Coastal Spectator

Harris examines what has been lost in Internet age

April 25, 2024

The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection By Michael Harris Published by HarperCollins 243 pages, $29.99 Reviewed by JoAnn Dionne I loved The End of Absence the moment I heard of it, sometime late last summer, through an email linking to the Can-Lit website 49th Shelf.com. As the […]

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Editor-writer recognized for cultural work

April 23, 2024

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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Belfry Theatre’s Chekhov blend goes down smoothly

April 22, 2024

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike By Christopheer Durang Directed by Michael Shamata The Belfry Theatre April 14 - May 17, 2024 Reviewed by Joy Fisher Playwright Christopher Durang admits there are echoes of Chekov in his 2013 Tony Award-winning play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. He likes to say he’s taken […]

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Friesen explores life of Crazy Bone in new long poem

April 21, 2024

Patrick Friesen is an award-winning author, formerly from Winnipeg, now living in Victoria. He was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for poetry and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize in 1998 and 2003 and won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award in Manitoba in 1996 and the ReLit Award for Poetry in 2012. He adapted […]

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Mother’s loss to dementia inspires personal essay collection

April 16, 2024

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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Adderson reveals the dramatic, messy world of Ellen

April 15, 2024

Caroline Adderson’s novel Ellen in Pieces has been nominated for a 2015 B.C. Book Prize. She is the author of three previous novels, A History of Forgetting, Sitting Practice, and The Sky is Falling, two collections of short stories, Bad Imaginings and Pleased to Meet You. A two-time winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, […]

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Zombie tale served with literary twist

April 13, 2024

All Day Breakfast By Adam Lewis Schroeder Douglas and McIntyre 378 pages, $22.95 Reviewed by Aaron Shepard Zombies, as cultural icons go, are surprisingly durable and versatile: they can do straight-up horror or gross-out comedy horror. And they seem to have something more to say about us humans than the one-note, sexy vampires. Their shambling […]

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Robertson talks reviews, novels and life post-Wallflowers

April 8, 2024

Eliza Robertson’s debut collection of short stories, Wallflowers (Hamish Hamilton), has been praised in Canada, across the Atlantic and in the United States, with The New York Times calling it captivating. In recent years Robertson, a B.C.-born graduate of the University of Victoria, won the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the piece “We Walked on Water,” was a finalist […]

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Artful folk suffuses Mike Edel’s second album

April 7, 2024

Mike Edel India, Seattle Cordova Bay Records Produced by Colin Stewart, Jason Cook and Mike Edel Reviewed by Chris Ho It’s hard to believe it has been four years since the release of Mike Edel’s debut album The Last of Our Mountains – a debut that earned the Victoria folk singer-songwriter national recognition with […]

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Writers, publishers and booksellers unite for Read Local

March 31, 2024

In April, 23 publishers, 300 authors, 50 bookstores and 40 libraries will unite to celebrate the talent of British Columbia’s writers. Events for Read Local B.C. will take place throughout the province until April 22—from Victoria to Vancouver, Tofino to Fernie, Williams Lake to Haida Gwaii. It’s an initiative of the Association of Book Publishers […]

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