Writers Workshops and interview with Don Calame

This is our biggest year yet for Writer’s Workshops, we’ve got 5 different sessions lined up for you Friday, February 21st. To purchase all tickets, call (250) 539-3340 or email us at leetrentadue@gmail.com.

  • Audrey Thomas – Writing Short Fiction: Participants will explore the process of writing short fiction. Bring paper and pens, but no electronic devices. Expect to have lots of fun!
  • Marilyn Norry – Writing Women: In this two hour workshop you will experience the writing template used in the project My Mother’s Story to effectively and efficiently capture the essence of your mother’s life
  • Don CalameThe Art Of Screenwriting: How To Write For Film And Television: Learn the basics of plotting and writing a film or television show and then learn how to apply those same techniques in writing just about anything else.
  • Sara CassidyWriting for Children: What makes for an excellent children’s book? What is the difference between YA, MG, picture book and board book? How do I get my book into a publisher’s hands? This two-hour workshop will answer those questions. But best of all, you will dive in and write fresh material.
  • Bill Stenson –Writing the Matrix: The matrix that encourages literary fiction: Language, character, plot. Participants will be instructed on the role of language, character and plot in the creation of literary fiction, have samples presented and will engage in a few short writing exercises that explore the function of these three elements. Students should bring paper and pen.
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Meg Tilly – Solace Island & Cliff’s Edge

(This is fifth of #LitFest2019 features on writers attending the Galiano Literary FestivalFebruary 22-24 on Galiano Island. Tickets on sale now (250) 539-3340 or leetrentadue@gmail.com.)

She may be best known for her acclaimed Golden Globe-winning lead performance in the movie “Agnes of God,” but Meg Tilly is taking on an exciting new persona these days, as a romance novelist.

After successfully publishing six standout young adult and literary women’s fiction novels, the Canadian American actress/author decided to write the kind of books she loves to read—romance novels. She self-published SOLACE ISLAND, a romantic suspense set in the Pacific Northwest, to rave reviews in spring 2017. 

“…a romantic thriller with a clever ending. You may think you know exactly where the story is going, but looks, and people, can be deceiving.” —USA Today

However, that experience taught her she’s happiest when she’s writing and not involved in the myriad tasks of publishing. She closed out 2017 by signing with Berkley Books for three novels, including a new, improved edition of SOLACE ISLAND which was released on November 6, 2018. Book 2 in Meg’s series, CLIFF’S EDGE, will be published in May 2019.

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Download #LitFest 2019 Program, Schedule & Guide

(Download the Galiano Literary Festival 2019 Progam for all the information on the Festival this year. Email Lee Trentadue if you have any further questions. Tickets are available at Galiano Island Books 250-539-3340)

Ten years ago, in the midst of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, we launched the Galiano Literary Festival for those wanting to escape the Olympic Fever in Vancouver.

Each year since then we’ve been very fortunate to attract an increasingly wide range of outstanding first-time and returning authors, and this year is no exception!

Our current group of authors span the spectrum of nonfiction and fiction titles. They include memoirists and biographers Darrell McLeod, Rosemary Sullivan, Andrea Warner, Anna Porter, and Rebecca Wigod, environmental writers Paulene Le Bel, Sarah Cox, and Des Kennedy, essayist John Knox, poets, George Bowering, Randall Maggs, and Susan Gillis, and a whole spectrum of novelists and short story writers including many well-known writers as well as many rising stars.

We’re confident that after your weekend of hearing these great voices you’ll be growing that stack of “must read” books on your bedside table even higher!

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Sheena Kamal – It All Falls Down

(This is fourth of #LitFest2019 features on writers attending the Galiano Literary FestivalFebruary 22-24 on Galiano Island. Tickets on sale now (250) 539-3340 or leetrentadue@gmail.com.)

Sheena Kamal was born in the Caribbean and immigrated to Canada as a child. She holds an HBA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and was awarded a TD Canada Trust scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness.

Her bestselling debut novel The Lost Ones won her a 2018 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, a Strand Magazine Critics Award and Macavity Award for Best First Novel. The sequel It All Falls Down is now available and has been called “a stunning, emotionally resonant thriller” in its Kirkus starred review.

