Tag Archives: Word on the Street

Culture Days in Vancouver, The Word on the Street, and more

This coming weekend starting Friday, Sept. 24 through to Sunday, Sept. 26, 2010, Canadians are invited to participate in Culture Days (you can search for activities by region or by category). From their website,

A Canada-wide interactive celebration of arts and culture.

One weekend. Thousands of free cultural things for you to do, make, paint, sculpt, act, sing, dance, write, and learn. Discover the world of artists, historians, architects, curators and designers in your community. Inspire the creator in you!

Vancouver’s events feature The Word on the Street, which will be held on Sunday as usual, in addition to an opportunity to attend an open rehearsal for an opera (world première of Lillian Alling), and a dance class (Working Class – Professional Contemporary Dance Class), and more.

Vancouver as a literary city

Back in April 2008 there was a big noise about Vancouver applying to UNESCO for designation as a UNESCO Literary City. Alma Lee who founded the Vancouver International Writers Festival was leading the effort. I haven’t heard much about it since but it turns out that Melbourne (Australia) just received their designation in August 2008. They were second city to receive it after Edinburgh. Somewhere in my internet travels, I saw that there are currently three other cities (in addition to Vancouver) with applications: Kolkata, Iowa City,  and Dublin (I can’t confirm this last one).

Further investigation showed that the Literary Cities are part of something bigger, the Creative Cities Network. Apparently UNESCO has a whole series of designations, Cities of Design, Cities of Music, Cities of Gastronomy, etc.

The April publicity was in aid of a public meeting to garner support locally. At the same time, city council was asked to support the effort. These were the last steps for completing the application. So far, there’s no word as to Vancouver’s current status.

Meanwhile, the Word on the Street (WOTS) festival is coming up on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2008. Heather Haley (her website is here) will be appearing at the Poetry Tent on Homer St. and Georgia St. at 2 pm. For more on the festival, go here.