Authors-2024

2024 Festival Line-up

Authors


Canada Reads finalist Angie Abdou has published seven books and co-edited Writing the Body in Motion and Not Hockey, two collections of essays on Canadian Sport Literature. A starred-review in New York’s Booklist declared her best-selling memoir, Home Ice: Reflections of a Reluctant Hockey Mom, “a first rate memoir and a fine example of narrative nonfiction.” Elle Magazine calls her second book of creative nonfiction, This One Wild Life: A Mother-Daughter Memoir, a “sweet tale about a growing and changing parent-child relationship.” Angie Abdou is a Professor of Creative Writing at Athabasca University.

Latest Book: This One Wild Life

Please consider purchasing this book through Abraxas, our local independent bookstore and an important partner in the Festival. Send an email to: Abraxas

Website: Open Link
Author Angie Abdou

David Bergen has published thirteen works of fiction. He has been nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Impac Dublin Literary Award, and a Pushcart Prize. In 2005 Bergen won the Giller Prize for his novel The Time in Between. In 2018 Bergen was given the Writer’s Trust Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of a Writing Life. Away from the Dead is his latest novel. 

Latest Book: Away from the Dead

Please consider purchasing this book through Abraxas, our local independent bookstore and an important partner in the Festival. Send an email to: Abraxas

Website: Open Link
Author David Bergen

Kevin Chong, award-winning author of seven books of fiction and non-fiction, lives in Vancouver and teaches creative writing at UBC.  His most recent novel, The Double Life of Benson Yu, was on the shortlist for the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize.  His previous works include The Plague, written presciently pre-covid in 2018; Northern Dancer (2014), My Year of the Racehorse (2012), and Neil Young Nation (2005).  Chong was a popular presenter at the 2013 Denman Island Readers & Writers Festival.

Latest Book: The Double Life of Benson Yu

Please consider purchasing this book through Abraxas, our local independent bookstore and an important partner in the Festival. Send an email to: Abraxas

Website: Open Link
Author Kevin Chong

Ian Ferguson won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour for Village of the Small Houses and is the co-author, with his brother, Will, of How to Be a Canadian, which was shortlisted for the Leacock Medal and won the CBA Libris Award for non-fiction. His latest book I Only Read Murder which he will be reading from is also co-authored with Will Ferguson. Another book of note is his Survival Guide to British Columbia. A writer and creative director in the film and television industry, he lives in Victoria. 

Latest Book: I Only Read Murder

Please consider purchasing this book through Abraxas, our local independent bookstore and an important partner in the Festival. Send an email to: Abraxas

Website: Open Link
Author Ian Ferguson

Will Ferguson is a three-time winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour. His novels include his debut, HappinessTM, sold in twenty-three languages; 419, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize; and The Finder, which won the 2021 Arthur Ellis Award for Crime Fiction. With his brother, Ian, he is the author of the mega-bestseller How to Be a Canadian. He lives in Calgary. 

Latest Book: I Only Read Murder

Please consider purchasing this book through Abraxas, our local independent bookstore and an important partner in the Festival. Send an email to: Abraxas

Website: Open Link
Author Will Ferguson

Des Kennedy has been writing and homesteading on Inner (Denman) Island for the last 50-plus years. Living a conserver lifestyle, he and his partner Sandy have created gardens that provide food and beauty throughout the year and inspire much of his writing. His published works include five novels, five books of non-fiction and a memoir along with numerous feature magazine articles, including pieces on civil disobedience, BC’s war in the woods and Indigenous issues. Three of his books were nominated for the Stephen Leacock medal for humour and one for the international Annual Literature Award by the Council of Botanical and Horticultural Libraries. Des also put in lengthy stints as a columnist for The Globe and Mail and for CBC Television. His most recent book is a novel titled Commune.

Latest Book: Commune

Please consider purchasing this book through Abraxas, our local independent bookstore and an important partner in the Festival. Send an email to: Abraxas

Website: Open Link
Author Des Kennedy

Lenore Newman‘s love affair with food began on her family’s fishing boats, where she gained an early introduction into the world of direct marketing of local products. Lenore is an expert in food and agricultural technology and policy, and she is the Director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at UFV. She holds a research chair in food and agriculture innovation and is a past Canada Research Chair in Food Security and the Environment. Lenore is an emeritus member of the Royal Society of Canada’s New College. She holds a PhD in Environmental Studies from York University and sits on the Global X-Prize Brain Trust. She has written two award-winning books, Speaking in Cod Tongues: A Canadian Culinary Journey, and Lost Feast. She is co-author of Dinner on Mars, published in October, 2022.

Latest Book: Dinner on Mars: The Technologies that will Feed the Red Planet and Transform Agriculture on Earth co-authored with Evan D.G. Fraser. Her previous book Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future of Food, will be the focus of her solo presentation.

