interview

British Columbia writer Margaret Gunning just published her third novel, The Glass Character, with Thistledown Press. Gunning, a long-time print journalist, columnist and reviewer, as well as a poet, has written two previous novels, Better than Life and Mallory. She recently took the time to sit down in her office in Coquitlam, B.C., to answer questions […]

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Andrea Raine is a local Victoria author and University of Victoria alumna. She has participated in the Glenairley writing retreats led by Canadian writer Patrick Lane in Sooke, B.C. and has been attending the Planet Earth Poetry reading series since 1997. She published her first book of poetry, A Mother’s String, in 2005 through Ekstatis […]

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“I always wanted to make something with language,” Catherine Bush once commented about her early love for reading and writing. Bush’s four acclaimed novels include Accusation, Claire’s Head, The Rules of Engagement and Minus Time. Bush, who has also worked as an arts journalist, has taught creative writing at several universities. She is the co-ordinator […]

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By Michael Luis After meeting in 1976 in Berkeley, California, guitarist Charlie Baty and vocalist/harmonica player Rick Estrin formed Little Charlie and the Nightcats. After taking their modern take on Chicago-style blues all over the world for over 30 years, Baty retired in 2008, but Estrin has continued to tour and record with his namesake. […]

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By Liz Snell Bruce Kirkby looks like a typical surfer dude: tall and tan, with a ready smile and grown-out blond hair. The Kimberley, B.C. writer, explorer, and photographer is certainly familiar with the ocean; he recently paddle- boarded from Vancouver to Victoria over four days, enlisting a high school student to film the trip. […]

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Katrin Horowitz is a Victoria writer whose second novel, The Best Soldier’s Wife (Quadra Books, 184 pages, $21.95,) was a finalist in Mother Tongue Publishing’s second Great B.C. Novel Contest. Horowitz’s protagonist Amy Malcolm, whose husband volunteered to serve in Afghanistan, writes a series of letters to the wife of the Chief of Defence Staff, […]

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By Liz Snell Emily McGiffin’s bright-eyed, earnest face contained no pretension. She spoke her poems with confident resonance, but also vulnerability, as if they were letters written to a close friend, not intended for everyone else in the room. She seems like the kind of person you’d meet in a small town or on a […]

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Ontario artist Alec Dempster was born in Mexico but moved to Canada with his family when he was five years old. He recently came out with a unique two-fold expression of his heritage with the book Lotería Jarocha: Linoleum Prints, published by The Porcupine’s Quill, and with the CD, Nuevos Caminos A Santiago (New Roads […]

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Journalist Cathi Bond divides her time between the streets of Toronto and the fields of rural Ontario. With her lively focus on contemporary culture and the Internet, Bond was a columnist on Definitely Not The Opera (DNTO) with Nora Young, and is a regular contributor to Spark, both on CBC Radio. She also does movie […]

Poet Marita Dachsel is the author of the new collection Glossolalia, and of the previous collection All Things Said & Done. Glossolalia is a re-imagining of the lives and voices of the 34 wives of Mormon founder Joseph Smith. Julian Gunn interviewed Daschel at the end of April for the Coastal Spectator. See the poet’s […]