Veeno Dewan
Veeno Dewan

Surrey: A Surrey writer is among the 36 students featured in The Writer’s Studio annual anthology, emerge15, to be launched October 15th at a gala event at SFU’s Harbour Centre campus.

Award-winning filmmaker and writer Veeno Dewan, moved from the UK to Surrey ten years ago and has called the City of Parks, home ever since. In emerge15, he offers up an excerpt from a book of short, interlinked stories, set in Vancouver, India, the United Kingdom and the Fiji Islands, that explore the immigrant experience. He will be reading live along with other writers who are part of the emerge15 anthology publication.

Dewan was born in England and grew up West London.  He enjoyed a 12 year career in the BBC working as a TV Director and Producer on a number of high profile shows before moving to Canada, Dewan has since worked for the CBC and the Independent TV sector before moving on to produce and present his own TV shows on the Multicultural Shaw Network. He has also written one screenplay that is currently in development. Dewan says, his first book, provisionally entitled; “When the Big One Hit and Other Stories,” will tell the hidden stories of immigrant communities that are rarely featured.

“The book is about people who are looking for something in a new land – and the revelations when they discover, the things they seek are often different to what they really want. The stories are about love, loss, identity, longing and the struggle to adapt and find their place.”

Dewan’s contribution to emerge15 is an excerpt from a fiction story exploring the aftermath of an earthquake that hits the B.C. coast.

“I’m hoping the story will resonate with people and make them think,” says Dewan.

“I have been working on the book for almost a year now, and I hope 2016 is when it is taken up by a publisher. It’s been a long haul, life is easy – writing is hard!”

Dewan will join 34 other students in this, the 15th year of The Writer’s Studio (TWS), Simon Fraser University’s prestigious creative writing program. TWS graduates have published 37 books and been awarded more than 30 literary honours including The Governor General’s Prize for Poetry, the Ethel  Wilson Fiction Prize, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the CBC Bookie Award for Best Comic or Graphic Novel.

emerge15 was guest edited by author and poet, Matt Rader, who describes the content as “the re-inhabited lives of our neighbours—funny, wicked, queer, unpredictable, vatic, curious, troubled, warm.” Rader invites readers into the anthology: “They have thrown open the doors for you to have your own look around.”

The anthology includes poetry, fiction and non-fiction contributions from students currently being mentored by Kevin Chong (Fiction), Hiromi Goto (Speculative Fiction), JJ Lee (Creative Non-Fiction), and Meredith Quartermain (Poetry) and program director Wayde Compton.