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.