Showcasing work by prominent as well as emerging Asian Canadian writers, Ricepaper magazine seeks superlative unpublished literary content for our upcoming double-issue, Summer Reading (18.1,2). Ricepaper publishes the freshest poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction, drama (full plays or excerpts), graphic novel and translation by Asian Canadians, for Asian Canadians. We accept writing from authors of all cultural backgrounds, however, content should contain themes pertinent to the Asian Canadian demographic.

Please include a brief biographical note of approximately fifty (50) words along with your submission.

Fiction, creative non-fiction, drama and graphic novel should be of 6,000 words or less in length, and no more than 2 pieces per submission.

Poetry submissions can contain up to 7 poems.

Submit online at Submittable

If you prefer hard copy submissions, please mail to

Ricepaper magazine
PO Box 74174 Hillcrest RPO
Vancouver, BC
V5V 5C8

Our SUMMER READING issue (18.1,2) has the deadline of May 17, 2013.

Please note Ricepaper makes acceptances on a rolling basis, therefore early submissions are highly encouraged.

FAQ:
Q: Do you pay writers and artists?
A: Yes, all work selected for publication will be paid after publication is printed.

Q: How are pieces selected?
A: All pieces will be reviewed by an editorial review committee and Editor.

explorASIAN Gala Recognition Dinner
Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society
Saturday, June 1, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Vancouver, British Columbia

I Remember
by William Bradford Akeroyd

Some of us stood to remember
Some of us walked to never forget
It rained, of course,
Tears for the fallen but not forgotten
I remember

I stood on sacred ground
in front of cenotaphs
in graveyards
on beaches
at home and in foreign lands
I remember

The sacrifices of my Aboriginal, Asian
and other Canadian ancestors
Who paid the price for freedom
some of whom never fired a gun
I remember

The many battles fought by those
for a freedom not yet won
For here at home
justice has not been served
I remember

The price paid by our ancestors
victims of discrimination, ignorance and blame
Wounded, dispossessed of family and home
an everlasting shame
I remember

Brothers, sisters not yet free
Imprisoned by neglect and greed and other tyranny
by those who have never felt or forgotten
the pain of yoke and chain
In Canada, our home on Native land
I remember

The struggle, the fight for the rights of everyone
for those without the power
to determine their own destiny
For only when that day comes we can say
I remember

To honour those who gave their lives
so we could enjoy freedom in this land
Freedom and liberty for all

I remember

All My Relations,

Brad Akeroyd (Uyede)

Located at 783 E. Pender St in Strathcona, it was home to Charlie and Nellie Yip.

Nellie Towers of St. John, NB met Charlie Yip Quong while teaching in New York. Married in 1900, the couple moved into the Yip Sang family compound in Chinatown in 1904. A feminist and social activist, “Granny” spoke five dialects and became a bold and outspoken advocate for her adopted community. In 1917, Charlie and Nellie moved to 783 East Pender Street and it was here that Nellie served as a trusted and well respected midwife to some 500 Chinese Canadian women.”

For more information about VHF’s Places That Matter plaque project, recognizing 125 historic places nominated by the public, please visit their webpage (photos, map, and upcoming events):

In partnership with UBC’s Chinese Canadian Stories, and the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC, a short film has also been produced about Nellie Yip Quong, the house and the plaque project. VHF will be screening the video at the presentation, and taking additional footage from the unveiling on May 25th.

For more information or inquiries, contact Jessica Quan, Special Project Coordinator, at 604-264-9642.

Grandma Carrière
by Carleigh Baker

I ripped a Polaroid from the sticky pages of Dad’s album.
You in a polyester one-piece the same colour as the rocks
on the Alouette riverbank. Or maybe the photo has faded that way.
This is the river Dad learned to swim in, ran behind
the house and left lines in the gyprock when it flooded in 81.
The year I was born. Four doxies in the photo follow you—a shepherdess
in leather moccasins. They had names like Alfredo and Titus.
You always spoke to them in French. You called me Chèrie.

