An annual celebration of writers and literature
Among Kathy Stinson‘s 40+ books are the classic Red Is Best, the award-winning The Man with the Violin, and three biographies about outstanding women. She has enjoyed meeting with readers, always dressed, in every province and territory of Canada, the US, Britain, Liberia, Korea, and will soon in the UAE.
Big and small, short and tall, young and old—Every BODY is different!…
Jess Housty (‘Cúagilákv) is a parent, writer and grassroots activist with Heiltsuk and mixed settler ancestry. They serve their community as an herbalist and land-based educator. They are inspired and guided by relationships with their homelands, their extended family and their non-human kin. They live in Bella Bella, BC.
Rooted in the territory and resilient, ancestral wisdom of the Heiltsuk Nation, Housty’s debut poetry collection Crushed Wild Mint brings deep teachings and land relationship forward to the present – and toward the future – in a way that is visceral and tactile, full of questions and reflections that can guide us all toward healing and hope.…
Christy Jordan-Fenton is the author of four award-winning books about her Inuvialuk mother Margaret Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton’s time attending an Indian Residential School in the high Arctic during the 1940s. Though Margaret passed in 2021, with her blessing Christy has continued to share her story in trauma-informed and strengths-based ways.
When eight-year-old Olemaun leaves her home in the high Arctic to attend a faraway residential school, her dreams of learning to read quickly turn into a nightmare.…
Natalie Virginia Lang is a writer and teacher who has written several book reviews for The BC Review and has won multiple awards from Simon Fraser University for her work in the Graduate Liberal Studies department. She lives on Sumas Mountain and is ardently dedicated to the preservation of natural spaces.
Remnants: Reveries of a Mountain Dweller offers a vision of Sumas Mountain throughout the seasons to expose the impact of toxic progress.…
Katłįà Lafferty is Dene, Cree, French and American from the Northwest Territories, and a current UVic law student. She is the author of the memoir, Northern Wildflower, and two novels: Land-Water-Sky, about Dene legends in modern times, and This House is Not a Home, about the northern housing system. She wrote them for her community, and they came to her through the spirit of her ancestors.…
Susan Sanford Blades Susan Sanford Blades’ debut novel, Fake It So Real, won the 2021 ReLit Award in the novel category and was a finalist for the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes’ Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Her short fiction has most recently been published in Gulf Coast, The Malahat Review, and The Master’s Review.…
Paul Dhillon (he/him) is a second-generation newcomer to Canada. He lives on the unceded and ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, where he is a high school English teacher. His work has appeared in multiple literary journals and has been finalist for a National Magazine Award.
Interview by Nikki Hillman
Nikki Hillman (NH): What risks have you taken with your writing.…
Sonnet L’Abbé is a Canadian poet, performer, editor, and professor. They are the author of A Strange Relief, Killarnoe, Anima Canadensis and Sonnet’s Shakespeare. They teach Creative Writing and English at Vancouver Island University, and are a poetry editor at Brick Books. They had their first solo performance of songs and poems at Nanaimo’s Port Theatre in 2021. …
