Read Local BC

Book Launch: Arleen Pare and Barbara Pelman
2023-11-09 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Vancouver) | Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1Y2, Canada
Please join Munro’s Books for the launch of new books by two beloved local poets!
Award-winning poet Arleen Pare’s latest collection, Absence of Wings, is both an intimate family portrait and a public documentation of how we, as a society, can fail to protect our children.
Absence of Wings depicts the extraordinary and tragically foreshortened life of A.—Paré’s niece, Brazilian, adopted, racialized, and living with multiple mental health diagnoses. In her deft and clear poetics, accompanied by documentary pieces in the tradition of C.D. Wright’s One with Others, Paré is both witness to and emotionally engaged in the life and death of A. The result is deep and heart-felt, both factional and fictional, poetry and prose, holding its subject, A., heart-close and 3,000 miles away. Absence of Wings unfolds on many levels; it embraces the private and public spheres; it is as intimate as family, as worldly as the public and personal politics that surround each life. It both observes and embraces, always with the important question of the world’s unprotected children in mind.
In A Brief and Endless Sea, award-winning poet Barbara Pelman presents a life lived in poetry, delving into the small moments and spaces containing the greatest offerings of love, hope and possibility.
Born out of waiting out the lockdown during the early days of the pandemic, Barbara Pelman’s A Brief and Endless Sea explores a life in retrospect, beginning with a high school typing class and ending with the Angel Purah, cutting the ties that bind a soul to a body. Many of the poems in this collection are rooted in Jewish tradition: the prophet Isaiah’s words of comfort; the rabbinical story of the Lost Princess, that angel and her counterpart, the Angel Duma. Pelman takes us to difficult places—the dissolution of a marriage, caring for a parent with dementia. But she doesn’t leave us there, waiting. Using the power of words to map a route out, A Brief and Endless Sea pulls us toward life in all of its vibrant details—the simple beauty of a small garden of tomatoes and roses, the pleasures of teaching poetry, long walks with a grandson, and encounters with spirituality. For Pelman, there is comfort in the making of a poem and in the “smallest life you can love.” Like the glosa form she turns to often, something small transforms into something larger, expansive. In A Brief and Endless Sea, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and waiting in itself presents fertile ground for hope and possibility.
WHEN: Thursday, November 9th at 7PM (doors at 6:30)
WHERE: In-store at Munro’s Books, 1108 Government St.
WHAT: A reading and Q&A with Arleen Pare and Barbara Pelman.
HOW: This event is free to attend.

Book Launch: Blue Camas, Blue Camas by Danielle S. Marcotte
2023-11-19 13:00 - 14:30 | Black Bond Books – Ladner, 5251 Ladner Trunk Road, Ladner, BC, V4K 1W4, Canada
Join local author Danielle S. Marcotte for the launch of her new picture book, Blue Camas, Blue Camas.
Sunday, November 19 | 1:00 pm
Black Bond Books – Ladner Village
Blue Camas, Blue Camas is the captivating story of how a flower that has been cultivated on Canada’s west coast since time immemorial came to symbolize the meeting of two contrasting ways of life and the perseverance of traditional knowledge against all odds.
Blue Camas, Blue Camas
“Blue Camas, Blue Camas is a captivating story revealing the overlooked history of colonial contact and its impact on Indigenous communities. Through vivid storytelling and diverse voices, it emphasizes land stewardship, cultural heritage, and fostering empathy, making it a valuable resource for children.”
—SAMANTHA BEYNON, author of Oolichan Moon

Book Launch: Better Next Year
2023-12-01 18:00 - 20:00 | Caffè Fantastico Specialty Coffees, 965 Kings Road, Victoria, British Columbia, V8T 1W7, Canada
Please join Munro’s Books in launching Better Next Year: An Anthology of Christmas Epiphanies!!
Christmas is trumpeted as a time of peace, joy, bounty and goodwill. Believers and non-believers alike covet the spirit of the holidays even when circumstances are screwed up.
Recollections from acclaimed Canadian authors combine with emerging voices from across the country in an anthology that debunks the popular depiction of Christmas while delivering its messages of hope and renewal.
Writers marginalized by personal circumstance, faith, and race share memories of surviving bleak Christmases past: holidays spent in shelters, or on the streets; families marred by alcohol and violence; personal struggles with addiction, poverty or grief; isolation and loneliness. Despite these and other obstacles, contributors strive to salvage the spirit of the season.
This event will be hosted by the book’s editor, J. J. Lee and will feature readings from Joseph Kakwinokanasum and Jordan Kawchuk.
WHEN: Friday, December 1st from 6PM-8PM
WHERE: Caffe Fantastico Roastery, 965 Kings Rd.
WHAT: Hosted by J. J. Lee, readings from Joseph Kakwinokanasum and Jordan Kawchuk
HOW: This event is free to attend

Book Launch / Tales for Late Night Bonfires by G.A. Grisenthwaite with host Molly Cross-Blanchard
2023-12-06 18:00 - 20:00 | BC
On Wednesday, December 6th at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books and Freehand books in celebrating the launch of G.A. Grisenthwaite’s Tales for Late Night Bonfires, with host Molly Cross-Blanchard.
“Tales for Late Night Bonfires is funny, dark, and rich all at once; each story is immense and alive. Grisenthwaite shows us what fiction can be when story leads the way.” QUILL & QUIRE starred review
This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible grâce au gouvernement du Canada.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free and required for entrance. Register here: https://www.showpass.com/tales-for-late-night-bonfires-by-ga-grisenthwaite-with-host-molly-cross-blanchard/
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site.
Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the book:
Tales for Late Night Bonfires (Freehand Books, 2023)
These are stories that are a litle bit larger than life, or maybe they really happened. Tales that could be told ’round the campfire, each one-upping the next. Tales about a car that drives herself, ever loyal to her owner. Tales about an impossible moose hunt. Tales about the Real Santa(TM) mashed up with the book of Genesis, alongside SPAM stew and bedroom sets from IKEA.
G.A. Grisenthwaite’s writing is electric and inimitable, blending meticulous literary style with oral storytelling and coming away with a voice that is entirely his own. Tales for Late Night Bonfires is truly one of a kind, and not to be missed.
About the author:
G.A. Grisenthwaite is a Nlaka’pamux writer and a member of the Lytton First Nation. His debut novel, Home Waltz, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Grisenthwaite lives in Kingsville, Ontario. In 2023, he served two months as the Writer-in-Residence at Berton House, Dawson City.
About the host:
Molly Cross-Blanchard is a white and Métis writer and editor born on Treaty 3 territory (Fort Frances, ON), raised on Treaty 6 territory (Prince Albert, SK), and living on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver, BC). She published her debut collection of poems, Exhibitionist, in 2021 with Coach House Books, and currently teaches Creative Writing and Indigenous Studies at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

