V6A: Decoding The Downtown Eastside with Poetry and Prose

3 Notes

In my latest piece for Spacing Vancouver, I was fortunate to meet with Elee Kraljii Gardiner and talk about her work editing V6A, a compilation of writing from residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. You can read more about it here:

When journalists toss around mentions of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, they rarely go without immediately noting that it is “Canada’s poorest postal code.” The Downtown Eastside, Canada’s poorest postal code. We’ve all heard that before.

If this is all you know of the neighbourhood, then it’s time you picked up a copy of V6A, a compilation of poetry and short stories from former and current residents of the Downtown Eastside - compiled and edited by John Mikhail Asfour and Elee Kraljii Gardiner.

“The Downtown Eastside may be one of the most written about neighbourhoods in Canada, but how much of that writing is self-generated?” asks Kraljii Gardiner…… more