Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Organize your own Taxi! event

All over Canada people are reading Taxi! these days. And these people are feeling Good & Strong.

You too can join this joyful bundle. Why don't you organize a Taxi! event? You don't even need a location, have one in your sitting room, all you need is a copy of Taxi! and some good readers or middling ones with spirit.

Send us pics of everyone reading and feeling Good & Strong.

Take it to the bridge! Taxi! events are affordable and fun. Hail your own.

Go to Lazarapress.ca to order Taxi! Remember there are perhaps 600-700 copies left, then that's it.

New Taxi readers we want to hear from you! Organise your own Taxi! event

Taxi! has gathered new readers in recent months and we want to hear from you!

Share some thoughts on the book and what reading or rereading it meant to you or anything you wish to remark on about the book and we'll try publish it here.

Also I did start a group on facebook called have you read Taxi!? We could use a wikipedia page if someone wanted to make one about Helen's work.

There also needs to be more events to celebrate the book especially in other parts of Canada. St John's, Halifax, Campbell River, Edmonton, Rio, Kashmir, Ballina, where are you? Get a bunch of people together to read Taxi! aloud, add a bit of music and voila you'll all feel Good & Strong. I'll be happy to share the successful format of our recent event at the Vancouver Public Library if you drop me a line.


Map appeal encore

I still wish someone would map the locations mention in Taxi! somehow, either on google maps or some other map interface. Map them as they are described in the book, then take a wander and snap what they've become.

One day I promise to go on a wander and try to see what semblance of the city was and is now in Taxi!

Up for the task? Want to do a chapter? email the results to mrsokana@gmail.com

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Taxi event at VPL astonishing success: big love from Taxi! readers

The Taxi! event at the Vancouver Public Library was an astonishing night. Thank you so much to Taxi! readers old and new for coming out and showing such big love to our event. The attendance was very high, the participation was lovely and the readers: Bryant Ibbitson, Annabel Lyon, Penny Goldsmith, Clint Burnham, Julie Okot Bitek and Marina Roy were astonishing. The event's musical compositions by Cuan Isamu will be uploaded to the blog very shortly.

Helen described the night as "wonderful, a very special kind of evening".

We all agreed the prose was stronger than ever. Taxi! is a great book, give a copy to a friend, spread the word, organize your own event. I will be happy to supply our original Taxi! music composed by Cuan.

If you attended the event please send your descriptions and comments to mrsokana@gmail.com and we can upload them here.

Taxi! in National Post

Deserves not to be forgotten: Writers hail Helen Potrebenkos Taxi!

Deserves not to be forgotten': Writers hail Helen Potrebenko's 'Taxi!'
Posted: April 28, 2010, 12:30 PM by Brad Frenette

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


VPL Event poster below (click to enlarge)

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

Taxi! author Helen Potrebenko has been included in SubTerrain's double issue on Vancouver's Literary Landscape. SubTerrain is available on newstands.

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

There will be an event at The Vancouver Public Library (CENTRAL BRANCH) - Thurs April 29, 2010. 7.30pm - 9pm in the downstairs Alice McKay room:

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.