2007 Speakers List > Detail about Presenter

2007 Presenters (Authors, Agents, Editors & Producers)

George McWhirter, Author

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and educated at Queen's University Belfast, where he was a classmate of Seamus Deane, Seamus Heaney and the Irish children's writer, Robert Dunbar—on March 13th, 2007 George McWhirter was inaugurated as Vancouver's first Poet Laureate. He is the author of eight books of verse, editor and translator of poetry by major Mexican poets and has won the Commonwealth Prize for poetry, the FR Scott Prize forTranslation, and the Ethel Wilson Prize at the BC Book Awards for fiction. For almost thirty years he was the Advisory Editor of PRISM international magazine. He is a translator of his verse and friend of Homero Aridjis, who has just been appointed as Mexico's Ambassador to UNESCO. At UBC he won two Killam prizes, one for Teaching and one for Mentoring, as well as the Sam Black award for his contribution to the Creative & Performing Arts. His web site is www3.telus.net/GeorgeMcWhirter.

Workshop(s)

Poetry in Translation (workshop) Which makes the better lover of poetry in translation, the one faithful to the original verse or the adulterer? An examination of the mysteries of translating someone else's work.
Published Poet -- An Oxymoron? (workshop) Learn the best routes to getting your poetry into the hands of the public, how to organize yourself and your writing for maximum exposure and some of the many ways and means of finding an audience for your work.