“LitFest NewWest was created to celebrate the literary arts, writers, authors and their accomplishments. We are proud to be a venue for the Lower Mainland leg of the BC Book Prizes Tour. This all day event features speakers, authors, workshops, readings and much more.”
To my friends and colleagues,
I am volunteering at LitFest this year and have been put in charge of finding children’s authors/publishers/illustrators, etc. So here I am, putting my money where my mouth is!
LitFest New West will be held all day on April 14th, a Saturday. There might be some satellite events within the week before the 14th as well (ie) spoken word held at the Heritage Grill, possibly a reception on Friday at the public library, etc.
The BC Book Prize organization will be involved this year and we hope to get some of the nominees to read as well. The prize is after the Fest so we won’t know who won yet.
We’ve got some CBC celebs like JJ Lee lined up to do some presentations too.
There will be literary-inspired performances (spoken word, dance, poetry, choral, etc) in the Douglas theatre.
Douglas College Creative Writing Students will be participating this year as well.
So far, I found out that to rent a table is $25 and last year, readers were paid a $75 honorarium to read. I asked about workshops (45 minutes) but was not told yet how a workshop instructor would get paid.
If you are interested in reading and/or a table, please let me know and I’ll refer you to the folks who will set you up.
If you have any more questions (or suggestions!) please don’t hesitate to contact me via this website.
There’s more registration info for LitFest, below:
http://artscouncilnewwest.org/12/general/lit-fest-new-west-coming-soon/
-Theresa
Much doodling was done during the monkey mayhem
Did I mention I do extra work on the side?
Poor Grace is no expert on broom riding!
Last Thursday, my daughter and a group of her friends went, in costume, to the midnight movie premier, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2.
As my daughter Amanda and her pal Hannah spent the afternoon digging through old Halloween boxes from the attic and sewing paper Hogwarts crests to their costumes, it was poignant for me to witness both the final chapter of the Harry Potter books/movies and that of my daughter’s childhood. You see Amanda just graduated from high school last month and this September she’s off to explore her future in university.
Ok I know am getting sentimental here. But no wait, not about my daughter’s growing up; I mean Harry Potter. I LOVE those books. The first time I got wind of Harry Potter, was from a little seven year old girl I used to do after-school care for. Her name was Krista and, boy, was she a precocious reader. Most kids were just starting to figure their way through Junie B. Jones at that age. Anyway, Krista always had her nose in that book. After school, when my daughters wanted to play with her, she just blocked them out and kept reading (think Julian Smith’s I’m Reading a Book!). Because of this snub, my older daughter Amanda decided she hated Harry Potter. This of course all changed a couple years later. Since then our family has all been mad for Potter. This is evidenced in the family photos of all of us dressed in witch costumes for numerous Halloweens to come.
I, myself, read the first three books in rapid succession, and then got through many a gruelling Christmas craft fair season by listening to the voice talents of Jim Dale on the audio books while beading away. I even coerced my book group into reading Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. Bewilderingly, not everyone in book group appreciated it. “Come on,” I said trying to play the vocabulary card, “Are you not at least thrilled to have learned new words like gobsmacked and snog?” It’s hard to be a middle-aged Harry Potter fan.
So ok, my kids can own the claim that they grew up with Harry Potter, but I too have been under its spell all these years. An athiest recently asked me why I fancy myself an agnostic. The answer has to do with faith; “I want believe that there’s magic somewhere in the universe…and I want to believe there could really be a place out there like Hogwarts.”
(PS) Krista is a talented artist now. Check out her illustrations/art/crafts in the Get Thee to a Nunnery link
(PPS) Check out Julian Smith’s I’m reading a Book! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuRuwR2JSXI
Sometimes its good, healthy even, for a writer just starting out, to get smacked with a reality brick. Recently, I just ‘finished’ my first early chapter book manuscript. I have a wonderful writing teacher, Ruth Kozak whom has an impressive background in publishing and writing, so I asked her (for a fee) if she could edit it for me. She went over the manuscript with a fine tooth comb and in addition wrote three pages of comments for me. She did an awesome job but what an awakening for me! What I thought of as an ‘almost there’ manuscript was actually a piece in need of many revisions. While I will not make all the revisions suggested, I have some work to do. Yes, my beginner’s writer ego may of taken a hit, but I am always grateful for the chance to learn something new. Seeing my writing through an expert’s eyes offers me the window to do just that.