On this day, the day in the photo, you had all the doors
and windows open. The boiled cabbage smell of propane,
you’d left the gas on. Dad told me you were forgetful, but he smelled
the Wild Turkey on your breath. Said it wasn’t safe to visit any more.
In 2001, he spilled your ashes into the swollen Alouette River.
I’d never met your brothers and sisters, and we sang Amazing Grace
for lack of anything better. I asked them to tell me everything,
this Polaroid, the instructions on the back in your handwriting
how to re-light the pilot.

DIGI-ART
Sunday, May 26th, 2013, 12:30pm-4:00pm
Vancouver Japanese Language School (487 Alexander Street)
$18 per class. Each class: 90 minutes. Pre-registration required.
To register: 604.739.9388 or info@powellstreetfestival.com
More information: www.powellstreetfestival.com

Children and youth will dive deep into their imaginations at DIGI-ART, a fun-filled afternoon of hands-on workshops guaranteed to stimulate creativity and expand artistic horizons.

Presented by the Powell Street Festival Society and the Vancouver Japanese Language School, DIGI-ART invites kids ages 4 to 12 to learn new skills and express themselves artistically using digital technology—with practicing Japanese Canadian artists as their instructors.

DIGI-ART features the following workshops:

-Video Workshop with Makiko Yoshii (12:30-2:00 pm)
Students will make a stop-motion video using a Mac laptop and a video camera; a DVD of the final product will be provided as a take-home keepsake.

-Learn to Photograph like a Pro! with Yoshinori Tanaka (12:30-2:00pm)
Students will learn how to take beautiful portrait photographs with their digital cameras.

-Para para Manga! with Kazuho Yamamoto (2:30-4:00pm)
Students will develop a storyboard and create a flipbook.

-Create and Design your own Plush Toy/Tote Bag with Makiko Yoshii (2:30-4:00pm)
Students will design, draw, and sew a fashionable tote or an adorable plush toy, learning valuable skills in Adobe Photoshop (including toolbox, text, and layers) while they’re at it.

Full class descriptions (including required material and age ranges) are available at www.powellstreetfestival.com. To register, contact PSF (604.739.9388 or info@powellstreetfestival.com). Registration closes at 5:00pm on Friday, May 24th.

DIGI-ART is a lead-up event to the 37th Annual Powell Street Festival, which will take place on August 3rd and 4th at Oppenheimer Park and surrounding venues. For more information, visit http://www.powellstreetfestival.com.

The teams will have two weeks to prepare their comedy sketches and must incorporate a randomly chosen element into their performance. Celebrity judges will select the winner of the coveted Vancouver RICE BOWL AWARD on May 29 and on the second night (May 30), the audience will vote with their applause for their favorites to determine the PEOPLE’S CHOYS AWARD winner.

This annual event, which sells out every year, serves up multicultural comedy from the outrageous to the absurd to the wildly satirical. It is the 14^th year of Vancouver’s Asian Canadian Theatre’s Comedy Night, which the company was founded to produce and the 5^th year in its current incarnation as Etch-Your-Sketchoff. Over the years, the Comedy Night has helped launched the careers of Asian-Canadian stand-up comedians and sketch comedy troupes such as Assaulted Fish and Hot Sauce Posse.

The event is hosted by the original Comedy Night Host and funny-man Tom Chin, who has performed as part of Assaulted Fish and Hot Sauce Posse in the past.

EVENT DETAILS

Wednesday May 29 + Thursday May 30, 8pm at the Roundhouse Community Arts Centre

Tickets: $20 in advance online (vact.ca), $23 at door (cash only at door)

Blind Love
by Kagan Goh

Riding the number 9 Alma bus I watch a Native man and an Oriental woman hold hands as they help each other board the bus. I notice they both grip white canes. The couple is blind.

I imagine this couple naked in bed touching each other’s faces in the dark. They see with the mind’s eye the inner beauty within their partner’s soul in a world blinded by superficial appearances. Kissing each other on the lips for what does it matter whose lips belong to whom?  Feeling in the dark they are blind witnesses to each other’s naked bodies. They are not frightened of the unknown. Instead their senses are heightened, their fragile eggshell mind’s enlightened seeing what no one else can see: each other’s true inner beauty. Reading the Braille of goose bumps on their skin, they make love by crossing all boundaries, worshipping each other as God dissolving into One.

