Join accomplished B.C. authors Susan Alexander and Neil Surkan for an engaging evening as they read from their recent books of poetry. Let them break your heart and put it back together again, more resilient than ever.
Perhaps you’ve read one of Susan’s poems recently while riding a Vancouver bus, part of this year’s Poetry in Transit. Her work appears nationally and internationally in magazines such as The Times Literary Supplement, The Southern Review, and The New Quarterly. She is the author of Berberitzen with Raven Chapbooks (2024), and two full collections: Nothing You Can Carry (2020) and The Dance Floor Tilts (2017). Susan’s poems have won multiple awards, including the 2022 Vancouver’s City Poem Prize, the Mitchell Prize and the Short Grain Prize. She lives on Nexwlélexm/Bowen Island, the traditional and unceded territory of the Squamish people.
Neil Surkan is the Poet Laureate of Nanaimo, BC. He's the author of three full-length poetry collections: Empties (2026), Unbecoming (2021), and On High (2018), each published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. He has produced several chapbooks, including Die Workbook (The Blasted Tree); Ruin (2023) and Their Queer Tenderness (2020) (with Knife|Fork|Book); and Super, Natural (Anstruther Press, 2017). His award-winning poems have appeared in numerous Canadian magazines. A professor in the Department of English at Vancouver Island University, Neil lives in Nanaimo, on the traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.
Date: Friday, April 10th, 2026
Time: 7:00 - 9:00; Doors open at 6:30pm
Place: The Park Room, Christ Church Cathedral, 690 Burrard Street at Georgia
Admission: By Donation