Last year, at a private event featuring BC book publishers and dignitaries, the BC government declared April 9 to be BC Book Day.
To keep the party going for the public this year, the Association of Book Publishers of BC has created Read Local BC, a festival of British Columbia’s incredible written talent – featuring three weeks of readings, presentations, and events – to celebrate.
The first of its kind in BC, Read Local unites 23 local book publishers with 300 authors, 60 speakers and presenters, 50 bookstores and 40 libraries for events across the province.
The goal? To encourage people to pick up books by BC writers, and discover the hundreds of fantastic fiction, non-fiction, and poetry books created right in their own backyards.
“Twenty-five per cent of the members of The Writers’ Union of Canada are from BC,” says Margaret Reynolds, executive director of the Association of Book Publishers of BC, which spearheaded the campaign.
It’s an impressive stat for a province that boasts only about 13 per cent of the country’s population as a whole. And it makes sense, considering that BC is a great place to publish a book.
“We have children’s publishers, scholarly publishers, general trade publishers doing biographies, histories, cookbooks, you name it,” explains Reynolds. “[BC] has publishers in pretty much every genre.”
BC also produces more than 800 books every year – many of which win national awards alongside larger publishing houses. So, as headlines give cause for concern about the industry, there is no better time to support the local artists, libraries, and independent booksellers, who share BC’s stories on everything from local issues to global ideas.
The Vancouver events are all free, and include multi-award-winning authors George Bowering and Wayde Compton discussing their perceptions of Vancouver’s changing landscapes (An Evolving City: Writing Vancouver’s Past, Present & Future, April 9 at 7:30pm at Pulp Fiction); poets Evelyn Lau, Jordan Abel, Ryan Fitzpatrick, WH New, and Daphne Marlatt talking about Vancouver’s relationship between urban and rural (Roughing it in the Bush Revisited, April 15 at 7:30p at Artspeak Gallery); and Jean Barman, Paige Raibmon and Jennifer Kramer sharing their ideas on First Nations art and culture (Writing about First Nations, tonight at 7pm at Book Warehouse).
Like a literary version of the 100 Mile Diet, this is one diet I can get behind. And if you want to feast on local literature with me, you can check Westender's arts pages for #BCBookClub the first Thursday of every month, or regularly swing by the BC Bestsellers List online.
• Read Local BC runs until April 22. More information and the full list of events across the province can be found at Books.BC.ca
