Our 2019 Artist-in-Residence was Bonnie Devine. Devine is a member of the Serpent River First Nation, an Anishinaabe/Ojibwe territory in central Ontario on the north shore of Lake Huron. She is an installation artist, painter, curator, writer, and educator. Her work emerges from a deep interest in and commitment to the storytelling and pictorial traditions that are central to the history and development of Anishinaabe culture. These interests are central to her art practice and are expressed in image and object, video and teaching, storytelling and political ideas. During her residency at North House Bonnie explored a new direction in her art practice through printmaking in collaboration with the plants and the land at rare. She also took time to run workshops with local students at the Slit Barn, which is part of rare‘s land trust.

Our 2018 Writer-in-Residence was Kahsenniyo Williams. Williams is a spoken word artist from the Mohawk Nation Wolf Clan. Kahsenniyo began utilizing her poetry as a tool for social change and community engagement in 2008. Her work is centred around Indigenous issues. She aims to educate non-Indigenous people about the struggles, beauty, and realities facing Indigenous people. Her work also attempts to create moments of understanding, connection, and healing for Indigenous People. Kahsenniyo transforms her love for her community and people through her passionate performances. She draws on her lived experience to engage audiences. In 2017, Kahsenniyo performed at Triple Indigenous, the closing reception of Janet Rogers’ residency, alongside Ms. Rogers and Tenille Campbell. A video was captured of Kahsenniyo’s performance at the closing event of her residency, which was held at Woodland Cultural Centre.

Our 2017 Writer-in-Residence was Janet Rogers. Janet Marie Rogers is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from Six Nations. She was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, lived in Stoney Creek, Hamilton, and Toronto, and has been living as a guest on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people (Victoria, British Columbia) since 1994. Janet works in the genres of poetry, spoken word performance poetry, video poetry and recorded poetry with music. Janet is also a radio broadcaster, documentary producer, media and sound artist. You can view a video of Rogers reciting two of the poems that she created during the residency here.

Our 2016 Writers-in-Residence were Marlene Creates and Don McKay. Creates is an artist, poet, community arts activist, environmentalist, and educator who lives and works in Portugal Cove, Newfoundland. For over thirty-five years, her artistic practice has been an exploration of the relationship between human experience, memory, language and the land, and the impact they have on each other. Don McKay is the author of many books of poetry, including Long Sault (1975), Birding, or Desire (1983), andApparatus (1997). He has twice won the Governor General’s Award—for Night Field (1991) andAnother Gravity (2000), and in June 2007 he won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Strike/Slip (2006). In 2008 he was made a Member of the Order of Canada “for his contributions to Canadian literature as a nature poet and mentor of many emerging writers from coast to coast.” He lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Our 2015 Writer-in-Residence was Lee Maracle.  Maracle is the author of a number of critically acclaimed literary works including Sojourner’s and Sundogs [collected work of novel and short stories]; Celia’s Song [her latest novel]; Ravensong [novel], Bobbi Lee [autobiographical novel]; Daughters Are Forever, [novel]; Will’s Garden [young adult novel]; Bent Box [poetry]; and I Am Woman [creative non-fiction]. Maracle is the co-editor of a number of anthologies including the award winning publication, My Home As I Remember. She is also co-editor and contributor of Telling It: Women and Language across Culture [conference proceedings]. Maracle is published in anthologies and scholarly journals worldwide.

The 2014 Writer-in-Residence was Karen Houle, a poet and philosopher at the University of Guelph. Since her residency, she was invited to speak about that experience in a Keynote Lecture at the International Conference Forms to experience the environment. Theory, experience, aesthetics and political criticism (Paris, October 1-2, 2015).  Her lecture is titled “Co-building environmental poems (ecopoetry) with, and for, different audiences and users.”

The Eastern Comma Writer-in-Residence is a joint initiative of Musagetes and rare Charitable Research Reserve, founded by their mutual benefactors, Michael Barnstijn and Louise MacCallum. Musagetes is a philanthropic artistic organization based in Guelph with a mandate to make the arts more central and meaningful in peoples’ lives. Working in small cities in Canada, Italy, and Croatia, Musagetes creates intersectoral collaborations between artists and communities. (www.musagetes.ca/musagetes-old)

Eastern Comma will immerse writers in the landscapes and environments of rare and North House, an oasis literally in the crossroads of conservation, urbanity, industry, high-tech, agriculture, the arts, environmental sustainability, watersheds, gardens, and gravel pits. In addition to the writer-in-residence, Eastern Comma will convene symposia and literary gatherings, organize school trips, and establish post-secondary partnerships. Over the next few years we intend to establish an Eastern Comma publishing program with PS Guelph, a print-on-demand publisher that celebrates ideas and the social life of books.