith McCormack discusses her new novel The Singing Forest (Biblioasis, 2021), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Singing Forest

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

A new novel, that I’ve started and finding it hard to put down is The Singing Forest. It’s author Judith McCormack joins me now and I’ll ask her about her book, and how she wrote it and why. In the book we’re taken to Belarus, where in a forest is the long-kept secret of the mass grave where Stalin’s police murdered thousands in the 1930s. In Canada, in the present, a young lawyer named Leah Jarvis is tasked with the deportation of an elderly man, Stefan Drozd, who fled to Canada many years earlier to take on a new identity. Leah has to travel to Belarus seeking hard facts, asking complex questions. The ideas of justice, vengeance, and motive are contended with, and it’s fascinating to think about as the time has passed from the crimes themselves. Heritage, inheritance, and memory are also investigated in the book that is quite engaging. Judith McCormack’s writing has been shortlisted for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Fiction Prize, the Journey Prize, and the Amazon First Novel Award. Her short stories have appeared in the Harvard Review, Descant, and The Fiddlehead, among other publications. She has several law degrees, and is the recipient of the Law Society Medal, and the Guthrie Award for access to justice. Visit www.judithmccormack.com for more. This new book is published by Biblioasis. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Judith McCormack; Ms. McCormack, good morning.

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The political columnist and author Geoffrey Stevens discusses the book he co-wrote with the late Flora MacDonald, Flora! A Woman in a Man’s World (McGill-University Press, 2021), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Flora!

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

An important Canadian life is given a new look with the release of a memoir, Flora! A Woman in a Man’s World. Written by Flora MacDonald and Geoffrey Stevens, the book looks at the life and times of a trailblazing politician, humanitarian, and adventurer. MacDonald, who died at the age of 89 in 2015, had completed part of the manuscript with Mr. Stevens, who joins me now. It was up to Geoff to finish it, and he has done so in a most thoughtful, elegant way, not losing MacDonald’s voice in the process, capturing her voice through various sources and material. The book looks at MacDonald’s remarkable life from her childhood in Cape Breton, to her early adventurous travels in Europe and through North America, to her years in the backroom of the Progressive Conservative Party. She talks candidly about John Diefenbaker, who was the leader of the party at the time, and how he subsequently had her fired. We follow MacDonald as she’s elected a Member of Parliament in 1972, through her fabled run for the Tory party’s leadership in 1976, and her appointment as the first female minister of External Affairs in 1979 as part of the short-lived Joe Clark government. We see the male chauvinism and sexism that MacDonald encounters, as well as a different kind of politics then as now. And we are reminded in the book of MacDonald’s remarkable role in two files that dominate her time as foreign affairs minister, the bringing in of the 60,000 Vietnamese refugees to Canada, the so-called Boat People; and the Canadian Caper, where six American hostages were rescued in Tehran, dramatised elsewhere, like in the film Argo. Afghanistan also plays a big part in MacDonald’s life. It’s a country that fascinated her, and that she travelled to many times in her post-political career as a tireless advocate for women’s rights. Geoffrey Stevens is a political columnist, former managing editor of the Globe and Mail, and Maclean’s. He is the author of Stanfield, a biography of Robert Stanfield, as well as The Player: The Life and Times of Dalton Camp. He also co-wrote books with John Crosbie, and John Laschinger, including Leaders and Lesser Morals. This new book is published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Geoffrey Stevens; Mr. Stevens, good morning.

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The famed editorial cartoonist Adrian Raeside discusses his new collection The World According to Dogs: An Owner’s Manual (Harbour Publishing, 2021), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The World According to Dogs

