Events

Book Launch of Water Confidential: Witnessing Justice Denied—The Fight for Safe Drinking Water in Indigenous and Rural Communities in Canada

Rotary Hall, Fern Road, Qualicum Beach Mar 21 07:00 pm - Mar 21 09:00 pm

Join Susan Blacklin for the launch of Water Confidential: Witnessing Justice Denied—The Fight for Safe Drinking Water in Indigenous and Rural Communities in Canada 

Thursday, March 21st at Rotary Hall, Fern Road, Qualicum Beach. 7-9 pm.

Free to attend. To reserve your seat, please contact the Mulberry Bush Book Store at 250-752-9722 or mulberryqb@shawbiz.caBooks will be available to purchase from the Mulberry Bush Book Store. 

Toronto Book Launch: Sisters of the Spruce

Ben McNally Books: 108 Queen Street East Toronto, ON. M5C 1S6 Apr 04 06:00 pm

Join Leslie Shimotakahara for the launch of her novel, Sisters of the Spruce.  Free to attend and all are welcome. 

Poetry Event with Tina Biello and Patrick Grace

Apr 13 06:30 pm

Poetry Launch: Tina Biello and Patrick Grace

Wednesday, April 3rd at 7:00 p.m. (doors at 6:30)

In-store at Munro’s Books, 1108 Government St. in Victoria

FREE admission

More info: https://munrobooks.com/events/20240403

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.

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Nestled in a small logging town 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 SurvivalTina 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.
HOW: This event is free to attend.

Nelson Book Launch: They Called Him a Radical

Nelson Public Library Apr 24 07:00 pm

Book Launch: Permission to Land by Judy LeBlanc, with a reading from Arleen Paré, author of Absence of Wings

Russell Books, 747 Fort St., #100, Victoria Apr 25 07:00 pm

Join author Judy LeBlanc as she launches Permission to Land: A Memoir of Loss, Discovery, and Identity. She will be joined by Arleen Paré, reading from Absence of Wings

In her courageous memoir, Permission to Land, Judy LeBlanc delves into a lyrical and moving exploration of her Coast Salish heritage, unravelling the deep-rooted consequences of erasure that have shaped her family.

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.

Free to attend. All are welcome. 

Kelowna Book Signing

Indigo Kelowna: Orchard Park, 2271 Harvey Ave, Kelowna, BC V1Y 6H2 May 09 12:00 pm - May 09 04:00 pm

Drop into Indigo Kelowna to meet author Susan Blacklin and get a signed copy of Water Confidential: Witnessing Justice Denied-The Fight for Safe Drinking Water in Indigenous and Rural Communities in Canada

 

Toronto Book Event

Flying Books, 784 College St, Toronto, ON May 13 06:30 pm

Join us in celebrating the Toronto launch of Keiko Honda's Accidental Blooms. Keiko's memoir was among the 46 works of Canadian nonfiction selected to be read in fall 2023 by CBC. Admission is FREE. ALL are welcome to attend. Books will be available for purchase, of course, the author will be signing! Reserve your spot here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/join-us-for-the-launch-of-accidental-blooms-by-keiko-honda-at-flying-books-tickets-838038775537?aff=oddtdtcreator

Review: 

“Keiko Honda is sharing much more than a memoir. She is sharing a philosophy of love and care in a time of anxiety and uncertainty. She shares a journey of possibilities when adversity strikes with life-altering challenges. This book is both an evocation as well as an example of ‘seeing with the heart.’ Our world is a better place for Keiko Honda’s generous gift(s).”

—Bernard Perley, associate professor for Critical Indigenous Studies, UBC

About the author: Keiko Honda is a scientist, writer, community organizer and painter. She holds a PhD in international community health from New York University, but when she suddenly contracted a rare autoimmune disease that confined her to a wheelchair for life, she had to leave her career in research at Columbia University in New York. After moving to Vancouver in 2009, Keiko started hosting artist salons, for which she was awarded the City of Vancouver’s Remarkable Women award in 2014. Shortly thereafter, she founded the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society to bridge generations and cultures through the arts and to offer members of marginalized communities in Vancouver opportunities for artistic self-discovery. She teaches the aesthetics of co-creation in the Liberal Arts and 55+ Program at Simon Fraser University. She lives in Vancouver, BC, and enjoys watercolour painting and hosting her salons.

Bronwyn Preece at the Whistler Public Library

May 14 07:00 pm

Join Bronwyn Preece, the author of knee deep in high water: riding the Muskwa-Kechika, expedition poems, for a reading at the Whistler Public Library. The event is free. All are welcome. 

Funded by the National Public Readings program/TWUC

Eric Jamieson at the Maritime Museum of BC

Jun 14 03:30 pm

Join Eric Jamieson, author of Arctic Patrol: Canada's Fight for Arctic Sovereignty, for a book presentation and Q&A.