Last night at the Havana Theatre, Vancouver high school students who participated in this year's New Shoots program took to the stage and delivered a powerhouse reading. Amy Cunningham, Lenore Rowntree, and I hosted the event, and if you weren't in the house last night, you missed a really good show. Awesome poems, cool stories, and even an a cappella song were all stunningly performed and shared. Someone even likened a rolled-up touque to an unused condom, and now I'm sure I'll never be able to shake that image from my mind. There were six writers from Templeton Secondary School there (the school I mentored with) and they were all fantastic (Brava! Alex, Mikayla, Raine, Smriti, and Yiyi. Bravo! Darren. You guys rocked!). I've really enjoyed my time with the New Shoots program -- as a mentor, as one of the editors for this year's anthology, and now as one of the hosts. I'm told the anthology will be launched soon, and I'm very much looking forward to it.