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Adrian Raeside joins me again. He’s got a new book out, already a bestseller, The World According to Dogs: An Owner’s Manual. Adrian gets into the minds of dogs and shows the reader what they’re thinking about, what they think we do that’s dumb, and what they really want. It’s an often entertaining, funny, and charming book. Raeside depicts dogs at their cutest and at their most destructive, at their most playful and their messiest, and that can be all at the same time. It’s always a delight to look at Raeside’s work, and when he’s got dogs at the other end of his pen, it’s especially amusing. I’m not a dog person, never was and don’t think I’ll ever be, but it’s always fun to have a Raeside collection in one’s hands and try to understand these canine’s just a little bit better. Adrian Raeside’s popular The Other Coast comic strip appears in over 200 newspapers. He’s been an editorial cartoonist for over four decades, and is the author of over twenty books. They include 2012’s No Sailing Waits and Other Ferry Fails: 30 Years of BC Ferries Cartoons, The Best of Adrian Raeside (from 2014), and Tails Don’t Lie from 2013, and Tails Don’t Lie 2 (which was published in 2017), books he was kind enough to appear on this program with when they were each released. Visit www.raesidecartoon.com for more. This new book is published by Harbour. He joined me from his home on Vancouver Island, eleven days ago. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Adrian Raeside; Mr. Raeside, good morning.

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The recording artist and professor Mike Errico discusses his new book Music, Lyrics, and Life: A Field Guide for the Advancing Songwriter (Backbeat Books, 2021), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Music, Lyrics, and Life

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

The book is called Music, Lyrics, and Life: A Field Guide for the Advancing Songwriter, but it’s not just for songwriters. The book is a highly readable, engaging, often amusing book about what it’s like to write songs; and music lovers too will glean something useful from this book. Mike Errico, the book’s author joins me now. He looks at what makes music sound the way it does, by breaking down the habits that all good, prolific, and keen songwriters have. He looks at what makes the songs we like as enjoyable as they are, and his advice to writers, like journaling always, make for good advice for life itself. Mike Errico is a recording artist, writer, and lecturing professor. He has composed for film and television, and released critically acclaimed work, as well toured internationally. His writing has appeared in publications like the New York Times, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal, among other outlets. He teaches songwriting at universities including Yale, Wesleyan, and NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. His Twitter handle is @mikeerrico, and his website is at www.errico.com. This new book is published by Backbeat Books, which is an imprint of Globe Pequot. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Mike Errico; Mr. Errico, good morning.

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The writer and educator, creator of Love Lettering Project, Lindsay Zier-Vogel discusses her debut novel Letters to Amelia (Book*hug Press, 2021), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Letters to Amelia

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Another terrific debut this season is the novel from Lindsay Zier-Vogel. Letters to Amelia at once evokes the myth and mystery of Amelia Earhart, the famed pilot who disappeared in 1937, as well as illustrates the connection that can be had through letter writing. In the book, there are letters that are written by Earhart to a lover, and it is the task of the novel’s central character, Grace Porter, to catalogue them for the research library that she works at. Grace finds a connection with the letters. I’ll get Lindsay to tell us about Grace, what Grace is going through, and how she views Earhart, which naturally has ramifications on her own life. I’ve just started the book and it’s fascinating and absorbing. Lindsay Zier-Vogel is a writer, arts educator, and the creator of the Love Lettering Project. Visit www.lindsayziervogel.com for more. The book is published by Book*hug Press. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Lindsay Zier-Vogel; Ms. Zier-Vogel, good morning.

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The Chartered Financial Analyst Greg Tomkins discusses his new book Simple Money: Turn Your Dreams Into Reality (2021), with Joseph Planta.

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Simple Money

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

The pandemic has gotten a lot of people reassessing their priorities, taking stock of the situation, like their finances, and seeing what can be done to improve their current lot. The book Simple Money: Turn Your Dreams Into Reality has recently been released, and its author Greg Tomkins joins me now to tell us about what he’s observed as a financial analyst and advisor. The book offers examples from his work as a partner at Tomkins Financial, a wealth management firm in Nanaimo, British Columbia. He provides anecdotes about clients who’ve made good and bad decisions, informing the reader of their own options. A lot has to do with emotions and Greg examines one’s behaviour in making decisions. Whether we understand how stocks or mutual funds work, we’ll get a better sense of whether they’re worth investing in. We talk a lot in this part of the world about real estate, so it’ll be interesting to get his take on whether it’s a good place to invest in. And can one invest even if they carry debt. Visit www.simplemoneycanada.com for more information. Greg Tomkins received a degree in Business Administration from Vancouver Island University, and he studied finance at Deakin University in Australia. He earned the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 2016. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Greg Tomkins; Mr. Tomkins, good morning.

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