Hapa-palooza runs from September 7 to 10 and features three free public events and a ticketed cabaret evening. Here are the confirmed programs and guests:

MIXED VOICES RAISED: Writers, Poets and Spoken Word Artists in Dialogue. Writers Fred Wah, Joanne Arnott, and Tanya Evanson engage the audience in mixed-root dialogue and share their literary expression in fiction, poetry, and spoken-word performance. Sept. 7, 7-8:30 pm, Vancouver Public Library Central Branch, Alice MacKay Room. Free.

More info at: http://talonbooks.com/events/hapa-palooza-festival-vancouver-125

For winning bidders, check out our website:
http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/events/archive/summer-2011-online-auction-opens-july-27th-2011/

Since 1992, the Hope in Shadows project has brought the stories and perspectives of people living in the Downtown Eastside into thousands of homes and workplaces around the country, while providing meaningful and flexible employment to hundreds of low income people. The project’s success has always depended on supporters who believe that the residents of the Downtown Eastside have the capacity to tell their own stories about their lives and their community.

Connect with Hope in Shadows photographers and calendar vendors and hear about some new projects they’ve been working on, including being commissioned to create new photography for an interdisciplinary dance performance and being published in Megaphone Magazine‘s Voices of the Street. There will also be a photo competition.

There is no cover charge to this event but capacity is limited to 70 people so please register here if you will be attending.

We also wish congratulations to all the publishers, authors, editors, and illustrators honoured by the Alberta Book Publishers’ Association’s annual Alberta Book Awards.

Here are some other BC Book Prize alumni and friends who are also shortlisted: The Doctrine of Affections by Paul Headrick (Freehand Books) is shortlisted for the Trade Fiction Book Award; The Collected Works of Pat Lowther by Pat Lowther, edited by Christine Wiesenthal (NeWest Press) is shortlisted for the Poetry Award as well as the Lois Hole Award for Editorial Excellence.

Marshall McLuhan knew exactly what the Internet was going to be… the only thing he didn’t know is what it was actually going to look like. It’s why so much of what he said and wrote in the 1960s and 1970s alienated critics. He was trying to be poetic and theoretic…al about what we now simply call interfaces, links and apps.

And now, from the hindsight of 2011, we can surf, via YouTube, our rich collective consciousness as it finally revealed itself online. Our collective being takes the form of cute cat videos, videos of Japanese devastation, mid-East political revolution, trampoline disasters and… well, would Marshall have been horrified or fascinated? Probably both.

Coupland, with his recent biography of Marshall McLuhan, offers a more precise look at ourselves via the ultimate manifestation of the global village: YouTube. Expect a back-and-forth experience between the audience, Coupland and the world itself.

Thursday, May 26, 2011
Doors open at 8:00 pm
Admission is free
The Waldorf Hotel (1489 East Hastings, Vancouver)

Ross King has been shortlisted for the Lela Common Award for Canadian History for his book Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven, published by Douglas & McIntyre.

Also, BC poet Garry Gottfriedson has been shortlisted for the CAA Award for Poetry for Skin Like Mine, published by Ronsdale Press.

The winners will be announced at the CAA Literary Awards banquet on Saturday, July 23, 2011, during the Leacock Summer Festival at the Leacock Museum National Historic Site in Orillia, Ontario.

The Audre Lorde Award is one of The Publishing Triangle’s annual awards, honouring gay and lesbian publishing. Congrats Jen!

ESSAYS:

Eve Joseph
Intimate Strangers
Malahat Review

J.B. MacKinnon
A 10 Percent World
The Walrus

TRAVEL:

J.B MacKinnon
Island Survivor
British Columbia Magazine

J.B. MacKinnon
The Highland Fling
explore

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT:

Ross King
What Tom Thomson Saw
The Walrus

The scene is the dramatic heart of fiction, where plot, setting and character come together on the page. In this intensive workshop we will study examples of successful narrative scenes, analyze their elements, including the effective use of dialogue, and, of course, write them. Write lots of them!

This workshop is useful for both short-fiction writers and novelists. It is led by Caroline Adderson, a fiction writer and teacher.

Caroline Adderson is the author of three novels, The Sky Is Falling, A History of Forgetting and Sitting Practice (winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize in 2004), and two collections of short stories, Bad Imaginings and Pleased to Meet You. She lives in Vancouver.