Sheila Heti in Conversation with Lee Henderson
2024-02-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1Y2, Canada
Please join Munro’s Books in celebrating the launch of Sheila Heti’s latest book, Alphabetical Diaries. Sheila will be in conversation with UVic writing professor, Lee Henderson.
Munro’s Books is pleased to present two Canadian award-winning authors, Sheila Heti and Lee Henderson, in conversation at their store on Tuesday, February 20th at 7:00 p.m. Sheila Heti will read from her new book Alphabetical Diaries and then chat about it with local fiction writer and UVic creative writing professor, Lee Henderson. The evening will end with a Q&A with audience members and a book signing with Sheila Heti. This event is free to attend.
A little over a decade ago, Sheila Heti—the award-winning author of a string of modern classics including How Should a Person Be?, Motherhood, and Pure Colour—began looking back at the diaries she’d kept over the previous ten years, searching for signs of deeper change inside herself. She loaded all 500,000 words of her journals into Microsoft Excel, to order the sentences alphabetically and seek out patterns and repetitions. How many times had she written, “I hate him,” for example? With the sentences untethered from the narrative of her diaries, she started to see herself—and the Self—in a new way: as something quite solid, anchored by shockingly few characteristic preoccupations. Returning to the project over the years, something more universal and novelistic emerged. Alphabetical Diaries is the sublime and probing result—one that rises to the heights of artistry and insight for which Heti is rightfully acclaimed.
Sheila Heti is one of our greatest literary innovators and has been pushing boundaries with her work since the age of 24, when she published her first book, the short-story collection, The Middle Stories, in 2001. She’s since won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature, and has been shortlisted for the Giller Prize and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Heti’s fiction and criticism have appeared in the New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and Granta.
WHEN: Tuesday, February 20th at 7:00 p.m. (doors at 6:30).
WHERE: In-store at Munro’s Books, 1108 Government St.
WHAT: A reading by Sheila Heti from her latest book, followed by a conversation with Lee Henderson and a Q&A with the audience.
HOW: This event is free to attend.

Dr. Jen Gunter in Conversation
2024-02-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Victoria Conference Centre, 720 Douglas Street, Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 3M7, Canada
Join Munro’s Books in celebrating the launch of Dr. Jen Gunter’s newest book, Blood: The Science, Medicine, and Mythology of Menstruation. We’ll present Dr. Gunter in conversation with UVic Gender Studies Professor Dr. Thea Cacchioni, followed by a Q&A with the audience (no requests for medical advice, please) and a book signing!
Blood, The galvanizing new book from Dr. Jen Gunter, #1 bestselling author of The Vagina Bible and The Menopause Manifesto, dispels the shame, mythology, and misinformation around menstruation with scientific facts, medical expertise, and a fierce feminist perspective.
Most of us know about as much about how the uterus and ovaries function as we do about how the liver works. Add in societal shame around the menstrual cycle and it’s not surprising that misinformation is widespread. But, as women’s health advocate and trusted OB-GYN Dr. Jen Gunter writes, “you don’t have to think about your liver 5 days a month for 30 years, so I’d argue people should know more about the uterus.” Enter Blood.
In her new book, Dr. Gunter offers a clear, no-nonsense guide to reproductive anatomy and answers all the questions you never knew you had about menstrual bleeding—for example, where does the blood come from? And where does it go if you miss a period? Why do we even menstruate in the first place? With her expertise and trademark wit, Dr. Gunter debunks myths and challenges patriarchal attitudes toward this natural bodily process.
Dr. Jen Gunter is board certified in OB/GYN and pain medicine. She writes about the intersection of women’s health, sex, science, and pop culture for the New York Times. She has been called a fierce advocate for women’s health, Twitter’s gynecologist, and “strangely confident” by GOOP.com. She believes an empowered patient requires facts and she is here to fix the medical Internet and smash the patriarchy.
Dr. Thea Cacchioni is an Associate Professor of Gender Studies at UVic. Her research examines the medicalization of sex, gender, and sexuality, broadly, as well as through specific diagnoses such as Female Sexual Dysfunction and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. She is interested in the ways in which doctors, psychiatrists, and more recently, drug companies shape understandings of “normalcy” and “deviance” across categories of gender, racialization, and class. Her work examines the pathologization of some sexual acts and identities and the “healthicization” of others.
WHEN: Saturday, February 24th at 7:00PM (doors at 6:30)
WHERE: Victoria Conference Centre Lecture Theatre, 720 Douglas St. in Victoria
WHAT: Dr. Jen Gunter in conversation with Dr. Thea Cacchioni, followed by a Q&A with the audience (no requests for medical advice, please) and a book signing
HOW: Tickets can be purchased HERE: https://jengunterblood.eventbrite.ca
Book plus ticket: $42 (includes a copy of BLOOD to be picked up at the event)
Ticket: $20

Best Canadian Poetry in English 2024 Launch Party!!
2024-02-28 19:00 - 21:00 | Fortune Gallery, 537 Fisgard Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1R3, Canada
Please join Munro’s Books in celebrating the launch of the Best Canadian Poetry in English 2024!
Local poet Yvonne Blomer will host a reading by five of this year’s local poets included in the collection: Nicholas Bradley, Kayla Czaga, Hilary Clark, Anna Moore, and Joanna Streetly.
Praise for the book includes:
“Buy it, or borrow it, but do read it.” —Arc Poetry Magazine
“A magnet, I think, for the many people who would like to know contemporary poetry.” —A.F. Moritz, Griffin Poetry Prize winner
WHEN: Wednesday, February 28th, 7:00 p.m.
WHERE: Fortune Gallery, 537 Fisgard St. in Victoria
WHAT: Readings by Nicholas Bradley, Kayla Czaga, Hilary Clark, Anna Moore, and Joanna Streetly, hosted by Yvonne Blomer.
HOW: This event is free to attend.

