Calgary Herald: “For 60-something Brian Brett, who grew up on the east side of Vancouver but now calls the pastoral idyll of Salt Spring Island home, that extends all the way to what language you perform your poetry in. That’s because this past week, where Brett is one of the faculty members of the Spoken Word Workshop at the Banff Centre.”

Marketwire: “The Government of Canada has provided funding of $210,000 for the 2011–2012, 2012–2013, and 2013–2014 editions of WordFest through the Canada Arts Presentation Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage.”

Geist: Stephen Osborne discusses his experience attending the In(ter)ventions literary conference in at The Banff Centre. “The writ­ers’ con­fer­ence went on for three days of talks, from morn­ing to night: read­ings, per­for­mances, pre­sen­ta­tions, ple­nary ses­sions. The sched­ule was not as bur­den­some as it might have been else­where, for in Banff there is noth­ing to call you away from wher­ever you are: in Banff you are always already there.”

The Governor General of Canada: “Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, will preside over an Order of Canada investiture ceremony at Rideau Hall, on Friday, September 3, 2010. The Governor General, who is Chancellor and Principal Companion of the Order, will bestow the honour on four Companions, 19 Officers and 30 Members.”

Among the new Members is Jay Ingram, who “has pioneered programs devoted entirely to science on both national radio and television, and has been sought out to train new generations of journalists as chair of the Banff Centre’s science communications program.”

Calgary Herald: An interview with Spoken Word faculty member Regie Cabico. “London and Canada are very exciting now, especially because of Banff. I’m faculty there, and it’s still a new art form — nobody knows how to teach it! … I mean, eventually there will be a United Nations of Spoken Word. And the headquarters will be — at Banff !”

CBC News: “Toronto journalist Ian Brown has won British Columbia’s National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, Canada’s richest non-fiction prize. Brown, a Globe and Mail writer, won for his moving story about life with his disabled son, The Boy in the Moon: A Father’s Search for His Disabled Son.”

Brown is Rogers Communication Chair of Literary Journalism.

The Latest Word: Author of Generation X, JPod, and other novels will be appearing on October 17.

Calgary Herald: “For the past 20 years, eight journalists have gathered in the mountains to spend a month challenging the boundaries of non-fiction writing. Hunkered down at the Banff Centre’s literary journalism program, the chosen applicants are paid to polish a piece of writing under the watchful eye of their peers and a small group of editors against the peaceful backdrop of the Canadian Rockies. Not bad work if you can get it and the program has often seemed a ‘well-kept secret’ that has spread mostly through word of mouth among journalists, says current chair and past participant Marni Jackson. This might change after the release of Cabin Fever: The Best New Canadian Non-Fiction, the fifth anthology from the program, which features some of the most daring work from the centre of the past six years.”