The Sunshine Coast Arts Council's author readings series is back.
Last year, owing to budget cuts to the Canada Council, the arts council's application for support was denied, and it was able to host only one reading in the fall.
This spring the council's application was successful. The SCAC is looking for independent funding - donations from friends of the series and sponsorships from local businesses - so as to be less dependent upon the strained resources of the Canada Council.
The series now resumes with a full schedule of readings during the spring season.
Saturday, Feb. 1 features Evelyn Lau, celebrated Vancouver poet, whose first book, Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid won wide acclaim both in Canada and overseas. She is just ending a term as Vancouver's Poet Laureate.
March 21 features Aislinn Hunter, whose first novel, Stay, was made into a film and featured at the Toronto Film Festival. Hunter's second novel, reportedly the subject of a six-figure deal, will not be published until next fall.
April 26 features Rudy Wiebe, whose The Temptations of Big Bear won the Governor General's award for fiction in 1973, and is now the Grand Old Man of prairie fiction.
J.B. MacKinnon will also be reading, but a date has not been secured. His book, The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating became a bestseller and was adapted as a TV documentary.
The SCAC has been hosting this series of readings for more than 40 years, and they hope Coast residents will help provide the support they need to continue bringing writers of national and international stature to the Arts Centre, not just in August during the Festival of the Written Arts, but throughout the year.
All readings will be at 8 p.m. at the Arts Centre in Sechelt, courtesy of the Canada Council and the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre. Admission is by donation.
