Having over the keys to a poetry festival you’ve created can be a nerve-wracking experience, unless the people given the keys are BETTER DRIVERS! Huge thanks to the Nanaimo, BC, local organizing committee for making the 3rd Cascadia Poetry Festival a huge success in every way imaginable. Thank you:

David Fraser, Kim Clark, Mary Ann Moore, Ann Graham Walker, Kim Goldberg, Yvonne Blomer, Jay Ruzesky, Ursula Vaira, Brandon Letsinger, Naomi Beth Wakan, Leanne McIntosh, Shaleeta Harper, Philip Gordon.

Thanks also to VIU, the Painted Turtle Hostel in Nanaimo and all the sponsors. I’ve embeded festival videos on two main pages:

http://cascadiapoetryfestival.org/meet-our-2015-poets &

http://cascadiapoetryfestival.org/2015-nanaimo

A link to a story about the Festival’s Peter Culley tribute is here.

and the closing comments from David Fraser and I are here:

and will end this short note of appreciation with photo montages taken from images
Kim Goldberg created. It appears the fest will continue in Seattle, Fall 2016. If you want to help organize and be involved in the job of reconnecting North Cascadia with the South and determining where we live based on natural and cultural demarcations rather then political ones, get in touch. – Paul Nelson splabman (at) gmail (dot) com.