Yesterday, we launched New Shoots 24, the Vancouver School Board anthology which I co-edited with Amy Cunningham, Lenore Rowntree, and Michelle Wright. The anthology is the culmination of this year's New Shoots program -- where creative writing students from UBC mentor writers in secondary schools across Vancouver. Ian MacLeod, Martin Meissenheimer, and Lisa Allen, the program coordinators, were there and together we celebrated the launch with snacks, author's copies, t-shirts, and conversation. It was great to see some of the writers I worked with this year and I'm really rather impressed with the work they did. Congratulations to everyone whose work was published.

To give you a sense of the anthology, I'll include our editor's introduction:

The artistic mind is a greedy organ and a tireless performer. It wants everything - every colour, smell, and detail about whatever it has in its sights - and is constantly searching for new ways to communicate what it sees. The writing in this anthology reveals the world to us in new and exciting ways - the colour-rich eye of the imagination, where the rules of our everyday reality are stretched like taffy; the fierce gaze turned inward, the conversations we have with ourselves; and the clear observation of the witness, who entertains us while revealing the inner workings of the human condition. All the pieces in this anthology offer you the possibility of seeing our world in a new way. We hope you enjoy the view.