BC Book Prizes Highlights

It was a grand evening at the Kay Meek Theatre in West Vancouver, with many of BC's finest writers, illustrators and publishers gathered in their finery to toast the year's best books.

Some highlights:

- meeting the Honourable Steven Point, Lieutentant Governor of BC, and Her Honour, Mrs. Gwendolyn Point, an instructor at the University of the Fraser Valley. What warm and wonderful people they are!

- bagpipes piping their Honours into the theatre

- hearing Steven Point say that he felt he had found his tribe with the BC writers

- listening to the extraordinary speech of George Bowering, winner of the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence, where he paid tribute to the BC writers who had influenced him over the years. His speech was 60 words: 30 names of writers, followed by, "Thank you all."

- seeing (again) how many excellent and socially conscious writers make their home in our province. Hooray for BC! We are a prolific bunch.

- attending the festivities with my daughter, who is a talented writer, and imagining her at the acceptance podium one of these years

- finding out at the Easter family dinner table that my dad (a prolific and long-standing author) was nominated for a book of his some years ago. Can you see heredity at work? :-)

- being a finalist for the Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize. That was a special nomination, indeed. Thank you to the jury! And, many congratulations to the winner, Julie Flett, who wrote and illustrated Owls See Clearly at Night: A Michif Alphabet. It is a beautiful book and a worthy winner. See a sample of it here.

Thank you to Rebus Creative and everyone else who works so hard to host this wonderful event each year. Well done!

I can hardly wait for next year.

BC Book Prizes Gala!

Mark your calendars! Thursday, April 21 at 7 pm is the annual celebration of local books and authors at the BC Book Prizes Gala. It's always a fun night, and great to see what authors wear when they get dressed up. (Most of us rarely leave our homes and don't often have occasion to don formal wear.)

The comedy team of Linda Cullen and Bob Robertson are the hosts for the night. There will be snacks and drinks, and lots of laughs. For details about location, tickets and more, go here.

(The photo above shows a couple of the contest prizes with those beautiful silver stickers on them. Is it too bold to tell you that the book on the top left is mine?)

See you there!

Thank you, Mission!

I'd like to post a big thank you to the students and staff of Albert McMahon and Ecole Mission Central Elementary Schools for hosting me this week. It was great to meet you all!

I'd especially like to thank the students for being such wonderful audiences. You had excellent questions and knew so much about nature and wildlife. I'm glad that some of you had been watching the Eagle cam website. Those eggs should hatch soon!

It was a surprise to wake up to snow in Mission yesterday. Spring flowers and snow showers. :-)

Thank you for a lovely week! We'll cross our fingers for warm spring temperatures soon.

Cheers,

Deborah

Back to Mission Schools

Hello Mission students and staff!

I look forward to being at Ecole Mission Central and Albert McMahon Schools and meeting you all this week.

While there, I will be talking about my EAGLES book and the timing is perfect. Did you know that there are live webcams of BC baby eagles hatching from their eggs this week? If you'd like to check it out, visit the website of Hancock Wildlife and watch the amazing nature scene unfold.

See you soon!

BC Book Prizes Soiree

If you're in the Vancouver area on Tuesday, April 5, consider attending the BC Book Prizes Soiree at the Listel Hotel from 7-9 pm. It's free! Nominated authors and book-lovers alike will mingle and raise a glass to a wonderfully versatile collection of books written in our province over the past year.

For more details, go here.

I'll be there, and so will lots of other local folks. It will be fun! I promise. (We may even get a glimpse of the world-famous Mr. Generation X, Douglas Coupland.)

See you there!