Ever Receding Fruit: Wayde Compton, the Black Archive, and the Call for a Black Cultural Centre

In this episode, Linda has the great pleasure of chatting with Wayde Compton, the writer, scholar, publisher, and current Chair of Creative Writing at Douglas College (in New Westminster, BC). He is the author of several books, including 49th Parallel Psalm (finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize); Performance Bond; After Canaan: Essays on Race, Writing, and Region (finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award); the graphic novel, The Blue Road; and The Outer Harbour (winner of the City of Vancouver Book Award). He has also edited two anthologies: Bluesprint: Black British Columbian Literature and Orature and The Revolving City: 51 Poems and the Stories Behind Them (finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award).

During this interview, we also speak about

• the Black population in Vancouver compared to that of Nova Scotia (17.15)
• May Ayin (22)
• the Black Cultural Archive (4.30 and 8)
• What to read (and his own reading patterns, 30)

Compton is a co-founder of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project (8), an organization formed to raise awareness about the history of Vancouver’s black community, and was one of the co-founders of Commodore Books (11.40), with Karina Vernon and David Chariandy. For February, he has been an active social media presence, for Black History Month. If you follow him on Twitter—and if you don’t, we highly recommend that you do at @WaydeCompton – you’ll know that he’s been tweeting stories about people of African descent in Vancouver.

So, just in time for Black History Month, we hope you enjoy this interview with Wayde Compton.

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