There are three launches scheduled for Keeney's new books,聽First Woman (Inanna Publications) and You Bring Me Wings (ANTARES Publishing House of Spanish Culture). The first is Tuesday, Nov. 8 at The Art Bar at 8pm, second floor of the Paupers Pub, 539 Bloor St. W. in Toronto.

The second will聽be at 91亚色 on聽Wednesday, Nov. 16, from 3 to 4:30pm, as part of the Canadian Studies Speaker Series, in the Senior Common Room, 010 Vanier College, Keele campus, where she鈥檒l also read and discuss her creative work and research. The third launch by Inanna Publications听蹿辞谤听First Woman will聽take place Thursday, Nov. 24, from 6 to 8pm, at the聽College Street United Church, 452 College St. in Toronto.聽

Keeney draws her greatest inspiration from the intersection of cultures, whether between members of one family, intimate friends聽or peoples around the world. She is a constant traveller.聽This academic year alone, she was involved in conferences and arts festivals from Russia to Slovenia to Iran. As Keeney puts it, "I'm a wanderer...more of a cultural explorer than a tourist." And it is those wanderings that seep deep into聽the聽layers聽of her work, emerging as poems that often express a different way of seeing the world.

Left: Patricia Keeney

For You Bring Me Wings, Keeney travelled to Mexico City for a summer of imaginative conversation with Mexican poet Ethel Krauze that spilled onto the pages of their new book.聽This bilingual (English and Spanish) collection聽is infused with what 聽identifies as "poems and conversations around love, the creative process, the conditions of womanhood and the marginalization of two distinct cultures co-existing along the American border.鈥� The conversations explore approaches to writing poetry and living life fully. As聽writer Eva Tihanyi puts it in聽her introduction: 鈥淔inally a book that presents talking and poetry as a partnership, that dares to embrace its own 蝉耻产箩别肠迟颈惫颈迟测.鈥�

Keeney was one of the first Canadian writers to be given a grant under the North American Free Trade Agreement to open up areas of cultural exchange with Mexico.

Keeney's聽poems have been hailed as lyric and political, ranging from sexual love to individual relations, to confrontations with power and profound meditations on life and culture. In her First Woman collection of poems, she聽examines, at a "deeply personal level, the richly ambivalent experience of living in South Africa, for instance, and it explores the聽dynamics of family. So, the interior life is both personal and political, local and global.聽For me, there is no discrepancy in this," says the author of nine books of poetry and a聽novel.聽"The way we see things and the weight we give them determines their importance in our sense of who we are."聽

Keeney continued her investigation of cultural borders in Iran recently where it is mandatory for women, including foreign visitors, to wear a hijab. "The ambivalence I felt about this was echoed in some extraordinary conversations with women in academia and the arts around various kinds of repression in a society that is deeply divided. I am writing about it already," she says.

Left: Patricia Keeney sharing a traditional meal in Iran with her husband, 91亚色 theatre Professor Don Rubin, and a friend (left)

Her聽poetry has been translated into French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Chinese and Hindi. As a book and theatre reviewer, and an arts journalist for over 20 years, Keeney has written extensively in various Canadian and international publications, including The Canadian Forum, Maclean's magazine, Canadian Literature, Canadian Woman Studies, Arc Poetry Magazine, New Theatre Quarterly, based in London, England, South African Theatre Journal and Critical Stages, a web journal.

Some of Keeney鈥檚 previous work includes her first collection of poetry Swimming Alone (Oberon Press, 1988); a post-feminist novel,聽The Incredible Shrinking Wife (Black Moss Press, 1995); and Selected Poems of Patricia Keeney (Oberon Press, 2002). She is currently working on new fiction.

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Two graduates will present their theses 鈥� and compete for prizes 鈥� at the Graduate Program in Education Spring Colloquium May 26.

Opiyo Oloya (right) (PhD 鈥�10) and master鈥檚 graduand Farra Yasin will explain their final academic projects in the Senior Common Room, 021 Winter鈥檚 College, from 4:30 to 6pm.

Oloya is a high school principal who fled Uganda in the early 1980s. The former pro-democracy fighter鈥檚 dissertation, 鈥淏ecoming a Child Soldier: A Cultural Perspective from Autobiographical Voices鈥�, explores how Ugandan rebel group the Lord鈥檚 Resistance Army (LRA) transformed abducted children into soldiers. Oloya highlights the importance of culture in turning children into soldiers and in creating a resilience to survive their ordeal in the bush. As a researcher, Oloya is also interested the peace process, humanitarianism and the impact of war on society and culture.

Yasin teaches Grade 8, has a passion for writing and used to run an art gallery. Her MEd thesis explores middle-school students鈥� use of comic strip figures and creative writing to construct their identity. She has presented her work at conferences of the National Council of Teachers of English, the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Faculty of Education Graduate Students.

All are welcomed to attend. Refreshments will be served.

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顿耻苍濒辞辫鈥檚 Home, Roses, Hauntings and Smith-McGregor鈥檚 The Infinity Pool are both vying for top spot in the non-fiction category, along with 24 other finalists. In the poetry category, Smith-McGregor鈥檚 Body Temperature is competing against 23 others. The third category in the contest is for short stories.

Right: Kilby Smith-McGregor. Photo by Laura Jane Petelko

Last year, Smith-McGregor won the Writers鈥� Trust of Canada (see YFile, July 23, 2010), for writers under 35 who have yet to be published in book form. Her work has appeared in Brick, A Literary Journal, the Dublin Quarterly International Literary Review and The Cyclops Review.

She won the Tarragon Theatre鈥檚 inaugural , and while at 91亚色, the President鈥檚 Creative Writing Award for Poetry and the Sylvia Ellen Hersch Memorial Award, both in 2009, and the Sorbara Award in Creative Writing in 2008.

Left: Rishma Dunlop

A finalist for the CBC Literary Awards in 1998 and again in 2009, and winner of the Emily Dickinson Prize for Poetry in 2003, is a poet, playwright, translator and essayist. She has several poetry collections, including Metropolis (Mansfield Press, 2005), Reading Like A Girl (Black Moss Press, 2004) and The Body of My Garden (Mansfield Press, 2002). White Album (Inanna Publications, 2008) combines 顿耻苍濒辞辫鈥檚 poems with paintings by Suzanne Northcott. Her radio play, The Raj Kumari's Lullaby, was commissioned by CBC Radio in 2005.

Coordinator of 91亚色's Creative Writing Program, Dunlop was also the 2009-2010 Canada-U.S. Fulbright Research Chair in Creative Writing at the Virginia Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University.

The CBC Literary Awards short list of finalists in each category will be announced next Monday, Feb. 28, with the final winners announced by Shelagh Rogers March 24, on CBC Radio One鈥檚 "Q", hosted by Jian Ghomeshi.

The first place winner in each of the three categories will come away $6,000 richer, while the second place winner will take home $4,000, courtesy of the Canada Council for the Arts.

To view the complete list of finalists, visit the website.

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