Richard Van Camp

Portrait

Richard Van Camp is a proud member of the Dogrib (Tlicho) Nation from Fort Smith, NWT, Canada. A graduate of the En'owkin International School of Writing, the University of Victoria's Creative Writing BFA Program, and the Master's Degree in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, Richard currently teaches Creative Writing for Aboriginal Students at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. He is also CBC Radio's Writer in Residence for their North by Northwest Program

Richard's poems, short stories and novellas have been published in anthologies and journals since 1992. Three of his short stories from Angel Wing Splash Pattern, "Mermaids", "Sky Burial" and "The Night Charles Bukowski Died" have been narrated by Cree actor Ben Cardinal and broadcast nationally as radio dramas on CBC. Richard wrote for CBC's North of 60 television show for two months under their Writer Internship Program and was a script and cultural consultant with them for four seasons. He recently cowrote the short movie "The Promise" with Kent Williams and Jason Alexander of Neohaus Filmworks.

Richard is the author of two children's books with the Cree artist, George Littlechild, A Man Called Raven and What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses?, with Children's Book Press, a novel, The Lesser Blessed, and a collection of his finest short stories, Angel Wing Splash Pattern with Kegedonce Press. He has performed at both the Winnipeg International Authors' Festival as well as the Vancouver Writers' Festival; he's been a Literary Mentor at the British Columbia Festival of the Arts (1998) and performed at the 2nd Annual Moose Jaw Festival of Words, the Aboriginal Voices Festival, the Baltic International Canadian Studies Conference in Riga, Latvia, and the Nordic Association for Canadian Studies' 2003 Conference in Rovaniemi, Finland as well as the two Honouring Words Literary Festivals across Canada (2002) and throughout Australia (2003).

Writing available online

Richard's space on MySpace, including his blog
Richard's Book of Lists
20 Music Videos that Changed My World Forever
25 Albums That Saved My Life
My Top 20 Favourite Published Works by First Nations Authors (So Far)
My "Honouring Words" 2003 Top 10 World Indigenous Literature Reading List New
Ten Best Graphic Novels (So Far)
The Coolest Toys Ever!
Reviews of Albums from Metropolis Records
Metropolis Records 2003 - The Year in Review
Metropolis Records - Spring 2004 New
Review of Hinterland's Under the Waterline
The Knife is like the first night I ever discovered Ninja's!
Richard's reviews of Video Games
Blood II: The Chosen
Unreal
Richard's reviews of Comic Books
Top Ten Comic Titles and Graphic Novels of 2002
30 Days of Night #1


Audio (mp3) from Radio plays read by Ben Cardinal on a Virtual iPod

The Night Charles Bukowski Died [11.10 min.]
Mermaids [26.45 min.]
Sky Burial [Part 1] [11.24 min.]
Sky Burial [Part 2] [9.06 min.]
the uranium leaking from port radium and ray rock mines is killing us (read by Richard) [3.08 min.]


Awards

Richard's short story, "Dypthia," has been nominated by Prairie Fire for the Western Magazine Awards.

The German translation of his novel, The Lesser Blessed, (Die Ohne Segen Sind, translated by Ulrich Plenzdorf) won the Jugendliteraturpreis 2001 at the Frankfurt Book Fair in the juvenile category, the highest award for a translation awarded by the German government.

What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses? was placed on the 1999 - 2000 Canadian Children's Book Center "Our Choice" Recommended List.

Richard was awarded "The Writer of the Year" Award for Children's Literature in 1999 by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers for our children's book A Man Called Raven.

Richard received the Canadian Author's Association Air Canada Award in 1997, "honoring a young (under the age of thirty) Canadian writer deemed to show the most promise for the future in the field of literary creation."

Books by Richard Van Camp or containing his work       icon

Angel Wing Splash Pattern, Kegedonce Press. [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Reviews of Angel Wing Splash Pattern:
Lesser Blessed, Douglas & McIntyre. [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Reviews of The Lesser Blessed:

Children's Books

A Man Called Raven, George Littlechild, Illustrator, Children's Book Press.
[Buy from Amazon.ca]
What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses?,
George Littlechild, Illustrator, Children's Book Press. [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Review of What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses?

Anthologies & Journals       icon

Without Reservation: Indigenous Erotica, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm (Editor),
Kegedonce Press. [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Prairie Fire: a Canadian Magazine of New Writing, Vol. 22 No. 3, 2001,
edited by Thomas King, contains the short story "Dypthia".
Crisp Blue Edges: Creative NonFiction by First Nations Authors, Theytus Press, 2000,
contains the essay "25 Albums That Saved My Life" [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Skins: Contemporary Indigenous Writing,
Kateri Akiwenzie Damm & Josie Douglas (Editors), Kegedonce Press, 2000, contains the short story "Mermaids". [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Kirkus, Fall 2000, contains the novella, "Snow White Nothing for Miles".
A Shade of Spring, 7th Generation Press, 1998, contains the short story,
"Why Ravens Smile to Little Old Ladies as They Walk By", and poem, "My Life Has Become the Taste of Ashes".
An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English,
Daniel David Moses & Terry Goldie (Editors), Oxford University Press, 2nd Edition, 1998. [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Gatherings, Volume XII, Transformation, Florene Belmore & Eric Ostrowidsk (Editors),
Penticton: Theytus Books, contains the essay "Twenty Music Videos that Changed My World Forever" and song "I go Bazook!". [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Gatherings, Volume XI, Flight Scape: a multi-directional collection of Indigenous creative works,
Florene Belmore (Editor), Penticton: Theytus Books. contains the short story "The Night Charles Bukowski Died" [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Steal My Rage, Joel T. Maki (Editor), Douglas & McIntyre. [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Gatherings, Volume VII, Standing Ground: Strength and Solidarity Amidst Dissolving Boundaries
Kateri Damm & Jeannette Armstrong (Editors), Penticton: Theytus Books, contains the short story "the uranium leaking from port radium and ray rock mines is killing us". [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Gatherings, Vol V, Celebrating the Circle: Recognizing Women and Children in Restoring the Balance
Beth Cuthand & William George (Editors), Penticton: Theytus Books, contains the poem, "The Hope of Wolves" [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Blue Dawn, Red Earth: New Native American Storytellers,
Clifford E. Trafzer (Editor), Anchor Books contains the story "Sky Burial" [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Whetstone, Fall 1994, the University of Lethbridge literary journal
contains the three poems, "Husband", "Wife", and "I'll tell you something".
Gatherings, Vol IV, Regeneration: Expanding the Web to Claim Our Future
Don Fiddler (Editor), Penticton: Theytus Books, contains the poem, "See this pen?". [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Gatherings, Vol III, Mother Earth Perspectives: Preservation Through Words
Greg Young-Ing (Editor), Penticton: Theytus Books, contains the poem "Autumn's Silent Rage". [Buy from Amazon.ca]
Descant, Summer 1993, the University of Toronto literary journal,
contains the short story "Love Song".

Interviews

Interview by Lorraine Chan at UBC
Interview by Alexandra Chu at the Faculty of Arts at UBC
Interview by Nicole Nicosia in Indian Country Today
AIROS July 2004 Book of the Month: The Lesser Blessed [RealAudio]
Interview by Judi Saltman,, Canadian Children's Illustrated Books Project
Interview by Liz Mavor


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This is an "official" site in that this page was constructed with the assistance and active collaboration of the author, Richard Van Camp.

© 2004 -2006 Richard Van Camp.


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