Book Launch: Holly Ringland and Tamara Goranson
2024-03-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1Y2, Canada
Please join Munro’s Books to launch new fantastical novels by Holly Ringland and Tamara Goranson!!
Holly Ringland’s new novel, The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding, is a haunting, magical novel about joy, grief, courage and transformation that follows from the international bestselling, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.
‘On the afternoon that Esther Wilding drove homeward along the coast, a year after her sister had walked into the sea and disappeared, the light was painfully golden.’
The last time Esther Wilding’s beloved older sister Aura was seen, she was walking along the shore towards the sea. In the wake of Aura’s disappearance, Esther’s family struggles to live with their loss. To seek the truth about her sister’s death, Esther reluctantly travels from Lutruwita/Tasmania, to Copenhagen, and then to the Faroe Islands, following the trail of the stories Aura left behind: seven fairy tales about selkies, swans and women, alongside cryptic verses Aura wrote and had secretly tattooed on her body. The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding is a sweeping, deeply beautiful and profoundly moving novel about the far reaches of sisterly love, the power of wearing your heart on your skin and the ways life can transform when we find the courage to feel the fullness of both grief and joy.
Holly Ringland is the author of the award-winning international bestseller The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, adapted into a seven-part TV series on Amazon Prime, starring Sigourney Weaver. After living between Australia and the UK for ten years, Holly has been based in the Yugambeh region of southeast Queensland since 2020, where she wrote The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding in her “office,” a vintage caravan named Frenchie.
Tamara Goranson’s Oath of Bjorn is Book 3 of her Vinland Viking Saga. Anja has just settled into a new life on the silver shores of Vinland with her beloved, Bjorn. But then a local warrior bursts onto the scene seeking revenge, swearing to spill Viking blood. And so Bjorn must risk everything to save the woman he loves before she steps into the darkness and sets their world ablaze. The Oath of Bjorn is an epic historical novel of gripping adventure and love everlasting – perfect for fans of Vikings and Outlander.
Tamara Goranson holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology as well as Adjunct Professor status at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. She published several academic pieces before she turned to writing short stories, creative non-fiction, and historical fiction, winning 3rd prize in the 2019 Vancouver Island Writers’ Association annual general contest for her nonfiction piece, ‘A Voice in Time’. She lives in Victoria with her husband and two daughters.
WHEN: Wednesday, March 13th, 7:00 p.m. (doors at 6:30).
WHERE: In-store at Munro’s Books, 1108 Government St. in Victoria.
WHAT: Readings by Holly Ringland and Tamara Goranson, followed by a Q&A with the audience and book signings.
HOW: This event is free to attend.

Mysterious Book Launch: Susan Juby, Kate Hilton, and Elizabeth Renzetti
2024-03-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1Y2, Canada
Join Munro’s Books in celebrating the launch of two new mysteries: A Meditation on Murder by Susan Juby and Bury the Lead by Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti!!
In A Meditation on Murder, Butler-detective Helen Thorpe returns to help a wannabe influencer get her life in order—and solve the murders of her fellow content creators—in this hilarious sequel to Mindful of Murder by bestselling author Susan Juby.
When Buddhist butler Helen Thorpe is loaned out to help Cartier Hightower get her life in order, Helen finds herself working for a young woman entirely unbound by the fetters of good taste or sound judgment. One of Cartier’s fellow content creators has recently died in a strange accident. Soon after Helen arrives, another is killed in an equally bizarre way. Cartier begins to drag Helen around on the influencer circuit, where neither of them is particularly welcome. Then comes the terrible incident at the EDM nightclub that turns Cartier into a global pariah, at least according to social media. Helen hopes a period of simplicity and reflection and an internet detox will help Cartier find her true nature and maybe acquire some social graces. But Helen’s job gets much harder when Cartier’s friends show up at the lavish ranch where Cartier and Helen have retreated. Soon, Helen finds herself trying to avoid becoming Instafamous while bringing some peace to a girl who very much needs it. This task turns out to be even more impossible when it becomes clear that they have been followed to Weeping Creek Ranch by a murderer.
In Bury the Lead, a big-city journalist joins the staff of a small-town paper in cottage country and finds a community full of secrets … and murder.
Cat Conway has recently returned to Port Ellis to work as a reporter at the Quill & Packet. She’s fled the tattered remains of her high-profile career and bad divorce for the holiday town of her childhood, famous for its butter tarts, theatre, and a century-old feud. One of Cat’s first assignments is to interview legendary actor Eliot Fraser, the lead in the theatre’s season opener of Inherit the Wind. When Eliot ends up dead onstage on opening night, the curtain rises on the sleepy town’s secrets. The suspects include the actor whose career Eliot ruined, the ex-wife he betrayed, the women he abused, and even the baker he wronged. With the attention of the world on Port Ellis, this story could be Cat’s chance to restore her reputation. But the police think she’s a suspect, and the murderer wants to kill the story-and her too. Can Cat solve the mystery before she loses her job or becomes the next victim of a killer with a theatrical bent for vengeance?
Susan Juby is the award-winning, bestselling author of Mindful of Murder, which debuted at number one on the independent bookstores’ bestseller list and was nominated for the Leacock Medal for Humour. She has also written Getting the Girl, Another Kind of Cowboy and The Woefield Poultry Collective, as well as the bestselling Alice series (Alice, I Think; Miss Smithers; and Alice MacLeod, Realist at Last). Her novel Republic of Dirt won the Leacock Medal in 2016. Susan Juby lives on Vancouver Island with her husband, James, and their dogs, who are convinced they could have lucrative careers as social media stars.
Kate Hilton is the bestselling author of three novels: The Hole in the Middle, Just like Family and Better Luck Next Time. When not writing, Kate works with psychotherapy and life coaching clients in the area of transformational change.
Elizabeth Renzetti is the author of the essay collection Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and Girls and the novel Based on a True Story. In 2020, she won the Landsberg Award for her reporting on gender equality.
WHEN: Tuesday, March 19th at 7:00 p.m. (doors at 6:30).
WHERE: In-store at Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street
WHAT: Readings from the authors of Bury the Lead and A Meditation on Murder, followed by a Q&A with the audience and book signings.
HOW: This event is free to attend.

