When We Are Broken: The Lake Elegy

Tickets: $15 There is a 50-person capacity so we encourage you to BOOK EARLY!

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED AND MAY BE POSTPONED TO A LATER DATE Ticket holders have been notified. Please contact the Box Office boxoffice@capitoltheatre.ca if you are a ticket holder and did not receive an email on November 20th.

Ktunaxa ?amak'is - "The People's Land"

Luanne Armstrong's latest project When We Are Broke: The Lake Elegy is a poetry and photography book and multi-media presentations.

This project features poetry and photography by Luanne Armstrong. The photography is curated by book designer, Warren Clark and the technical arrangements are by musician Gary Deatherage. The film features poetry and photographs created over a year, during the process of Luanne's daily walks, on land where she has now lived for almost seventy years. The meditations are about new life, beauty and writing, as well as aging and pain. The title refers to many things: love and friendship, how light breaks over land and water, flowers break open, the wind breaks over the mountains, and as well, people age, bodies give out, relationships break, along with hearts. The poems are not about the photos, nor are the photos about the poem. They each have a separate artistic life.


Both the book and the film step outside the strictures of genre, to create a new innovative form. Luanne will introduce the film and be present for questions, and the books are available for sale at Otter Books.

Luanne Armstrong holds a Ph.D in Education and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She has written twenty- three books, and has co-written or edited many other books through to publication. She has published several novels, children's books, memoir and books of essays, as well as poetry.

She mentors emerging writers both online and in person. She presently mentors two writing groups in Creston BC. Most recently, she had edited through to publication a book by Ellen Burt, of Nelson BC. Previous to that, she has helped many many authors to either self-publish or find a publisher.

One of her most notable editing projects was The Yaqan Nukiy, with Chief (Nasookin) Chris Luke, Senior, of the Yaqan Nukiy Lower Kootenay Band of the Ktunaxa Nation. She will also be helping to curate a session of First Nations films for the Seventh Station Film Festival in Creston BC, in November 2021.

Her most recent book is A Bright and Steady Flame, from Caitlin Press, 2018. Her new book of essays is Going to Ground: Being in Place. A new YA book is also in process.