Electric Mermaid Live Reads: Featuring Ronna Bloom @Char's

Date:

Wednesday, January 28, 2026 - 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Venue:

Char's Landing

4815 Argyle Street, Port Alberni

Contact:

[email protected]

Electric Mermaid: Live Reads from Char's Landing, Port Alberni, Vancouver Island, BC, Canada

Emcee: Derek Hanebury Moderator: Karl Korven ZOOM Producer: Charlene Patterson

Spoken Word Open Mic at Char's Landing, last Wednesday of each month

ZOOM Hybrid event. Char's physical doors open 5:30pm Pacific Time

Electric Mermaid Live Reads: Featuring Ronna Bloom @Char's

Wednesday January 28th 2026 doors 5:30pm open mic 6-8pm

LIVE VIDEO => https://youtu.be/Qjisv3ztOxw

Register and pay what you can => https://events.humanitix.com/electricmermaid-ronnabloom-charslanding-portalberni

AVNews => https://albernivalleynews.com/2026/01/21/ronna-bloom-gives-new-meaning-to-poetry-at-electric-mermaid/

FULL BIO

Ronna Bloom is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently A Possible Trust: The Poetry of Ronna Bloom, Selected with an Introduction by Phil Hall published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Her work has been broadcast on the CBC, recorded by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, translated into Bangla and Chinese, and shortlisted for several Canadian literary awards.

Ronna has led initiatives to bring poetry into health care settings and into health professional education. She created the Poet in Community program at the University of Toronto and developed the first Poet in Residence program at Sinai Health. In these roles she offered students, staff, and health care professionals opportunities to articulate their experiences through poetry and reflective writing. She is a frequent guest speaker at universities, hospitals, community groups and institutions across Ontario.

Ronna runs workshops, mentors writers, and gives talks on poetry, spontaneity, presence. In her spontaneous poetry booths, she writes and prescribes poems on the spot. She brings twenty five years of psychotherapy practice to her work as a poet and facilitator.

A one minute film based on Ronna’s poem “Grief Without Fantasy” was made by filmmaker Midi Onodera and screened at the National Gallery in Ottawa. In a collaboration with PLANT Architects, her poem "The City" was painted 30 meters long on King Street in Toronto for the summer of 2018.

In 2025, Ronna’s new collection will be published by Brick Books called, In a Riptide.

FMI and BOOK purchases => www.ronnabloom.com

JANUARY 28TH READERS' LIST

READER 01 Herb Bryce. 5 min Via zoom ( Maple Ridge B.C)

READER 02 Lesli Omohumdro - Bronczowski 5 min Via zoom ( Germany)

Featur 1 Ronna Bloom via zoom 20min +10 min Q&A (Toronto Ont)

READER 03 Steve Novik 5 min in person Port Alberni B.C)

READER 04 Kathleen Vance 5 min via zoom ( Gibsons B.C. )

READER 05Peg/Neal Evans 5 min in Person (Port AlbernI BC)

READER 06 David Kippling 5 min Via zoom (Gibsons B.C)

READER 07 Vicki Drybough 5 min in Person (Port Alberni BC)

READER 08 Jennifer Wenn 5 min via zoom (London Ont)