Victoria resident Elaine Harvey published her first book of creative nonfiction with the North Saanich firm, Promontory Press , for Encounters on the Front Line. The press describes itself as “a traditional book publisher that doesn’t like the way the traditional industry has gone when it comes to being accessible to new authors.” Harvey describes herself […]
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Maurice Mierau’s most recent book, Detachment: An Adoption Memoir (Freehand Books), won the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Nonfiction in April. In the memoir, the author probes his domestic life after he and his wife adopt two Ukrainian brothers, aged three and five. The book is both unsentimental and passionate, sparked with moments of humour–a must-read. […]
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What better way to mark April as Poetry Month than to talk about Planet Earth Poetry? Known to its devotees as PEP, the series is one of the most influential poetry-reading successes in Canada. Planet Earth sponsors a wide range of established and emerging poets. It has bolstered many a flagging poetic spirit and fostered […]
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Third-generation British Columbia resident Betty Keller will receive the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence at the B.C. Book Prizes gala on April 25. Keller, who has edited almost a hundred books about British Columbia in her 40-year editing career, is an award-winning author herself, with biographies of such cultural figures as Pauline Johnson and Ernest Thompson […]
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Edmonton writer Myrl Coulter uses the personal essay to explore the passage of time and the loss of her mother to a rare form of dementia. Her book, A Year of Days, is published by University of Alberta Press, which is fitting as Coulter has a PhD from the U of A, where she taught […]
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No One to Tell: Breaking my Silence on Life in the RCMP By Janet Merlo, Edited by Leslie Vryenhoek Breakwater Books 218 pages, $24.95 Reviewed by Lynne Van Luven Journalist Linden MacIntyre encapsulates the essence of No One To Tell in his introduction: “The institution Janet Merlo went to work for in 1991 was a […]
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Saltspring author Kathy Page has had a most interesting fall: her latest book of short fiction Paradise and Elsewhere (John Metcalfe Books/Biblioasis,) was nominated for the Giller Prize, and her novel Alphabet, first published in 2004 and shortlisted for a Governor General’s Award in 2005, has been reissued in Canada by Biblioasis Books. Alphabet is […]
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In the fall, a lovely package arrived in the Coastal Spectator mailbox. It was a chapbook, This Dark, haiku by Tofino poet Joanna Streetly, illustrated by Tofino artist Marion Syme. Syme and writer Adrienne Mason are the owners of Postelsia Press, which published This Dark. Mason, who trained as a marine biologist, explains that the […]
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Renowned poet Patrick Lane will launch his new book of poetry, Washita, at Open Space in Victoria on Nov. 2, 2014 at 7 p.m. The event is co-sponsored by Planet Earth Poetry. Lane recently took time from his writing schedule to talk with Lynne Van Luven about the sere surprises of his most recent poems, […]
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Gone South and Other Ways to Disappear, Julia Leggett’s debut collection of short stories (Mother Tongue Publishing, 188 pages, $19.95) is both polished and compelling. She was born in Calgary, but grew up in Zimbabwe, which she left at age 18. Leggett makes her home in Victoria now and is pursuing a master’s degree in […]
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