Literary Reading Series

The Sunshine Coast Arts Council, under the guidance of a Literary Reading Committee, sponsors a series of readings each year. Authors make a selection to read from their texts, followed by a discussion with the audience. This will be held ONLINE, please register.

To Register

Please join us Saturday, February 25th @ 7PM via ZOOM

Nicole Markotić is a poet, novelist, short fiction writer and professor of Canadian and Children’s Literature at the University of Windsor. Her poetry titles include Minotaurs & Other Alphabets, Bent at the Spine, Whelmed and a recent translation of the Old English epic, Beowulf; her novels, Yellow Pages (on the inventions of Alexander Graham Bell), Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot (about a young woman who becomes a Mormon), and a recent Young Adults work, Rough Patch (a coming of age tale about a bisexual teen). She was poetry editor at Red Deer Press for six years and is currently a fiction editor at NeWest Press. Her academic interests include representations of disability in children’s literature, feminist critical and body theory and twentieth-century Canadian and North American literature and poetics. 

Nicole’s Sunshine Coast reading will include selections from her Beowulf, a rollicking tale of toxic masculinity against the Beast from Outside. Markotić’s translation is both irreverently hilarious and meticulously researched. In the words of one reviewer, “Upending the tale with her fresh and enchanting style, Markotić gives a nod to previous translations, winks at canonical critics, bares historical biases, all while gifting transmogrifying pages that will whet your whimsy!”

The Sunshine Coast Arts Council, under the guidance of a Literary Reading Committee, sponsors a series of readings each year. Authors make a selection to read from their texts, followed by a discussion with the audience. This will be held in person at the Arts Centre, entrance by donation.

Please join us Saturday, March 25th @ 7PM

“The best crime writer in Canada” – Charles Demers  

Terse dialogue reminiscent of Raymond Chandler, complex characters and a very real Vancouver characterize Wiebe’s writing. His first crime novel, the standalone Last of the Independents, won both the Kobo Emerging Writer and the Arthur Ellis Awards. He has been shortlisted for the Edgar, Hammett, Shamus, and City of Vancouver book prizes and was a former Vancouver Public Library Writer in Residence.

Dave Wakeland is the protagonist of the Wakeland detective series, “one of the most authentic and acclaimed detective series in Canada.” – Crime Writers of Canada  

Wiebe will be reading from Sunset and Jericho the fourth in his Wakeland series. 

“The Wakeland novels are an incredible combination of social commentary and just the best of the crime genre.” – Charles Demers

The Sunshine Coast Arts Council, under the guidance of a Literary Reading Committee, sponsors a series of readings each year. Authors make a selection to read from their texts, followed by a discussion with the audience. This will be held in person at the Arts Centre, entrance by donation.

Please join us Saturday, April 22nd @ 7PM

Tolu Oloruntoba was born and practiced medicine in Nigeria before migrating to Canada. He is no stranger to the experience of conflict and human fragility as well as the experience of displacement and resultant isolation — themes in his poetry. Oloruntoba’s debut collection The Junta of Happenstance won the 2021 Governor General’s Award and the prestigious 2022 Griffin Poetry Prize. His latest book, Each One a Furnace (2022), uses the imagery of migratory finches to express restlessness, immigration, and the othering that are prevalent globally. Oloruntoba currently resides in the traditional territory of the Semiahmoo, Katzie, and Kwantlen Nations.