Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland
BIOGRAPHY
I am an author, theatre artist and arts educator with more than four decades of professional experience. As a theatre artist, I have toured with Second City doing improv comedy, played the Witch in Hansel and Gretl with the Honolulu Symphony and told my original stories at the Toronto International Storytelling Festival. My arts education credits include work with Learning Through the Arts, World Vision, and the Storytellers School of Toronto.
I am an author, theatre artist and arts educator with more than four decades of professional experience. As a theatre artist, I have toured with Second City doing improv comedy, played the Witch in Hansel and Gretl with the Honolulu Symphony and told my original stories at the Toronto International Storytelling Festival. My arts education credits include work with Learning Through the Arts, World Vision, and the Storytellers School of Toronto.
I served as Artistic Director of KPH Theater Productions in Miramichi, N.B. from 2012 to 2016, and along with my husband, Beverly Glenn Copeland, completed half a dozen artist residencies* in N.B. schools. I was honoured to serve as Writer-in-Residence* for James M. Hill High School in 2015. (*Funding support through NB Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture.)
In February 2016 I was part of the faculty at the San Miguel Writers Conference (San Miguel de Allende, Mexico), and led the creative writing workshop at the Knowlton Literary Festival in Knowlton, Quebec in October.
In 2017, I returned to Mount Allison University to indulge myself in two years of full time study of eco-poetry, feminist philosophy, sustainability in education and medieval studies. Thanks to MTA, in the summer of 2017 I completed a residency to research and create a one-act spoken-word play entitled, “Bearing Witness”.
During my tenure as 2018 Writer-in-Residence at Joggins Fossil Institute, I researched and wrote — “Daring to Hope at the Cliff’s Edge: Pangea’s Dream Remembered”: an art/science collaboration and conversation between myself and the three-hundred million year old rock. The theme: how to find what Buddhist eco-philosopher, Joanna Macy calls Active Hope as we stand at this cliff’s edge in our evolution as a species. The book was launched in Sackville, N.B. on Sept. 29, 2019 by Chapel Street Editions.
Due to covid, my cross country tour to promote this book was cancelled, but late 2020 saw a resurgence of interest in the work and its message of hope. I participated in the Writing for Change series launched by The Rose Theater in Brampton, ON. An exciting variation on this theme will be happening virtually on March 21 at The Rose with spoken-word artist extraordinaire, Ian Keteku.
Since moving to Spencers Island in Jan. 2021, I am making new writing and peforming friends and will be part of the Shipwright Sessions (Ships Company Theater) in Aug. 2021.
PUBLICATIONS
My short stories, personal essays and poems have been published in Resilience Magazine, Deep Times Journal, The Furious Gazelle, Circa – A Journal of Historical Fiction, Forge Journal, and Bread ‘n Molasses, among others.
My novella JAZZ: Nature’s Improvisation*, a coming-of-age story of an East Indian trans male is available through Quattro Books / Toronto.
My debut book of poetry, Daring to Hope at the Cliff’s Edge: Pangea’s Dream Remembered, a narrative eco-poem, was released in the summer of 2019 though Chapel Street Editions in association with Joggins Fossil Institute.
Descansos: A poet’s journal in tilting times appeared in Resilience Magazine / May 2020.
*To support LGBTQ students, several NB high schools have purchased copies of JAZZ for their libraries.
AWARDSTRAEH GNUL – Miranda’s Journey from the Great Forest won the 2014 Writer’s Federation of New Brunswick Y.A. Fiction Award (1st prize) for an excerpt from the novel.
JAZZ: Nature’s Improvisation won the 2014 Ken Klonsky Novella Prize and was shortlisted for the 2015 ReLit Award.
In 2018, I was awarded the Environmental Leadership Award for my work in the community of Sackville, N.B. around the topic of dealing effectively with the rising tide of eco-anxiety. One of the projects took place in our local middle school — The Earth Warriors Theatre Project brought together a group of students to collaboratively create a piece of theatre around the topic of climate change.
