Take the Plunge and join us for open mic night Special spring event offers a night of creativity and community, and an opportunity for readers to get their hands on some books while supporting the Whistler Writers Festival. Experience Take the Plunge, a free event, in April. MARCH 26, 2024: Whistler, BC — The Whistler Writers Festival is celebrating spring with a brand new event that brings creativity and community together for one night only. Take the Plunge features poet Leanne Dunic, author of One and a Half of You, To Love the Coming End, and The Gift. Dunic will read from her most recen ..read more

Book review: Inside the Belly of an Elephant The death of a loved one is difficult to endure. But when you’re in Africa, sharing an epic journey with your amazing older brother, only to witness him dying from malaria, it is almost unbearable. When that brother dies from a disease, the prophylactic mediation you both agreed to forgo, there is a chest-clenching guilt you carry with you. Inside The Belly of an Elephant is the telling of a years-long motorbike journey, and Todd Lawson’s tribute to his brother Sean. Like a boat without an anchor, after Sean’s death, Todd struggled to remain moore ..read more

Connecting Through Stories ties us to the past and our community The theme of the 2023 Whistler Writers Festival is “Connecting Through Story.” Nick Marino, a guest author this year, shares what this means to her as we prepare for the festival in October. When I started writing East Side Story: Growing Up at the PNE, a memoir of my time working at the fair, I was trying to connect with my younger self. I tried to remember what it felt like to be a twelve-year-old caught up in the underground economy on the midway. I wanted to share the fear and exhilaration of getting away with something. An ..read more

Book Review: Everyone Here is Lying It’s hard to feel for a character when, right out of the gate, they slap a nine-year-old girl. However, as this page-turner, thriller unravels you might start to feel for the father left horrified by his own actions. This is Shari Lapena’s seventh novel. A lawyer and English teacher turned thriller writer, she’s the author of the New York bestseller, The Couple Next Door, which sold four million copies worldwide. Ever since, Lapena has been dubbed the “mistress of dysfunctional family stories” and after reading her latest novel I wholeheartedly agree. Ever ..read more

Book review: three poetry must-reads In an essay environmental writer Barry Lopez wrote for Orion Magazine, he asked the question if it is “still possible to face the gathering darkness and say to the physical Earth, and to all its creatures, including ourselves, fiercely and without embarrassment, ‘I love you,’ and to embrace fearlessly the burning world?” Eco-poetry is poetry that imagines changing the way we think and feel about living in the world. It takes a critical lens towards our relationship with the planet. These poets are writing in times of dire need, and yet, with the power of ..read more

Connecting Through Story gives us empathy and understanding The theme of the 2023 Whistler Writers Festival is “Connecting Through Story.” Iona Whishaw, a guest author this year, shares what this means to her as we prepare for the festival in October. Story famously connects. It connects writers with their readers, it connects us with the past, and perhaps even the future, but most often it connects writers with their own inner selves. I had the uncanny experience of story connecting not with my own past, but with an episode in my mother’s past that happened long before I was born, and about ..read more

Connecting Through Story: technology can help us with our own stories The theme of the 2023 Whistler Writers Festival is “Connecting Through Story.” Paige Maylott, a guest author this year, shares what this means to her as we prepare for the festival in October. It’s hard to believe it’s been over a decade since I was juggling three different lives. Most evident was the old me, the one everyone thought they knew, back when I worked at a busy office when my supervisors were slowly cluing into the existence of my other lives. The second, known only to a trusted few, was my true self, Paige. Ba ..read more

Connecting Through Story: stories help us remember who people are The theme of the 2023 Whistler Writers Festival is “Connecting Through Story.” Eve Lazarus, a guest author this year, shares what this means to her as we prepare for the festival in October. There are over 1,300 cases of murdered and missing Indigenous women across Canada and 26 percent are from BC. While that number is staggering, it is just a statistic, and it’s easy to scroll past unless there’s a face and a story attached. In Cold Case BC I have written the story of Gloria “Lee” Moody, a 26-year-old mother of two who ..read more

Book review: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke my Heart is much more than Jen Sookfong Lee’s commentary on five decades of television, art, music, and popular celebrities and their role in her life; it is a heartbreaking testimony to family, identity, grief and belonging.   From the adventures of Anne of Green Gables to episodes of ease-inducing painting with Bob Ross and Nora from Queens, Lee is devoted to the lives of characters and celebrities who she is uplifted by (Anne of Green Gables), adores (Princess Diana), criticizes (Gwyneth Paltrow) and inspired ..read more

Book Review: Huge Best known for his hit TV series Corner Gas, which ran for six seasons on CTV and spawned a spinoff movie and animated series, award-winning Saskatchewan-born actor, comedian, and screenwriter Brent Butt is back in the spotlight with his debut novel Huge. An unexpectedly dark and twisted thriller, Huge follows three stand-up comedians as they embark on a run of shows across a remote stretch of rural Canadian countryside. It’s 1994, a time before cell phones and YouTube, and Dale is a 40-something comic from Chicago who’s on the back half of a mediocre career and thinking ab ..read more