Literary Landscapes

Vancouver is on the Literary Map:

Check the Writers' and Readers' Festival website for information -- there are some exciting new announcements about some of my favourite writers:

• The Vancouver International Writers Festival and Harper Collins Canada Ltd. present: An Evening with Barbara Kingsolver. The bestselling author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees will talk about her new non-fiction book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.
  
  7:30 pm, Thursday May 29 Frederic Wood Theatre UBC Tickets $15/13
  Tickets available now at all Ticketmaster outlets, charge-by-phone at 604.280.3311 or online. Information: see website or call 604.681.6330.
  

• Another favourite of mine is Simon Winchester, the bestselling author of A Crack in the Edge of the World and The Professor and the Madman will read from his new book, The Man Who Loved China: Joseph Needham and the Making of a Masterpiece.
  
  Winchester’s new book tells the remarkable story of the growth of a great nation and the eccentric and adventurous scientist who defined its essence for the world.7:30 pm, Friday May 30Frederic Wood TheatreUBCTickets $15/13 . Tickets at all Ticketmaster outlets, charge-by-phone at 604.280.3311 or online. Information on Writersfest website or call 604.681.6330.

• Search the archives of this blog for two postings about the evening of Extraordinary Canadians, with David Adams Richards, Charlotte Gray, and Lewis deSoto. April 17, H R MacMillan Space Centre, 7:30 pm.

Other author events coming up:

• Erin Gruwell, the teacher whose work has been powerfully captured in the film Freedom Writers, will be featured in an event, sponsored by King David High School, to be held at the River Rock Resort in Richmond on May 14, 7:30 pm; tickets are $36 and include a dessert reception after the event. You may buy tickets directly from the school at 604 263 9700 or by email.

• Award-winning author Wayson Choy will talk about his on-going struggles with completing his new memoir, Not Yet, a story that includes his two near-death experiences and the two ghosts from Chinatown that appeared to a hostess in a favourite Vancouver restaurant. He will also be happy to answer your questions about the craft of writing, writing about your own life, and your chances for publishing your work. Wednesday, April 16, 7 p.m., Burnaby Public Library, McGill Branch (4595 Albert St., Burnaby). Free admission. Info and registration 604-299-8955.
  
  Wayson Choy is the author of The Jade Peony, a novel of Vancouver's Chinatown, co-winner of the Trillium Book Award, 1996. and winner of the City of Vancouver Book Award, 1996; Paper Shadows, a memoir of a Chinatown childhood and winner of the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction, 2000; All That Matters, a novel of Vancouver's Chinatown and winner of the Trillium Book Award, 2004.
  


• BC Book Prizes authors are on tour in the Lower Mainland -- A BC150 Event. Four shortlisted authors will hit the road with FREE public readings at bookstores, school and library visits in the Lower Mainland.
  
  The authors are Lisa Cinar The Day It All Blew Away (Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize), Robert Hiedbreder A Sea-Wishing Day (Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize), Shaena Lambert Radiance (Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize), and Gillian Wigmore Soft Geography (Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize).
  
  On Monday, April 14 the authors will visit Dickens, Van Tech, and Hastings, and on Thursday, April 17, they will visit students at Grandview and Gladstone. On Wednesday, April 23, 6 pm, at Tillicum, Robert Heidbreder will appear at The Wonder of Words.