Double Poetry Collection Launch: Patrick Grace and Tina Biello
2024-04-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1Y2, Canada
Please join Munro’s Books in celebrating the launches of two new poetry collections by local authors!
Patrick Grace’s debut collection, Deviant, traces a trajectory of queer self-discovery from childhood to adulthood, examining love, fear, grief, and the violence that men are capable of in intimate same-sex relationships. Richly engaged with the tangible and experiential, Patrick Grace’s confessional poetry captures profound, sharp emotions, tracking a journey impacted equally by beauty and by brutality. Coming-of-age identity struggles are recalled with wry wit, and dreamlike poems embrace adolescent queer love and connections as a way to cope with the fear and cruelty that can occur in gay relationships. Later poems in the collection recall vivid moments of psychological trauma and stalking and explore the bias of the justice system toward gay men. Collecting memories, dreams, and fears about sexual identity, Deviant makes important contributions to queer coming-of-age and intimate partner violence narratives.
PATRICK GRACE is an author and teacher who divides his time between Vancouver and Victoria, BC. He has read at literary festivals around Canada, including Word Vancouver and Versefest Ottawa, and will be appearing at the Edmonton Poetry Festival in late April. He has published two chapbooks: a blurred wind swirls back for you (2023), and Dastardly (2021), exploring aspects of love, fear, and trauma that represent a personal queer identity. Deviant, his first full-length poetry collection, continues to explore these themes. He works as managing editor of Plenitude Magazine, and is this year’s judge for The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award for Poetry.
In Tina Biello’s new collection, The Weight of Survival, in a small logging town nestled near Lake Cowichan is an old elementary school. The child of immigrants from post-war Italy attends this school among the population of mostly white, anglo-saxon families. She does not speak English.
Her family is one of four who emigrated from southern Italy, to this small forested community. There are other families, from India, who share a kinship of ‘other’ with the Italian families. What happens when your voice, your food, your home is different? How do you know how to be queer when there is no language or place for it? How do you remember a time not spoken of, but passed on through the smell of walnut blossoms in the spring, grapes in the fall? In The Weight of Survival, Tina Biello chronicles this upbringing of otherness, of being shaped by two very different communities, of blending identities into one, and what is left behind in the process.
Poet, playwright and actor, TINA BIELLO was born in Lake Cowichan, a small logging town here on Vancouver Island to immigrant parents. She has honed her skills of being from ‘two places’ and speaks a few languages because of it. She believes in the power of poetry to reach in, grab hold and get us through. She had the great privilege of working with mentor Patrick Lane. ‘The Weight of Survival’ is her 4th book of poems. When she’s not writing poetry, she’s gardening, walking dogs and writing plays and more recently a screenplay. She was Nanaimo’s 2nd Poet Laureate from 2017-2020 and has just finished a 3 year cycle of writing librettos for composers with the Vancouver Island Symphony.
WHEN: Wednesday, April 3rd at 7:00 p.m. (doors at 6:30).
WHERE: In-store at Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street.
WHAT: Readings by Patrick Grace and Tina Biello, followed by a Q&A with the audience and book signings.
HOW: This event is free to attend.

Book Launch: Boxing the Compass by Michael L. Hadley
2024-04-05 15:30 - 17:00 | Maritime Museum of BC, 634 Humboldt St., Victoria, BC, Canada
Join award-winning historian and mariner Michael L. Hadley on his international adventures as he launches his memoir, Boxing the Compass: A Life of Seafaring, Music, and Pilgrimage (Heritage House, 2024).
Friday, April 5, 2024 | 3:30–5:00 pm
Maritime Museum of BC | 744 Douglas St. | Victoria, BC
Register at mmbc.bc.ca
Event included with museum admission or membership—come early to visit the museum
Books available for purchase and signing

Book Launch: Kayla Czaga and Anne Fleming
2024-04-18 19:00 - 21:00 | Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1Y2, Canada
Join Munro’s Books in celebrating the launches of new books by two talented local writers!!
“I feel like the crud / I accidentally touch sometimes, whatever it is / that collects under cushions on my couch,” writes Kayla Czaga in her third collection, Midway, an exploration of grief in all its manifestations. In her search for meaning in the aftermath of her parents’ deaths, Czaga visits the underworld (at least twice), Vietnamese restaurants, the beach, London’s Tate Modern, Las Vegas casinos, and a fish textbook. Honest, elegiac, characteristically strange, and frequently funny, these poems take the reader through bright scenery like carnival rides with fast climbs and sudden drops. The meanings and messages Czaga uncovers on her travels are complicated: hopeful, bleak-both comforting and not. Along with the parents the poet mourns, this collection showcases a varied cast. A suburban father-in-law copes with a troubling diagnosis. Marge Simpson quits The Simpsons. Death is a metalhead who dates girls too young for him. Midway is a welcome and necessary collection from one of the most celebrated and accomplished poets of her generation.
KAYLA CZAGA is the author of two previous poetry collections-For Your Safety Please Hold On (Nightwood Editions, 2014), and Dunk Tank (House of Anansi, 2019). Her work has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for poetry and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Frequently anthologized in the Best Canadian Poetry in English series, her writing also appears in The Walrus, Grain, Event, The Fiddlehead, and elsewhere. She lives with her wife on the traditional territory of the Lekwungen people, the Songhees nd Esquimalt nations.
—
Anne Fleming’s latest novel, Curiosities, opens with a present-day amateur historian, Anne, who describes her unexpected discovery of five seventeenth-century manuscripts that, astonishingly, tell the same strange story from vastly different points of view. And so it falls upon Anne, the contemporary historian, to piece together these interlocking stories, discover the fate of a pair of lovers, and add her own layer of “truth” to a history and time period when there were no labels for who these lovers might truly be.
ANNE FLEMING is the author of Pool-Hopping & Other Stories (Raincoast, 1998), which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Danuta Gleed Award, as well as the much-praised novel, Anomaly (Raincoast, 2005). She is also the author of a middle-grade novel, The Goat (Groundwood, 2017), which was a Junior Library Guild and White Ravens selection, shortlisted for Italy’s Premio Strega, optioned for film, and named one of the Top Ten Children’s Books of the Year by The New York Public Library and the Wall Street Journal. Anne Fleming lives in Victoria, BC.
WHEN: Thursday, April 18th, 7:00 p.m. (doors at 6:30).
WHERE: In-store at Munro’s Books, 1108 Government St.
WHAT: Readings of new work from Kayla Czaga and Anne Fleming followed by a Q&A with the audience and book signings. Refreshments will be provided. The audience will also be serenaded by lute playing from Anne Fleming and local musician, Doug Hensley.
HOW: This event is free to attend.

