Read Local BC

Book Launch: Boxing the Compass by Michael L. Hadley
2024-04-05 15:30 - 17:00 (America/Vancouver) | 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.
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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
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
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.

Anna Veprinska and Joseph Kidney: Dual Poetry Launch
2025-05-05 19:00 - 20:30
A dual launch of poetry books Devotional Forensics and Bonememory at
Cross and Crow Books. Featuring the wonderful Dominique Bernier-Cormier.
2836 Commercial Drive, Vancouver B.C.

Iona Winshaw and Gregor Craigie
2025-05-08 06:30 - 20:30 | Munro’s Books, 1108 Government Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 1Y2, Canada
Join Munro’s Books as Iona Whishaw discusses the latest installment of her popular Lane Winslow mystery series with CBC host and author Gregor Craigie.
Publishers Weekly calls The Cost of a Hostage “highly entertaining,” as Lane ventures through Mexico while the team back in Nelson works on a kidnapping case that’s as open-and-shut as it is complicated.

Six Little Sticks Book Launch
2025-05-10 12:30 - 15:30
Book launch for Tiffany Stone’s new book Six Little Sticks!
Book signings, snacks, and crafts with author Tiffany Stone to celebrate the release of her new kids picture book!
This event will be held at the Christianne’s Lyceum of Literature and Art on May 10th from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
www.christianneslyceum.com
4433 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver, V6R 2H8

Talonbooks Spring 2025 Launch
2025-05-23 19:00 - 21:00
Celebrate the new spring releases from Talonbooks! Please join us at the Martha Lou Henley Rehearsal Hall on Friday, May 23, to welcome the following books to the world:
allostatic load by Junie Désil
Crowd Source by Cecily Nicholson
Future Works by Jeff Derksen
Revolutions by Hajer Mirwali
Uiesh / Somewhere by Joséphine Bacon, translated by Jessica Moore!
The launch will be hosted by andrea bennett, author of the berry takes the shape of the bloom.

Martha Lou Henley Rehearsal Hall
1955 McLean Drive
Vancouver, BC
May 23, 2025
Doors open at 7:00 p.m.; readings begin at 7:30 p.m.

Bones of a Giant with Brian Thomas Isaac
2025-06-02 19:00 - 20:30 | Native Education College, 285 East 5th Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V5T 1H2, Canada
Join Massy Books, Penguin Random House, and Brian Thomas Isaac for the launch of “Bones of a Giant” at 7 pm on Monday, June 2nd!
Books will be for sale at the event, including “All the Quiet Places.”
Venue:
The event will be hosted at the Massy Books, at 229 East Georgia Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free or by donation and required for entry.
The bookstore is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site.
Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are recommended and will be provided at the venue. We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About the Book:
Summer, 1968. For the first time since his big brother, Eddie, disappeared two years earlier—either a runaway or dead by his own hand—sixteen-year-old Lewis Toma has shaken off some of his grief. His mother, Grace, and her friend Isabel have gone south to the United States to pack fruit to earn the cash Grace needs to put a bathroom and running water into the three-room shack they share on the reserve, leaving Lewis to spend the summer with his cousins, his Uncle Ned and his Aunt Jean in the new house they’ve built on their farm along the Salmon River. Their warm family life is almost enough to counter the pressures he feels as a boy trying to become a man in a place where responsible adult men like his uncle are largely absent, broken by residential school and racism. Everywhere he looks, women are left to carry the load, sometimes with kindness, but often with the bitterness, anger and ferocity of his own mother, who kicked Lewis’s lowlife father, Jimmy, to the curb long ago.
Lewis has vowed never to be like his father—but an encounter with a predatory older woman tests him and he suffers the consequences. Worse, his dad is back in town and scheming on how to use the Indian Act to steal the land Lewis and his mom have been living on. And then, at summer’s end, more shocking revelations shake the family, unleashing a deadly force of anger and frustration.
With so many traps laid around him, how will Lewis find a path to a different future?
About the Author:
Brian Thomas Isaac was born in 1950 on the Okanagan Indian Reserve, near Vernon, British Columbia. After completing grade eight, he found work in the Alberta oil fields and in construction, eventually retiring as a bricklayer. He came to writing late in life. In 2022, his bestselling debut, All the Quiet Places, won an Indigenous Voices Award, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and CBC’s Canada Reads. He lives with his wife in West Kelowna, BC.

