Events › Writer’s Logbook: Process and Documentation with Phoebe Wang

This class borrows from the function of the ship’s log or logbook which records weather, coordinates, operations events and emergencies during voyages. Historical examples of science and travel writing, along with a range of contemporary journals will provide students will examples of perspective, pacing and episodic structure. Class exercises will provide writers will many uses for the logbook, from tracking process to exploring voice to balancing action with introspection. 

This class will also briefly present the value of a creative logbook as material, documentation and as archive, along with practices for writers to create timelines and to catalogues for posterity. Documentation of the creative process can shift a writers’ perspective of that process and their work, in that it acknowledges context and longevity. Logbooks place emphasis upon the positionality of future readers, and the relationship of the work to time and place.

This class is supported by the Canadian Poetry Fund, a local donor-advised fund which fosters accessible public education outreach for poetry and other forms of creative writing

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PHOEBE WANG (she/her) is a first generation Chinese-Canadian writer and educator from the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe in Ottawa, Ontario. She is the author of two poetry collections: Admission Requirements (McClelland and Stewart, 2017), nominated for the Trillium Book Award; and Waking Occupations (McClelland and Stewart, 2022). Her essay collection, Relative to Wind was published with Assembly Press in fall 2024. She is a mentor with the University of Toronto Creative Writing MA program, a sessional instructor in creative nonfiction at University of Toronto Mississauga, and a Writing Consultant supporting multilingual students at OCAD University.

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Accessibility: VPL is committed to making our programs accessible for all. If you have an access need that we have not addressed here, please email us at programs@vpl.ca.

• Elevator access to the Alice MacKay Room is available in the concourse near the bank machine.
• There will be designated spaces for wheelchairs and patrons with mobility devices.
• Quiet Tables are available for patrons who would prefer to enjoy the class without talking to others.

For more information on physical access, view the Accessibility information on the Central Library page.