Book Launch: Always On Call • Terrace, BC
2024-04-20 13:00 - 14:00 | Terrace Public Library, 4610 Park Ave, Terrace, BC, V8G 1V6, Canada
Join bestselling author Marion McKinnon Crook to launch Always On Call: Adventures in Nursing, Ranching, and Rural Living—the much-anticipated sequel to Always Pack a Candle!
Saturday, April 20, 2024
1–2 pm
Terrace Public Library, 4610 Park Ave., Terrace, BC
• free to attend — everyone welcome
• Books for sale by Misty River Books

10th Anniversary of BC Book Day
2024-04-23 - 2024-04-24 | BC
WHEN: Tuesday, April 23, 2024
WHAT: BC Book Day invites British Columbians to celebrate the province’s book & magazine publishers, authors, illustrators, bookstores, libraries, festivals, and literary prizes that connect us with local stories.
GOAL: To raise awareness among government and the general public of BC’s publishing ecosystem and its cultural and economic contributions.
WHO: BC Book Day is coordinated by the Association of Book Publishers of BC, which works to support the long-term health and success of the Canadian-owned book industry in British Columbia.
Did you know?

British Columbia is the second largest English-language book publishing region in Canada, with more than 30 active publishers.
BC publishers operate in several regions, including the Southern Interior, the Sunshine Coast, Vancouver Island, and the Lower Mainland.
We bring Canadian writing and culture to a global audience, exporting to more than 40 countries each year.

Double Poetry Launch: Julie Paul and Miranda Pearson
2024-05-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1Y2, Canada
Join Munro’s Books in celebrating new work by two talented poets!!
“Chomping / champing / championing / churlish / … / There’s a wolf at the door / that looks exactly like me.” Who is the “whiny baby” in this book? Rather than calling names or hurling insults, the candid poems in this collection most often implicate the poet herself. Expansive in form and voice, the poems in Julie Paul’s second collection, Whiny Baby, offer both love letters and laments. They take us to construction sites, meadows, waiting rooms, beaches, alleys, gardens, and frozen rivers, from Montreal to Hornby Island. They ask us to live in the moment, despite the moment. Including a spirited long poem that riffs on the fairy tale “Three Billy Goats Gruff,” these poems are like old friends that at once console and confess. They blow kisses, they remember, and they celebrate the broken and the lost alongside the beautiful. At turns frank, peevish, introspective, and mischievous, the poems share sincere and intimate perspectives on the changing female body, our natural and built landscapes, and the idiosyncrasies of modern life. Whiny Baby calls on us to simultaneously examine and exult in our brief time on earth.
JULIE PAUL’s second book of poetry, Whiny Baby, follows the 2017 release of the poetry collection The Rules of the Kingdom, both published with McGill-Queen’s University Press. She is also the author of three short fiction collections, The Jealousy Bone (Emdash, 2008), The Pull of the Moon (Touchwood / Brindle & Glass, 2014), and Meteorites (Touchwood, 2019). Her writing has been published widely in journals and has received recognition from a number of sources. The Pull of the Moon won the 2015 Victoria Butler Book Prize, and The Rules of the Kingdom was a finalist for both the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her personal essay “It Not Only Rises, It Shines” won the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Award from The New Quarterly and her short story “The Expansion” won The Rusty Toque’s Chapbook Award. Unless she’s visiting her daughter in Montreal, Julie lives in Victoria BC, where, in addition to writing, she works as a Registered Massage Therapist.
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“Come, anguish. Help us manage / the plainsong of an open shore, / its language of high tide rich and close, / close and hard to see.” The early elegiac poems in Bridestones emerge from the borderlands between life and death, loss and renewal. Drawing on dreams, opera, and visual art, and employing symbolist and playfully surreal imagery, Miranda Pearson questions the ways we tend and grieve – for each other and our environment. Beginning with a sudden bereavement, the first section ends with a long poem, “Clearance,” that depicts the experience of emptying and departing a home – the physicality of a house serving as a vehicle for processing grief. Pearson writes on family trauma, illness, love, and desire with a pervading sense of hauntedness, compressed, lyrical accounts of complex and ambivalent terrain. The impact of a pandemic lurks in the background, and themes of fear run through much of this collection, with poems exploring how we face our fears – or deny and avoid them – and, ultimately, how we grow and adapt. Through meditations on art, myth, archaeology, ceremony, and death, Pearson reveals the veil between life and death when drawn to its thinnest. Like the hovering falcon depicted in “A Song of Roses,” the poems view the world from above: “if earth is body, and sky – God help us, spirit.”
MIRANDA PEARSON is widely published in literary journals and anthologies, and Bridestones is her sixth book of poetry. Two of the previous titles, Harbour and The Fire Extinguisher, were shortlisted for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. While completing her MFA at UBC, Miranda served as poetry editor for Prism international, and has since taught at UBC and SFU. Miranda currently lives between the UK and Vancouver.
Please join us for readings from these two poets, followed by a Q&A with the audience and refreshments!
WHEN: Wednesday, May 1st at 7:00 p.m. (doors at 6:30)
WHERE: In-store at Munro’s Books, 1108 Government St.
WHAT: Readings by Julie Paul and Miranda Pearson from their new poetry collections, followed by a Q&A with the audience. Refreshments will be provided.
HOW: This event is free to attend.

