Sunday, May 19, 2013
2013 Taxi!
It's 2013. We are still working to bring Taxi! back to the people of Vancouver and beyond.
This Taxi! fan just won the Amazon.ca First Novel Award for her novel Malarky and was proud to acknowledge the importance of the continuum of literature and tell the audience about Taxi! and acknowledge the writers: Helen Potrebenko, Renee Rodin and Judith Copithorne for their influence and importance to my work and life as a reader. Helen was vital in helping me complete Malarky and I would like to publicly thank her for her supreme generousity and also consistent gardening advice.
We will be planning more Taxi! interventions.
Last night at the fundraiser for CWILA I was most excited to meet a scholar Li Wei from China who had written about Taxi! in China and who knew about the importance of this novel. We also sold 4 copies of Taxi! and that means 4 new Taxi! readers.
It takes a nation to bring this book back to the kitchen table, please continue to support this quest.
If you are a teacher or a book club or even a generous patron who wishes to sponsor the purchase of this important Vancouver novel for distribution into communities (libraries, schools) please contact me at mrsokana@gmail.com
Helen's other novel Sometimes They Sang is now back in print thanks to Publication Studio Vancouver you may purchase it here:
Sincerely, Anakana Schofield.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Parataxis: the ride THIS SUNDAY!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Hey Waitress featured in Vancouver Art Gallery exhibit.
Exciting Taxi! event happening for Workers Day May 1st.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Author Helen Potrebenko @ Taxi! Intervention
Taxi! Performance Art interventions
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Organize your own Taxi! event
New Taxi readers we want to hear from you! Organise your own Taxi! event
Map appeal encore
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Taxi event at VPL astonishing success: big love from Taxi! readers
Taxi! in National Post
Alberta-born author Helen Potrebenko published her first novel, Taxi!, in 1975. The book, published shortly after her move to Vancouver from Alberta, told of the struggles of a female cab driver making her way in B.C.'s largest city.
35 years after it hit shelves, Anakana Schofield, another Vancouver writer, is organizing an event to bring some attention to the book, which has fallen off CanLit's radar.
"It's part of a "recovery project," says Schofield, "and perhaps a post-Olympian reclaim your city prod. As in - here is your long forgot city literature, take it, possess it, it's yours."
The event takes place in Vancouver tomorrow night, and will feature contributions and readings from Annabel Lyon,. Michael Turner, Clint Burnham and several others, as well as a Q&A with the author.
"Taxi! was the first work of fiction I read that was set in Vancouver and the first from the perspective of a working class woman", says Michael Turner. "Although I recognized the city I grew up in, I was (through the eyes of Potrebenko's female protagonist) taken to places in an order I was not familiar with, in ways I had not yet imagined. As a man, I could walk through walls to get what I wanted. Potrebenko reminded me that not all narrators are men, and that for a woman to negotiate her way through civic space requires many more fares than her masculine counterpart."
"I was struck by the intelligence and the humour and the sass of Taxi!." says Annabel Lyon. "And because my partner drives a cab, so much of it hit close to home. It's a sharp, edgy book, pure Vancouver, and deserves not to be forgotten."
Aside from a one night fete for the book, Schofield hopes to get it back into the CanLit canon: "Taxi! is both a vital Vancouver novel and a unique working class literary work that we hope to see taught in universities and schools again and acknowledged for it's contribution to the Canadian literary canon rather than forgotten about."
• "Taxi! @ 35" takes place on Thursday April 29, at 7:30 p.m. at Vancouver's The Central Library (350 West Georgia Street). Admission is free. For more information visit Anakana Schofield's blog.Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/afterword/archive/2010/04/28/deserves-not-to-be-forgotten-writers-hail-helen-potrebenko-s-taxi.aspx#ixzz0mqFUj1oG
Friday, March 26, 2010
Good & Strong: Taxi @ 35 Vancouver Public Library event
Thursday April 29, 7:30 p.m.
Alma VanDusen and Peter Kaye Rooms, Lower Level
Central Library, 350 West Georgia St.
Admission is free. Seating is limited.
Vancouverites hail Helen Potrebenko’s classic Taxi!
35 years after Taxi! first revved up Vancouver literature, join us to celebrate this fine novel. Taxi! is a novel about a woman and a worker in a city. Our city, your city, your literature.
A diverse group of local writers will read excerpts and offer contributions:
Annabel Lyon, Clint Burnham, Julianne Okot Bitek, Penny Goldsmith, Marina Roy, Michael Turner, Anakana Schofield and Cúán Isamu.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Helen Potrebenko in SubTerrain
Helen was also featured recently on SFU radio.
Taxi! readers rejoice at this much deserved focus on Helen Potrebenko's work.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Taxi! Event VPL : Good and Strong: Taxi! @ 35
Good and Strong: Taxi! @ 35
Local writers will read extracts from the novel Taxi! and there will be a Q&A with author Helen Potrebenko.
More details to come.
Mark your calendars, please come and join us and share your experience of reading Taxi! or come and become revved up on a classic Vancouver novel.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Taxi! 2010
Friday, October 16, 2009
French Taxi
http://mrsokana.wordpress.com/lecteur-la-grele-cette-voiture-taxi-par-helen-potrebenko/
Corrections and improvements welcome! Would Shannon become Simone or Sylvie?
Joe le taxi to follow.
Taxi tunes
Billie Holiday
Billy Bragg
Bob Dylan
Dixie Chicks
Dolly Parton
Ella Fitzgerald
Hazel and Alice
Joan Baez
K.D. Lang
Leonard Cohen
Mildred Bailey
The New Seekers
Nina Simone
Odetta
Paul Robeson
Pete Seeger
Rita Coolidge
Rita McNeil
Roy Forbes
Stan Rogers