About This Event:

Neworld Theatre and Unbound Reading Series present the Unbound Summer Open Mic, a literary and community event that celebrates Black creative writers, hosted by Harrison Mooney and featuring readings from emerging and published BIPOC writers, and a special featured guest reader: Jillian Christmas!

In association with Room magazine, Wildfires Bookshop, and Rise Up Marketplace, the summer open mic will include curated books for sale, and delicious treats available for purchase.

Open mic sign-ups FAQ:

Who can sign up?

BIPOC writers, emerging or published, we want to hear your words.

Do I have to be a spoken word/poetry performer?

No. We'd also love to hear readings from fiction writers and non-fiction pieces.

Where can I sign up?

https://forms.gle/MNQUupfszvTTQMYW8

Open Mic Rules and Community Guidelines:

You have 5 minutes to read.
Your work does not need to be perfect or memorised or finished or literary or ‘slam’ enough or anything at all. You can read edited, published work, or the thing you just wrote on your phone. This is a space to share our words and support each other.
Consider giving trigger warnings if your piece contains graphic subject matter that could disturb listeners.

This event is Pay What You Can (by donation).

If you have the means to donate, please select one of the “Admission by Donation” options. Your donation will go towards sustaining the Unbound Reading Series and future events. If you’re unable to donate anything for your admission, that’s okay! Please select the “Free Admission” ticket option.

Venue Details:

Address: Progress Lab, 1422 William St, East Vancouver, BC, V5L-2P7

Neworld is grateful to operate on the traditional and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Accessibility Practices:

visual story for the venue available upon request
audiences will be free to move, make noise, leave, and return during the show
separate quiet space is available
flexible & wheelchair accessible seating
gender neutral & wheelchair-accessible washrooms
COVID-19 safety practices (exact practices to be confirmed)

Host

Harrison Mooney is a best-selling memoirist and award-winning journalist from the Fraser Valley. His debut memoir, Invisible Boy, was the winner of the 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for nonfiction, and shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award and the Hurston Wright Legacy Award in memoir nonfiction. Harrison's work has appeared in the Vancouver Sun, the Guardian, Maclean's and the Tyee, among other outlets. He lives in East Vancouver with his family.

Featured Reader

Jillian Christmas is an artist, creative facilitator, curator, consultant, and advocate in the arts community. She is the long-time spoken word curator of the Vancouver Writers Fest, and former artistic director of Verses Festival of Words. Utilizing an anti-oppressive lens, Jillian has performed and facilitated workshops across North America and beyond. She is the author of The Gospel of Breaking (Arsenal Pulp Press 2020), and the children’s book, The Magic Shell (Flamingo Rampant Press 2022). In Fall of 2023, Christmas was appointed as the inaugural Poet-in-residence at the Vancouver Art Gallery, where she can currently be found daydreaming. She lives on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam people (Vancouver, BC.)

Partners

This Unbound Reading Series event is made in partnership with Neworld Theatre and Room magazine, and with the support of the City of Vancouver, Cultural Services’ Communities and Artists Shifting Culture grant.

Neworld Theatre creates, produces, and tours new plays, performance events and digital works. Their work centers stories and perspectives that challenge systems of oppression. Their motto is ‘plays well with others' which means that collaboration and working across perceptions of difference are vital to the way they work. They deliver community-engaged programs and are at the forefront of developing cultural infrastructure and sectoral capacity in Vancouver and across the country.

Room is Canada’s oldest feminist literary magazine, published quarterly since 1975. Room publishes literature, art, and criticism by cis and trans women, trans men, Two-Spirit, and nonbinary people, and is committed to an intersectional feminist mandate centring 2SLGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and disabled voices.

Unbound is a growing collective that celebrates and nurtures Black creative voices. Founded in 2020, the Unbound Reading Series produces reading events that feature emerging and established Black authors and poets.

Wildfires Bookshop curates books that bring both historically and presently excluded voices and stories to the forefront. We offer a selection that encourages critically examining and resisting the singular visions and binaries that the status quo enforces with the hopes of making it possible for us all to be part of constructing a world that centres justice, care, and joy.

Located on 704 Vernon Drive, Rise Up Marketplace is a local bodega that provides baked goods, fresh bread and sandwiches and good vibes!