Book Signing: Hand Drawn Victoria with Emma Fitzgerald
2024-05-10 13:00 - 14:30 | Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1Y2, Canada
Join Munro’s Books on May 10th to meet Emma Fitzgerald, author of Hand Drawn Victoria: An Illustrated Tour in and Around BC’s Capital City!!
For locals and visitors alike, these sketches and stories highlight both the historic monuments and everyday moments that make Victoria shine.
You never know quite what you’ll come across in British Columbia’s capital city. With its unmissable landmarks that attract people from around the world, Victoria is also rich in forested beauty, charming houses, and curious people, and is steeped in local history.
Following the charm of her previous book, Hand Drawn Vancouver, in this memorable book, Emma FitzGerald captures the coastal city of Victoria and its surrounding communities in over 100 sketches of:
• Iconic Landmarks: It wouldn’t be a visit to Victoria without stopping by the Empress, Munro’s, or Butchart Gardens.
• Local Favourites: The longstanding Beacon Drive In and James Bay’s Birdcage Confectionary are some beloved spots honoured within these pages.
• Beautiful Architecture: Journey back in time by admiring historic buildings, like Queen Anne–style homes and the spiraling Belfry Theatre.
• Stunning West Coast Landscape: Explore natural wonders, from culturally significant fields of camas flowers to Mystic Beach’s stunning shoreline.
• Overheard Conversations: What really makes a city are the people who live there—Emma documents snippets of passersby’s conversations as she sketches.
Structured by neighbourhood, Hand Drawn Victoria is a beautiful keepsake for locals and visitors alike, and a lovely way to celebrate the city—its buildings, its people, and its essence.
EMMA FITZGERALD was born to Irish parents in Lesotho, a small mountainous kingdom in Southern Africa. She moved to Canada at a young age and spent most of her childhood in Vancouver, BC. Emma received a BFA in Visual Art from the University of British Columbia in 2004, and a Masters in Architecture from Dalhousie University in 2008. She has worked in architecture offices across Canada and in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her love of drawing on location led to her first book, Hand Drawn Halifax, and its follow-up, Sketch by Sketch Along Nova Scotia’s South Shore. She then turned her interest in people and places to where she grew up; Hand Drawn Vancouver was published in 2020 as she began working on Hand Drawn Victoria. In between her Hand Drawn series, Emma has illustrated five children’s books, including EveryBody’s Different on EveryBody Street, written by Sheree Fitch. She lives and draws in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
WHEN: Friday, May 10th from 1:00-2:30 p.m.
WHERE: In-store at Munro’s Books, 1108 Government St.
WHAT: Meet and greet plus book signing with Emma Fitzgerald.
HOW: This event is free to attend.

Wildlife Conservation Book Launch: Bob McDonald in Conversation with Greg Cummings and Sarah Cox
2024-05-22 19:00 - 21:00 | Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1Y2, Canada
Please join Munro’s Books in launching two new books by local authors about wildlife conversation!! We’ll present Greg Cummings, author of Gorilla Tactics: How to Save a Species and Sarah Cox, author of Signs of Life: Fieldnotes From the Frontlines of Extinction in conversation with Bob McDonald, author of The Future is Now: Solving the Climate Crisis with Today’s Technologies, and host of CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks!
Gorillas are among the most recognizable of the large charismatic mammals, but climate change and poaching has brought them to the brink of extinction. Greg Cummings was the executive director of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund for seventeen years. He shares his fascinating experiences as a “wildlife Robin Hood”—raising money from the rich and famous and redistributing it to endangered gorillas and their habitats. He met and enlisted the help of celebrities such as Sigourney Weaver, Arthur C. Clark, Douglas Adams, and Leonardo DiCaprio. This thirty-year worldwide journey moves from boardrooms in Manhattan and London to mountain treks in Rwanda and Congo. Gorilla Tactics is sure to enchant readers with Greg’s unique experiences, while sharing insight into the work it takes to save a species from extinction.
GREG CUMMINGS has been featured in international publications such as the Guardian, Ecologist, and Sea Angler. In 2006 his organization was awarded the BBC Animal Award for best wildlife conservation program. A fundraiser since 1990, Cummings has raised money in America, Britain, France, Holland, Italy, and Canada for causes ranging from wildlife conservation to mental health. As director of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund UK, he set up dozens of innovative, grassroots projects in troubled parts of the world—many of which are self-sustaining to this day. His global perspective has given him an eye for where the next crisis might arise, and how to thwart it. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
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What’s to be done when only three spotted owls are left in Canada’s wild? When wolves eat endangered caribou, cormorants kill rare trees, and housing developments threaten a tiny frog? Environmental journalist Sarah Cox has witnessed what happens when we drive species to the brink of extinction. In Signs of Life, she tags along with the Canadian military, Indigenous guardians, biologists, conservationists, and ordinary people who are racing to save hundreds of species before it’s too late. Travelling across the country, Cox visits the Toronto Zoo, home of Canada’s only wildlife biobank, where scientists conserve living cells from endangered species in the event of future loss; tours Canada’s military bases, home to some of Canada’s last preserved ecosystems; and travels to Indigenous communities where land stewards are striving to restore the delicate ecological balance that has sustained people for millennia. Through the eyes and work of individuals who are bringing species back from the precipice, Cox delivers both an urgent message and a fresh perspective on how we can protect biodiversity and begin to turn things around.
SARAH COX is an award-winning author and journalist based in Victoria, B.C. In 2022, Cox won the Canadian Association of Journalists’ Award for Environmental & Climate Change Reporting and her investigative reporting for the Narwhal has also been awarded the World Press Freedom Award and the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Jackman Award for Excellence in Journalism. She has also won a Gold Digital Publishing Award with her colleagues at The Narwhal and previously won two Western Magazine Awards. Sarah’s first book Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand Against Big Hydro won a B.C. Book Prize and was a finalist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing (Writers’ Trust of Canada) and the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature.
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BOB McDONALD has been the host of CBC Radio’s Quirks & Quarks since 1992. He is a regular science commentator on CBC’s News Network and a science correspondent for CBC TV’s The National. His book Measuring the Earth with a Stick was shortlisted for the Canadian Science Writers Association Book Award. He has been honoured with the 2001 Michael Smith Award for Science Promotion from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; the 2002 Sandford Fleming Medal from The Royal Canadian Institute; and the 2005 McNeil Medal for the Public Awareness of Science from the Royal Society of Canada. In November 2011, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
WHEN: Wednesday, May 22nd at 7:00 p.m. (doors at 6:30)
WHERE: In-store at Munro’s Books, 1108 Government St. in Victoria
WHAT: Readings from Greg Cummings and Sarah Cox, followed by a conversation moderated by Bob McDonald and a Q&A with the audience. Book signings will follow.
HOW: This event is free to attend.