Launch Party: Celebrate 100 Issues of subTerrain
2025-06-08 17:00 - 19:00
Join subTerrain, one of Vancouver’s longest standing literary magazines, in celebrating 100 issues of literary publishing from the margins.

Sunday, June 8th
Hero’s Welcome
3917 Main St. (at 23rd Ave.)
Door open at 5:00 pm — Readings at 6:00

Read Local BC eBookshelf Launch
2025-06-19 11:00 - 12:00 | Burnaby Public Library, McGill Branch, 4595 Albert Street, Burnaby, BC, V5C 2G6, Canada
Books BC and the BC Libraries Cooperative will host a reading event to mark the launch of Read Local BC eBookshelf. The event with feature readings BC authors Candie Tanaka and Wayde Compton at Burnaby Public Library, McGill Branch on Thursday, June 19, from 11 am to noon (door open 10:30 am).
The event is open to the public and members of the media are invited to attend. You can register here.

Book Launch: Celebrating Potlatches
2025-06-21 13:30 - 15:30 | Royal BC Museum, 675 Belleville Street, Victoria, BC, V8W 9W2, Canada
This June 21st, join Samantha Beynon and Strong Nations Publishing at the Royal BC Museum for the official launch of Celebrating Potlatches! This beautiful picture book, illustrated by Carla Joseph, recounts the 1885 Potlatch ban and the resilience of the communities who fought to keep their traditions alive. Pick up your copies at the launch, or pre-order now at www.strongnations.com
Stop by for short presentations from Samantha Beynon and Strong Nations Publishing, a reading of the book, book signings, and light refreshments. Doors will open at 1:00 pm, and the program will begin at 1:30 pm.

Book Launch of The Deepest Fake by Daniel Kalla
2025-07-30 18:30 - 21:00 | Book Warehouse – Main Street, 4118 Main Street, Vancouver, BC, V5V 3P7, Canada
Join us for the launch of local thriller author Daniel Kalla’s new novel The Deepest Fake.
Doors at 6:30; This is an informal event with no reading portion; Free to attend and all are welcome.
Liam Hirsch has it all—a loving family, a thriving career as CEO of an AI company, financial security, and a bright future. But when he’s diagnosed with a terminal illness, just weeks after discovering his wife’s infidelity, his perfect life unravels. As he grapples with his fate, he prepares to face his final days on his own terms.
However, unexplained events inside his company make him question everything—including his diagnosis. In a world of deepfake videos, synthetic voices, and digital deception, couldn’t these technologies be weaponized against him? What if nothing is as it seems?
With time running out, Liam turns to Andrea DeWalt, a private investigator contending with her own feelings of betrayal, to help him uncover a conspiracy that threatens his life, his family, and their future. In a world where nothing is as it seems and every digital footprint can be manipulated, who can Liam trust?

Book Launch of The Bone Raiders by Jackson Ford
2025-08-13 18:30 - 21:00 | Book Warehouse – Main Street, 4118 Main Street, Vancouver, BC, V5V 3P7, Canada
Join us for the launch of Vancouver author Jackson Ford’s new novel The Bone Raiders, the first in the Rakada series.
The start of a no‑holds‑barred, action‑packed fantasy series from the always irreverent Jackson Ford where a group of charmingly-named Bone Raiders harness the power of gigantic, fire-breathing lizards to defend their homeland from an invading enemy.
Jackson will be in conversation with Kristy Gardner, author of The Broken Stars series.
Doors at 6:30 pm, event starts at 7:00 pm; free to attend and all are welcome.