Please consider purchasing this book through Abraxas, our local independent bookstore and an important partner in the Festival. Send an email to: Abraxas

Website: Open Link
Author Lenore Newman

Angela Sterritt is an award-winning investigative journalist and national bestselling author from the Wilp Wiik’aax (we-GAK) of the Gitanmaax (GIT-in-max) community within the Gitxsan (GICK-san) Nation on her dad’s side and from Bell Island Newfoundland on her maternal side. Sterritt worked as a television, radio, and digital journalist at CBC for more than a decade. She hosted the award-winning CBC original podcast Land Back. Her book Unbroken, a work that is part memoir and part investigation into the murders and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls, published by Greystone Books became an instant national bestseller in May of 2023. Unbroken was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Awards, one of Canada’s oldest and most prestigious literary prizes. It is also nominated for the prestigious Hilary Weston Writer’s Trust award for best non-fiction book in Canada.

Latest Book: Unbroken

Please consider purchasing this book through Abraxas, our local independent bookstore and an important partner in the Festival. Send an email to: Abraxas

Website: Open Link
Author Angela Sterritt

Frank Tester is a resident of Denman Island, a Canadian author, film maker and professor of social work and environmental studies. He is currently adjunct professor of Indigenous Studies, University of Manitoba and the Kutenai Art Therapy Institute, Nelson B.C., having previously taught at the University of British Columbia, York University, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Waikato, New Zealand. He is the author/co-author of 6 books and over 50 publications dealing with Canadian and international social and environmental policies and issues, Inuit culture and Inuit social history. Tammarniit (Mistakes), a book examining government policy affecting Inuit after WWII, is a winner of the Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Prize for its contribution to the Ethnohistory of Indigenous peoples. Tester is also a recipient of the Gustavus Myers Award for his contribution to the study of human rights in North America. He is a former chair of the City of Vancouver’s Family Court, Youth Justice Committee and a founding member of the Vancouver Association for Restorative Justice. Tester has worked as a technical advisor to Inuit organizations dealing with mining in Nunavut Territory and as an advisor to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Federal Government on matters related to research and policy affecting social housing in Canada. His film, Beneath the Surface (2016) explores Inuit experience with a nickel mine developed in the 1950s in the Kivalliq region of what is now Nunavut Territory. His latest book, Righting Canada’s Wrongs: Inuit Relocations (with Krista Ulujuk Zawadski) is published by James Lorimer.

Latest Book: Righting Canada's Wrongs: Inuit Relocations: Colonial Policies and Practices, Inuit Resilience and Resistance (co-authored with Krista Ulujuk Zawadski)

Please consider purchasing this book through Abraxas, our local independent bookstore and an important partner in the Festival. Send an email to: Abraxas

Website: Open Link
Author Frank Tester (co-authored with Krista Ulujuk Zawadski)

Siila Watt-Cloutier was born in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, Northern Quebec, Canada. She is an environmental and human rights activist. From 1991 to 1995, she worked as a counsellor in the review process of the education system of Northern Quebec. This work led to the 1992 report on the educational system in Nunavik, Silaturnimut – The Pathway to Wisdom. Watt-Cloutier also contributed significantly to the youth awareness video Capturing Spirit: The Inuit Journey. In 2007, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy work in showing the impact global climate change has on human rights. She is a recipient of the Aboriginal Achievement Award, the UN Champion of the Earth Award, and the Norwegian Sophie Prize. She is also an Officer of the Order of Canada and past international chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. The Right to Be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet (2015) was shortlisted for Canada Reads and was a finalist for the BC National Award for Canadian Non-fiction.

Latest Book: The Right to Be Cold

Please consider purchasing this book through Abraxas, our local independent bookstore and an important partner in the Festival. Send an email to: Abraxas

Website: Open Link
Author Siila Watt-Cloutier

Mystery author Iona Whishaw grew up in Canada, Arizona and Mexico. She has an MFA from UBC, and spent her working life in education. Her Lane Winslow mysteries have won her the 2021 Bony Blythe Light Mystery Award and she has been a finalist for the Duthie book prize and two Lefty Awards. Her book Framed in Fire appeared in 2022, and the tenth book, To Track A Traitor, was released in April 2023 and went on to be the number one best-selling book in BC for 2023 in indie bookstores. This book has been listed on the national best seller lists by both CBC and the Globe and Mail. A passion for history and her family’s WW2 intelligence work, and long rambling rainy walks in England inform the spirit of her period novels. She writes in a disreputable pink fluffy bath robe, and under the strong influence of tea. Whishaw’s latest book entitled “Lightning Strikes the Silence” will be released in May.

Latest Book: Lightning Strikes the Silence

Please consider purchasing this book through Abraxas, our local independent bookstore and an important partner in the Festival. Send an email to: Abraxas

Website: Open Link
Author Iona Whishaw


 

 

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