On April 3rd from 6-8 pm The Vault Cafe, 499 Wallace St in Nanaimo, hosted the Grub Street Reading Series sponsored by local micro chapbook poetry press A Square House.
The press is run by co-founders Jesslyn, a writer and collage artist, and Dalton Derkson. Dalton is published by Book*Hug Press, co-host of Into The Void on CHLY, and an MFA graduate in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph.
The April 3rd event featured readings from two local writers and students of the VIU Creative Writing program: Masha Zhaksybek and Lee Groen. There was also an open mic.
Lee Groen is a graduating Creative Writing student who received the Pat Bevan Scholarship, a Meadowlarks Award for fiction, and the Touchwood Editions award for publishing. He published the story “The Lucky Ones” in the 2021 issue of Portal and his story “A Star Walked South” and his nonfiction piece “The Last Powderman” appeared in Portal’s 2024 issue, for which he was a Fiction Editor.
His work has also been published in GOOEY, The Navigator, and Sea & Cedar. He was a reporter for The Navigator, Co-Managing Editor of Portal 2025, and his poem “What You Know” and review of Not Anywhere, Just Not appeared in that issue.
A Square House is publishing his poetry chapbook A Little Something Extra this spring. Web copy announcing it says it is “dreamy and devasting…and spans the cosmos, the sea, and the rest of the worlds we make up in our minds.” A portion of all sales is donated to Literacy Central Vancouver Island providing accessible literacy programming in the Nanaimo community.
“It’s good for the local arts community, I think, to have outlets for poets like myself who really like weird, experimental, and subversive poetry,” said Groen. A Square House is “more grassroots” and an outlet for poets who are still developing their voice and style. Groen praised Grub Street’s ability to draw people in and create something organic and authentic.
Groen said the relationship between VIU’s Creative Writing program and the city’s arts scene is symbiotic. “They rely on each other. I think without Nanaimo’s art scene, the program wouldn’t be what it is, and without the CREW program at VIU, the art scene wouldn’t be what it is.”
Masha Zhaksybek is a third-year VIU student majoring in English with a minor in Creative Writing. Her nonfiction “Borrowed Time” and short story “Don’t Fence Me In” were published in Portal 2025. Zhaksybek said the reading series showcases a variety of people and balances supporting emerging talents with more established names.
Grub Street “and their aesthetic is so down to earth. It feels very welcoming of all genres of poetry. It was cool seeing how different everyone’s poetry was at the open mic,” said Zhaksybek.
“There is a scene here; there’s so many people out there who want to read or perform their work. It just takes these kinds of events and spaces for people to do that, which I think is awesome.”
For upcoming readings check out The Vault’s Instagram page.
