Friday Special Blend
Friday January 22nd, 2021 with Susan Johnston
Creating and the pandemic, featuring Dawn Xanklin, Danielle Gregoire, and Brenda Dunn.

Danielle Gregoire and Dawn Xanklin join us to talk about their current work with storytelling and comedy, their own practices during the pandemic, and work they are each doing to build community and support creatives, particularly during the pandemic. Danielle will talk about the return of The Iridescent Robot Storytelling Club and their plans for 2021, both in terms of shows, as well as monthly storytelling workshops. Dawn will tell us more about (un)told, a monthly series founded in 2012 and featuring original, personal stories told live in a relaxed setting without notes, sets, or props. The January edition of (un)told: focuses on “Reverse resolutions (what are you doing less of?)” takes place on January 31 at 7:30 via Zoom. Register here for the show link. Brenda Dunn - Art in Jest Brenda Dunn has been getting in trouble for crayoning on the walls for as long as she can remember. She eventually went to art school at the University of Guelph and drew on whatever the hell she wanted. She works and plays in Ottawa where she came for grad school and just stuck around ever since. She learned a lot of busy words during her masters in english lit, but it turns out she actually prefers the visual to the verbal when it comes to communication. She also doesn’t totally get why these things are always written in the third person but concedes that it does just sort of feel right. Her next workshop, Kickstarting Creativity: Drawing for the Brain, takes place on February 25 2021. And... For the writers tuning in, the team at Arc Poetry reminds us that their Poem of the Year Contest -- one of the richest prizes for poetry in Canada with $5000 going to the grand prize winning poem -- is open, with a February 1 deadline. More details via: arcpoetry.ca/contests. Nathan Hauch’s newest piece of cinematographic excellence, “Slip” is live on Vimeo. It follows earlier works “still” and “sway”. I’ll air it next week so you can explore it as a sound piece. Nathan lives in Ottawa and is a member of Qu'ART, the Ottawa Queer Arts Collective.