Liars of Orpheus
2024-06-25 18:00 - 22:00 | 2434 Main St, Vancouver, BC V5T 3E2, 2434 Main Street, Vancouver, BC, V5T 3E2, Canada
Hosted by SJ Valiquette, Liars of Orpheus revolves around writers attempting to lie their way through stories, poems and lectures.
Each of the five writers will produce work that are made entirely of lies with the exception of five pieces of truth each. They will win points from sneaking their truths past their opponents or having their lies mistaken for truths. The winner of this month’s competition receives a tiara and points towards our end of the season finally in April.
For our debut show, Death Rides a Unicorn is very proud to present Erin Kirsh, Sonya Littlejohn, Holly Flauto, Spillious the Ridiculous and a mystery storyteller.
Erin Kirsh is an award-winning writer, performer, and funnyman from Toronto. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The Malahat Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, bBarren Magazine, Short Edition, CV2, ARC Poetry Magazine, QWERTY, Poetry is Dead, EVENT, PULP Literature, Geist and more.
Holly Flauto(she/they) is a poet, story-teller, learner and instructor living and writing on the traditional, ancestral and stolen territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwxwú7mesh and Selilwitulh Nations. ̱ Their debut poetry-memoir collection exploring immigration to Canada as a modern-day settler, Permission to Settle, will be published with Anvil Press in September 2024. Their fiction and creative memoir has previously been published in The Ex- Puritan, Joyland, and The Rusty Toque, and they perform as Stella Palermo on the local story and poetry slam stages. Holly is a Creative Writing and English instructor at Capilano University.
Sonya Littlejohn recently graduated from Simon Fraser University with a certificate in Community Capacity Building. She holds a bachelor of arts from UBC, a career in poetry performance and facilitation, and communication building. She is a community engagement facilitator, a cultural worker, community coordinator, mad artist and poet.
Spillious aka Trevana Spilchen is a Trans feminine settler parent, musician, spoken word artist and educator of Ukrainian and Irish decent. They are 2024 recipient of the Zacheus Jackson Memorial award won the 2017 Grand Slam Championship of the Vancouver Poetry slam and finished 6th at the 2018 Canadian Individual Poetry Slam.
They have toured as a featured poet all throughout Canada and the US. Spillious has released 3 chapbooks of poetry and the last, Tales of Trans-formation sold 200 copies. From Sept 2021-23 they shepherded the return of poetry slam in Vancouver as the Slam Coordinator for Vancouver Poetry House and the Tournament Director for the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Championships. Most importantly, Spillious is a parent to 4 kids ranging in age from 5 yrs to 23 yrs old and 4 cats named Cola, Orange Crush, Dr. Pepper & Rootbeer!
There will be a short open mic prior to the competition reserved for liars and faux poets. Each one of the Open Mic pieces also has to adhere to being all lies, save 5 truths and under 5 minutes in length.

POETRY BOOK LAUNCH! jaz papadopoulos (I FEEL THAT WAY TOO) and Melanie Siebert (SIGNAL INFINITIES)
2024-09-12 18:30 - 20:00 | Cross & Crows Books, 2836 Commercial Dr,, Vancouver, BC, V5N 4C6, Canada
Join jaz papadopoulos (I FEEL THAT WAY TOO) and Melanie Siebert (SIGNAL INFINITIES) in conversation with Vancouver writer and editor Elee Kraljii Gardiner at Cross & Crows Books on Thursday, September 12th, 2024 at 6:30 pm.

Poetry Bus! Celebrating the 28th Year of Poetry in Transit
2024-09-28 12:30 - 14:00 | UBC Robson Square, 800 Robson St, Vancouver, BC, V6E 1A7, Canada
In partnership with TransLink and BC Transit, Read Local BC presents the launch of this year’s Poetry In Transit campaign at Word Vancouver. Now celebrating its 28th year, this beloved community-engagement project displays the work of ten BC poets on public transit vehicles throughout the province. Join us to hear a selection of the featured 2024-25 poets read from their work, followed by a short discussion and Q&A in which you can engage with the poets over your love of the written verse! Hosted by Evelyn Lau.

Book launch. M.A.C. Farrant's expanded 20th Anniversary Edition of My Turquoise Years
2024-10-10 19:00 - 21:00 | BC
Book launch of M.A.C. Farrant’s expanded 20th Anniversary Edition of My Turquoise Years–a memoir.
Date: October 10, 2024
Time: 7 – 9 pm
Place: Small Gods Brewing, 9835 Third Street, Sidney BC
Free event.
Readers: M.A.C. FARRANT and BARBARA BLACK, Introduction by PAULINE HOLDSTOCK

Canadian Photographs Book Launch
2024-10-29 18:30 - 20:30 | The Polygon Gallery, 101 Carrie Cates Court, North Vancouver, BC, V7M3J4, Canada
The Polygon Gallery proudly presents the launch of Canadian Photographs, the latest book by renowned British-Canadian photographer Geoffrey James.
Published by Figure 1 Publishing, and designed by Naomi MacDougall, the 144-page volume offers a fresh look at Canada’s in-between spaces and forgotten places, resisting the sense of a cohesive national identity. James documents telling moments: a demolition derby in Quebec, an inmate’s decorated cell at Kingston Penitentiary, the Dickensian side door of Massey Hall in Toronto. Captured with an eye for pictorial depth and detail, James’ photographs do not shy from contradictions: the bifurcation of rural and urban, rapid growth and increasing inequality, and the slow journey toward truth and reconciliation. Largely taken from train windows in the vast terrain between the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts, this unofficial portrait of Canada brings into sharp relief the mercurial nature of the nation.
Canadian Photographs includes a conversation between the photographer and Peter Galassi, former Chief Curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
On the occasion of the book launch, the Artist will engage in a conversation with acclaimed art historian and curator John O’Brian, followed by a book signing.
Doors Open: 6pm
Conversation and Q&A: 6:30 – 7:30pm
Reception and Book Signing: 7:30 – 8pm

Orca Group Book Launch
2024-11-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1Y2, Canada
You’re invited to join Orca Book Publishers as we launch four new books! Meet the authors, enjoy the refreshments, and get a book signed.

