Words on the Water

Campbell River's literary festival this past weekend was such a good time. It's one of the most beautiful places (the traditional territory of the Laich-Kwil-Tach people, at the south end of Discovery Passage on Vancouver Island), and its book fan community is disproportionately huge! If you have a chance to go next year, do. You might even get to see the hundred Pacific white-sided dolphins that breezed past, which I . . . missed.

I did get to talk onstage with Mark Leiren-Young about how hard it is to write openings (his non-fiction book, The Killer Whale Who Changed the World, sold out at the fest).  I was also lucky to hear him get the whole house singing, accompanied by our CBC host Grant Lawrence. Novelists Heather O'Neill and David Chariandy performed a little play, Chief Bev Sellars revealed her path to writerhood, Renee Sarojini Saklikar created a hive of sound with her poems, journalist Terry Glavin revealed his secret bank-robber past, and fiction writer Kim Fu had everyone on edge with her new novel excerpt. I gave a little teaser from My Name is a Knife.  I'm happy it hits stores in July. And I'm happy to have been among this group for a few days.

That's me, Chief Bev Sellars, Terry Glavin, Renee Sarojini Saklikar, Heather O'Neill, Mark Leiren-Young, Grant Lawrence, Kim Fu, and David Chariandy. Photo credit: Words on the Water.