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An assistant professor at the UBC's School of Creative Writing, John Vigna of Richmond, B.C. was previously a sessional faculty member at the University of the Fraser Valley where he taught business writing. He also worked as an advertising copywriter and taught fiction and literary non-fiction at Douglas College.
Vigna attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and completed his Master of Fine Arts at UBC in the Creative Writing Program. His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in various publications and anthologies, including Georgia Straight, Vancouver Sun, The Province, Banff Crag & Canyon, The Canmore Leader, Event, sub-Terrain, The Antigonish Review, Alberta Views, The Dalhousie Review, and Exact Fare 2: Stories of Public Transportation. His personal essay, "The Ballad of Big and Small," first appeared in Grain Magazine and later in the Banff Literary Journalism anthology Cabin Fever: The Best in New Canadian Non-fiction (Thomas Allen, 2009), Ed., Moira Farr and Ian Pearson. He lives in Steveston with his wife, the writer Nancy Lee.
Vigna's debut story collection Bull Head (Arsenal, 2012) contains eight linked stories. When a truck driver seeks sanctuary from his abusive wife in a fantasy world of strip clubs and personal ads, Vigna writes, "He slammed the gas pedal to the floor; the cruel rush of night air blasted his face. The fuel light flashed red. He turned off the headlights, and sped faster, the wind screaming in his ears as he lifted his hands off the steering wheel and hurtled through the darkness." The collection was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Award for the best first English-language collection of short fiction by a Canadian author published in 2012.
Publisher's promo: "A line-dancing aficionado visits his brother in jail in hopes of mending their relationship, and instead discovers his own unwitting role in his brother's failed life. After the death of his wife and children, a logger tries to survive the Thanksgiving weekend on his own. A delinquent teen's life is changed forever by a work-camp placement with a violent older boy... Bristling with restlessness and brutality, the eight linked stories in Bull Head catapult readers into the gritty lives of social outcasts lost in purgatories of their own making. John Vigna tempers raw and at times cruel rural masculinity with graceful prose and breathtaking tenderness to illuminate the plight of men living in small towns and backwoods who belong neither to history nor the future. A startling homage to the great Southern Gothic tradition, Bull Head is a dazzling debut that heralds a powerful and exciting new literary voice."
Bull Head was later published in France by Éditions Albin Michel in 2017. In the same year, Vigna was named one of 10 writers to watch by CBC Books.
Vigna's second novel, No Man's Land (Arsenal, 2021) is set in the late 1890's in B.C.'s wilderness. Fourteen-year-old Davey is being raised by a group of eccentric misfits who rescued her from a bloody battlefield. Together they roam the countryside led by Reverend Brown, a charismatic false prophet. From the publisher's notes: "No Man's Land is an unflinching meditation on the legacy of violence, its senseless destructiveness, and the fearless dignity and tenderness to rise above it."
AWARDS:
Dave Greber Award for Freelance Writers
First Prize for Creative Non-Fiction awarded by Kootenay Writer's Guild
2007 First Prize for the Sub Terrain Lush Triumphant Fiction Contest.
BOOKS:
Bull Head (Arsenal, 2012/Éditions Albin Michel, 2017) $15.95 978-1-55152-490-0
No Man's Land (Arsenal, 2021) $22.95 978-1-55152-866-3
[BCBW 2021]
Vigna attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and completed his Master of Fine Arts at UBC in the Creative Writing Program. His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in various publications and anthologies, including Georgia Straight, Vancouver Sun, The Province, Banff Crag & Canyon, The Canmore Leader, Event, sub-Terrain, The Antigonish Review, Alberta Views, The Dalhousie Review, and Exact Fare 2: Stories of Public Transportation. His personal essay, "The Ballad of Big and Small," first appeared in Grain Magazine and later in the Banff Literary Journalism anthology Cabin Fever: The Best in New Canadian Non-fiction (Thomas Allen, 2009), Ed., Moira Farr and Ian Pearson. He lives in Steveston with his wife, the writer Nancy Lee.
Vigna's debut story collection Bull Head (Arsenal, 2012) contains eight linked stories. When a truck driver seeks sanctuary from his abusive wife in a fantasy world of strip clubs and personal ads, Vigna writes, "He slammed the gas pedal to the floor; the cruel rush of night air blasted his face. The fuel light flashed red. He turned off the headlights, and sped faster, the wind screaming in his ears as he lifted his hands off the steering wheel and hurtled through the darkness." The collection was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Award for the best first English-language collection of short fiction by a Canadian author published in 2012.
Publisher's promo: "A line-dancing aficionado visits his brother in jail in hopes of mending their relationship, and instead discovers his own unwitting role in his brother's failed life. After the death of his wife and children, a logger tries to survive the Thanksgiving weekend on his own. A delinquent teen's life is changed forever by a work-camp placement with a violent older boy... Bristling with restlessness and brutality, the eight linked stories in Bull Head catapult readers into the gritty lives of social outcasts lost in purgatories of their own making. John Vigna tempers raw and at times cruel rural masculinity with graceful prose and breathtaking tenderness to illuminate the plight of men living in small towns and backwoods who belong neither to history nor the future. A startling homage to the great Southern Gothic tradition, Bull Head is a dazzling debut that heralds a powerful and exciting new literary voice."
Bull Head was later published in France by Éditions Albin Michel in 2017. In the same year, Vigna was named one of 10 writers to watch by CBC Books.
Vigna's second novel, No Man's Land (Arsenal, 2021) is set in the late 1890's in B.C.'s wilderness. Fourteen-year-old Davey is being raised by a group of eccentric misfits who rescued her from a bloody battlefield. Together they roam the countryside led by Reverend Brown, a charismatic false prophet. From the publisher's notes: "No Man's Land is an unflinching meditation on the legacy of violence, its senseless destructiveness, and the fearless dignity and tenderness to rise above it."
AWARDS:
Dave Greber Award for Freelance Writers
First Prize for Creative Non-Fiction awarded by Kootenay Writer's Guild
2007 First Prize for the Sub Terrain Lush Triumphant Fiction Contest.
BOOKS:
Bull Head (Arsenal, 2012/Éditions Albin Michel, 2017) $15.95 978-1-55152-490-0
No Man's Land (Arsenal, 2021) $22.95 978-1-55152-866-3
[BCBW 2021]