Book Launch: THE SACRED HEART MOTEL
2024-11-14 18:30 - 20:30 | City Centre Artist Lodge, 2111 Main Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Join Grace Kwan for their hometown launch of THE SACRED HEART MOTEL, hosted at the City Centre Artist Lodge (Well Studios) in Mount Pleasant.
Featuring special guests Kyla Jamieson and Clio Lake
Food! Drinks! Readings! Heart-shaped key chains!
This is a free event. There is one flight of stairs to access the venue. There is one all-genders washroom.
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In poet Grace Kwan’s debut, they are ruthless and nimble, guiding us through the recesses of body and roadside space. The reader tours the motel through this multiverse narrative, from amenities to rooms to back alleys, through the generations of ghosts and queer love stories, until they are left alone with the heart at the centre. The Sacred Heart Motel is a disorienting, startling collection about placelessness and longing.
Kyla Jamieson (she/her) is the author of Body Count (Nightwood Editions, 2020), which was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, named a CBC Best Poetry Book of 2020, and awarded third place in the Metatron Prize for Rising Authors by CA Conrad and Anne Boyer. Kyla currently lives and relies on the traditional unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, where she dreams of systemic change, care-full futures, and disabled joy. Find her online or in the water.
Grace Kwan is a Malaysian-born sociologist and writer based in “Vancouver,” the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. Their recent poetry appears in Canthius, Room Magazine, and others. Find them at https://grckwn.wordpress.com/.
Clio Lake is mixed, trans, and gnc, living as a settler on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlil̓wətaʔɬ territories. They like bosc pears, pomegranates, and being in the water. You can find her writing collected by Publication Studio Vancouver, BiteZine N°2, and in ___figuration: an anthology of trans writers, forthcoming from Gnashing Teeth. She is a recipient of accolade for drama from the UC Writing Awards.

Opheliac: Launch Party
2024-11-20 18:00 - 20:00 | Caffè Fantastico Specialty Coffees, 965 Kings Road, Victoria, British Columbia, V8T 1W7, Canada
This is a free event, but please RSVP on this Eventbrite page due to limited capacity: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/opheliac-launch-party-tickets-1035204884677?aff=oddtdtcreator
OPHELIAC: LAUNCH PARTY
Join us on Wednesday, November 20th to launch Opheliac, the debut of BC-based author Emma Sloan.
As an informal night of celebration, mingle with others in the literary community while enjoying Caffe Fantastico’s wide variety of seasonal sips and eats. Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic options will be available.
MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Emma Sloan is a poet, short fiction author, and journalist of 10+ years with works published across 300+ international publications.
As a Writing and Publishing graduate of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, Emma works as a professional copywriter.
Her chapbook Opheliac was named a finalist in the Black River Chapbook Competition and is forthcoming with Black Lawrence Press in Fall 2024.
PRAISE FOR OPHELIAC:
Opheliac invites lovers of both Shakespeare and wordplay with vivid imagery that invokes a sensory experience throughout. This modern retelling of the literary figure of Ophelia leaves room to ponder femininity, fragility, and the haunting impact of tragedy–and is a collection to read again and again.
–Natasha Silva, author of North Star Heart
In Opheliac, Emma Sloan shatters memory and rearranges its pieces into arresting shapes. The past is never far away in Opheliac—but that doesn’t stop Sloan from trying to grow a new “girl tongue,” a voice with which to tell overlooked and necessary truths: “This is a reel of film / on the cutting room floor.”
–Lucy Wainger, author of In Life There Are Many Things
MORE ABOUT THE BLACK LAWRENCE PRESS:
Founded in upstate New York, The Black Lawrence Press is an independent publisher of contemporary poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.
Their collections are distributed nationally through Independent Publishers Group to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and various brick and mortar retailers, as well as assorted conferences and book fairs.

An Evening with Holly Howe, author of Mouthwatering Sauerkraut
2025-04-17 18:00 - 20:30 | Vinca’s Kitchen Shop, 5042 48 Ave, Delta, British Columbia, V4K1V8, Canada
Join us at Vinca’s Kitchen for a special evening with Chef Holly Howe to celebrate the release of her new cookbook Mouthwatering Sauerkraut: Fermentation Made Easy!
Tickets are $40.00 plus tax and come with a copy of the new cookbook. There are only 35 tickets available.
Doors open at 6:00 pm and the event will start at 6:30 pm. Chef Holly will be demonstrating a couple of recipes, providing samples, and answering all your questions!
PLEASE NOTE – to purchase a ticket for this event online you MUST have your shopping location set as the Ladner store.
Your receipt is your ticket. Your book will be available for pick up at the event. Thank you!

Rodney DeCroo Book Launch + Concert
2025-04-23 19:00 - 21:00 | VIFF Centre, 1164 Seymour Street, Vancouver, BC, V6B 3N3, Canada
Come celebrate the launch of Night Moves, Rodney’s first collection of street photography. Happening at VIFF Centre on Wednesday April 23, count on a lively evening of poetry, music, film, and thought-provoking discussion.
7:00 pm — Reception
7:30 pm — Introduction and slide show featuring work from Night Moves
7:45 pm — Conversation with The Georgia Straight’s Mike Usinger on the art and ethics of street photography, followed by Q&A and intermission
8:30 pm — Poetry, Music and Short Films with Rodney and his band, The Wise Blood

Tawahum Bige: Book Launch & Conversation at Enabling Arts
2025-04-26 19:00 - 20:30 | Enabling Arts, 104-343 Railway Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6A 1A4, Canada
Tawahum Bige will launch a new poetry collection, Stages of Tanning Words and Remembering Spells, at Enabling Arts on Granville Island on April 26, 7pm.
In their second poetry collection, Tawahum Bige explores belonging and voice of a Two-Spirit Dene youth. These poems are a stark plunge—an answer to how voice emerges for a young Two Spirit growing up in so-called “Surrey, BC,” far from his Łutselk’e Dene territories.