Her next thriller in the Nora Watts crime series and her first YA novel Fight Like A Girl will both drop in 2020.

Her writing has been featured in The Guardian, Bustle, The Irish Times, Writer’s Digest and Entertainment Weekly.

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Sonny Assu: A Selective History

(This is third of #LitFest2019 features on writers attending the Galiano Literary Festival February 22-24 on Galiano Island. Tickets on sale now (250) 539-3340 or leetrentadue@gmail.com.)

Sonny Assu is a Ligwilda’xw Kwakwaka’wakw contemporary artist and subject of the new art book Sonny Assu: A Selective History. Through large-scale installation, sculpture, photography, printmaking, and painting, Sonny Assu merges the aesthetics of Indigenous iconography with a pop-art sensibility.

The book published by Heritage House is “A stunning retrospective highlighting the playfulness, power, and subversive spirit of Northwest Coast Indigenous artist Sonny Assu.”

Through analytical essays and personal narratives, Candice Hopkins, Marianne Nicolson, Richard Van Camp, and Ellyn Walker provide brilliant commentary on Assu’s practice, its meaning in the context of contemporary art, and its wider significance in the struggle for Indigenous cultural and political autonomy.

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Andrea Warner: Buffy Sainte-Marie Biography

(This is second of #LitFest2019 interviews with writers attending the Galiano Literary Festival February 22-24 on Galiano Island. Tickets are on sale now (250) 539-3340 or leetrentadue@gmail.com.)

“Andrea Warner is, in my opinion, one of the best music journalists in Canada.” — Elaine Lui

Andrea Warner is the author of Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography  (Greystone, 2018) and We Oughta Know: How Four Women Ruled the ’90s and Changed Canadian Music (Eternal Cavalier Press, 2015). Andrea is an associate producer at CBC Music and co-hosts the weekly podcast, Pop This!.

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Alix Hawley – My Name is a Knife

(This is first of #LitFest2019 interviews with writers attending the Galiano Literary Festival February 22-24 on Galiano Island. Tickets are on sale now (250) 539-3340 or leetrentadue@gmail.com.)

Alix Hawley lives in Kelowna, British Columbia and studied English Literature and Creative Writing at Oxford University, the University of East Anglia, and the University of British Columbia.

In 2008, Alix published a story collection, The Old Familiar (Thistledown Press), which was longlisted for the ReLit Award. Several pieces have won accolades from the CBC “Witching” won the 2017 Literary Awards Short Story Prize, while “Tentcity” and  “Jumbo” were runners-up  in 2012 and 2014, and “Pig (For Oma)” won the 2014 Bloodlines Contest.

Several pieces have won accolades from the CBC:  “Witching” won the 2017 Literary Awards Short Story Prize, while “Tentcity” and  “Jumbo” were runners-up  in 2012 and 2014, and “Pig (For Oma)” won the 2014 Bloodlines Contest.

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Tickets Now Available!!! click “Tickets” tab for more information

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The 2018 Literary Festival is now just a fond memory but never fear, we’re already starting to line up a stellar roster of authors for 2019.

Next year, the Galiano Literary Festival will be on February 22-24.  We’ll be celebrating our 10th anniversary and hope all of you can join us.

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Visit this site often for updates as things start falling into place!

Or, just send your e-mail address us at leetrentadue@gmail.com, put “FESTIVAL” in the subject line and we’ll send you regular e-mail updates as things develop!

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2018 Galiano Island Literary Festival Brochure

It’s been nine years since we first had the idea of having a literary festival on Galiano Island for those who wanted to escape the throes of Olympic Fever in Vancouver, and what wonderful years they’ve been.

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This year we are delighted to welcome back many authors who have been with us in years past including George Bowering, Charlie Demers, Theresa Kishkan, Tim Taylor and Audrey Thomas to name a few.We are also delighted to welcome many rising stars in the B.C. writing community including David Chariandy, Gurjinder Basran, Michael Harris, Ashley Little, and Leesa Dean, and to welcome many well established Canadian writers including Wayne Johnston, Michael Redhill, Kyo Maclear, and Jennifer Robson. Continue reading