In 1996, Tanya Evanson founded Mother Tongue Media (MTM). MTM grew into a marketing and arts production machine that dedicated itself to supporting local independent arts and artists in Canada. Mother Tongue Media’s first project was to design, publish, promote and sell Tanya’s first chapbook of poetry entitled Blood in, Blood out (1996). Further poetry and short story chapbooks followed. MTM went on to produce Clicking Tongues, a monthly spoken word series featuring radical women of colour, which ran in Montreal, QC from 1996 to 1997. After lengthy travels in South America, Tanya moved to Vancouver, BC in 1998 where, as MTM, she produced, promoted and hosted the weekly spoken word series Tales of Ordinary Madness in 2000-01. Enthusiasm for this event attracted professional writers and performers from across Canada and the U.S. In 2001, MTM co-produced Conscious Development: a bi-monthly event with featured and open mic spoken word artists backed by a live, improvised Jazz and Hip Hop band (see image on right). During that same year, MTM co-produced Transmetaphoria-Black Poetics with Vanessa Richards of Mannafest: a successful night of African-Canadian spoken word and live music in a club setting. After a travel hiatus in 2002-3, MTM returned full force as a booking agent for local Vancouver Jazz and World Music groups and as producer of the 7-day Under the Griot Tree arts festival for Vancouver's 2004 Black History Month. During that same year, MTM produced and promoted Tanya's Invisible World CD: this was to be MTM's last production before Tanya's departure for Turkey, where she now resides. Look out for more Mother Tongue Media action in the near future...