I am amazed to see the husband carrying their baby in a knapsack on his back. The sight of this blind couple with their baby moves me. If they can find true love and have a family, maybe there’s hope for me yet?

I want to ask them: “What is it like being blind and having a child?”

I imagine the tremendous responsibility of being blind and taking care of a baby; a child who, unlike his parents, can see. But I keep silent, not wanting to invade their privacy.

They pull the cord and the three of them get off the bus. Opening an umbrella to shield each other from the rain, the wife takes her husband’s arm and they walk tapping their canes as they make their way home.

I smile to myself, feeling happy to have witnessed blind love for the first time in my life.

Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts and Culture presents Superheroes Invade Toronto: an art exhibit and fundraiser featuring the works of four Filipino-Canadian illustrators and their depictions of iconic comic book characters out and about in our very own city, Toronto.

Local artists Kevin Briones, Oliver Castañeda, Paul Limgenco and Vince Sunico have teamed up to create 12 newly drawn, painted and digitally produced pieces using comic book characters as their subjects and Toronto as their backdrop. A portion of the proceeds to benefit community art programs at KAPISANAN.

Friday, May 24, 2013
Art sale & reception starts at 7:00 p.m.
Party starts at 9:00 p.m.
@ TOTA Lounge (592 Queen St. W)

Works will be exhibited until May 31
Suggested donation at door: $5

About KAPISANAN:
KAPISANAN is a non-profit organization that gives all Filipino-Canadian youth opportunities to cultivate a positive sense of cultural identity and leadership potential. Through community-based arts and cultural programming and presentation, Kapisanan creates a space for Filipino-Canadian youth to explore Filipino culture and heritage, fostering pride and self-confidence, inspiring and empowering them to realize their full potential.

Ode to a Forest
by Bob Supernant

It wasn’t much of a farm as farms go
Small, yet rich with life that the city could never give
Motherless since birth I knew I was alone
An orphan child wrapped in shrouds of disappointment
Came there at five
From another broken home
Hoping for some shred of security
But I soon found out I was a hired hand
My innocence belaboured – doing chores to ‘earn my keep’

It wasn’t much of a forest as forests go
Barely five acres of spruce and aspen poplar mixed by some unseen hand
But a place ever resplendent in the garments of the four seasons
Patiently I would wait for the bluebells to blossom after the snow thawed
Then to pick succulent wild strawberries in June
Wormy raspberries in July
Sour gooseberries in August
I was overjoyed when the only tiger lily for miles
Showed it’s harvest moon face in September
Giving me one last colorful delight before the snows of October
And yes I did walk those crisp mornings
Crunching fresh snow
Adding my treaded tracks to those of birds, squirrels and raccoons
How the hoarfrost was magnificent some sunny mornings
Enrobing the trees with the sparkle of countless diamonds

It wasn’t much of a playground as playgrounds go
Yet as big as the world could be, in a child’s eyes
As I played in the light of northern seasons
Becoming chief, or cowboy, or hockey star on the frozen pond
Always hero of the day
There I was lover of all that greened and sang and cocooned, then passed away
Discovering intimacy, not found with family or friends

It was to you that I would go, seeking solace
From the oppression, the great dysfunction of my foster family
Mistreatment that sometimes fell as blows

Your birds sang soothing lullabies
Your large limbed trees cradled my stinging back
Your grassy glades absorbed my humiliation
In so many years I never shared my troubles with human ears
But you, my forest knew
Listening to my sobbing silence
Buoying my loneliness above despair

It was not much of a town as towns go
But far enough away that I had to say goodbye
To you
Five angry people crammed into a tiny house on a muddy avenue
Nowhere to go but the streets, the pool hall, or the school gym
Too different to fit in
No where to walk, no money, few friends
Nowhere to go but further inside the shell
I didn’t know how much I missed you
As my aloneness sunk into despair

One day I did return, only a short time ago
Now a man – happier- more self-forgiving
But you had changed
Falling victim to the hamburger machine grinding up this planet
Overrun by cows, chewing all leaf within reach
Hooves mincing your ground
Not a bluebell or strawberry in sight
Your magic gone, except in a child’s memories
I came to say hello but it became another goodbye
Neither of us will be the same
But I know you loved that little boy
As I am beginning to, now.