Writing the Narrative Scene
Location: Listel Hotel, 1300 Robson Street, Vancouver BC
Date: Saturday, May 21, 2011
Time: 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Price: $50 (includes a one-year subscription to Geist for yourself or a friend)

To register click here or call Geist at 604–681–9161

The contenders were:

• Forage by Rita Wong, defended by Sonnet L’Abbé
• Inventory by Dionne Brand, defended by George Murray
• Selected Poems by Alden Nowlan, defended by Susan Musgrave
• Sheep’s Vigil by a Fervent Person by Eirin Mouré, defended by Jacob McArthur Mooney
• Nox by Anne Carson, defended by Anne Simpson

We’re so proud of Rita and her book, forage, which also won the 2008 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Congratulations to both Rita Wong and her publisher, Nightwood Editions.

	PRIZE #1 Life & Art on the West Coast: Fishing with Gubby by Gary Kent and Kim La Fave | Defiant Spirits by Ross King Winner drawn April 8: STEVE MURPHY
	PRIZE #2 History at Home: Voices of British Columbia by Robert Budd (including 3 audio discs) Winner drawn April 11: ERIN HANSON
	PRIZE #3 Poetry & Song: The Inquisition Yours by Jen Currin | Morris as Elvis: Take a Chance on Life by Morris Bates Winner drawn April 13: ARIEL GORDON
	PRIZE #4 Exploring Humanity: Chernov’s Toil and Peace by Rifet Bahtijaragic | Adventures in Solitude by Grant Lawrence Winner drawn April 18: ZOE GRAMS
	PRIZE #5 Two Children’s Books: Up We Grow! by Deborah Hodge and Brian Harris | Salmon Bears by Nicholas Read and Ian McAllister Winner to be drawn April 19 at 1:00 pm
	PRIZE #6 Two books by Polly Horvath: My One Hundred Adventures (shortlisted last year) and the sequel, Northward to the Moon (shortlisted this year) Winner to be drawn April 19 at 5:00 pm
	PRIZE #7 Full of Adventure: Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow by Zsuzsi Gartner (editor) | Hunger Journeys by Maggie de Vries Winner to be drawn April 20 at 4:00 pm

Don’t forget: You have to enter to win!

1st Place: Sylvia Olsen, Working with Wool: A Coast Salish Legacy and the Cowichan Sweater
2nd Place: Dan Savard, Images from the Likeness House
3rd Place: Dorothy Faulkner, Elaine Park and Cathy Jenks, Women of Pender Harbour: Their Voices, Their History
Honourable Mentions:
• Alan Twigg, The Essentials: 150 Great BC Books & Authors
• Robert Budd, Voices of British Columbia: Stories from Our Frontier
• Jane Stevenson, The Railroader’s Wife: Letters from the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway

Congratulations to all the authors including BC Book Prize finalists Sylvia Olsen, Dan Savard and Robert Budd, and BC Book Prize co-founding member Alan Twigg.

Sunday, June 5, 2011. 10 am to 3 pm
Historic Joy Kogawa House
Cost: $135 (includes lunch)
To register, email kogawahouse@yahoo.ca

The single-most important choice you can make in writing short fiction is deciding on what point of view (or points of view) a story should be told from. During this workshop you’ll do writing exercises, as well as read your work out loud and discuss your writing with the class. Zsuzsi will provide a mini course pack that you’ll use for examples and inspiration and are welcome to take home with you.

Facebook | Website

Children and adults alike will have the opportunity to meet local authors, hear readings and discuss their books. Authors include Gina McMurchy-Barber (finalist for the 2011 Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize), and Lois Peterson, Diane Tullson, Craig Spence (finalist for the 2007 Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize), Rebecca Kool, Cristy Watson and Paola Opal.

More info: CWILL BC blog | Facebook Event

Join some of Vancouver’s finest writers for an evening of poetry, fiction, performance. Authors include Daphne Marlatt, Joanne Arnott, Proma Tagore, Roy Miki, Lydia Kwa, Hiromi Goto, Fred Wah, and more.

Event takes place at VIVO Media Arts Centre on March 31, 2011. Admission by donation (all donations will go to the Canadian Red Cross through the BC-Japan Earthquake Relief Fund). All ages, must be 19+ to purchase alcohol.

More info: Facebook Event | Joanne Arnott’s Blog

On Wednesday, April 6, Timothy Taylor, Gurjinder Basran and Rupinder Gill will be reading at Incite.

Timothy will be giving a multimedia presentation for his new novel, The Blue Light Project, which tracks three days in the life of an unnamed North American city gripped by a hostage taking in a television studio in the centre of town. Timothy Taylor’s novel Stanley Park was shortlisted for the 2002 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. He also contributed to Darwin’s Bastards, shortlisted for the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award.

Gurjinder will be reading from her Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize shortlisted title, Everything Was Good-Bye, where a young Indo-Canadian woman growing up in the Lower Mainland traces her life as she struggles to assert her independence in the Punjabi community.

Rupinder Gill will be reading from her memoir, On the Outside Looking Indian, during which she pursued everything she wished had been a part of her youth.