ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Chelsea Wakelyn. Chelsea is the author of What Remains of Elsie Jane, which is a finalist for the 2024 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. In their conversation, Chelsea talks about who Elsie Jane is, and writing autofiction.

Visit BC and Yukon Book Prizes: bcyukonbookprizes.com/

About What Remains of Elsie Jane: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/what-remains-of-elsie-jane/

ABOUT CHELSEA WAKELYN:
Chelsea Wakelyn is a writer, musician, and mother to two lovely, eccentric humans. She lives on Vancouver Island.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:
Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:
Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

Season 6 Episode 17: Chelsea Wakelyn talks about communal grief during the toxic drug crisis

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to David Norwell. David wrote and illustrated A Complex Coast: A Kayak Journey from Vancouver Island to Alaska, which was a finalist for the 2024 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize. In their conversation, David talks about the push and pull of starting the kayak trip. He also talks about loneliness, and the role of awe and wonder.

Visit BC and Yukon Book Prizes: bcyukonbookprizes.com/

About A Complex Coast: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/a-complex-coast/

ABOUT DAVID NORWELL:
David Norwell is an author, illustrator, and world traveller. He holds a BSc in Geography from the University of Victoria, and has worked for six seasons conducting biological and geological surveys In BC, Alberta, and the Yukon. His passion is communicating science in a way that accesses the human heart. David has visited thirty-three countries, sailed across the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, trekked over the Himalayas with a kitten, and hitchhiked over two hundred rides. He is dedicated to understanding the human experience and sharing his findings. When not working on books, he is volunteering at schools, studying Buddhism, and practising meditation.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:
Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:
Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

Season 6 Episode 20: David Norwell on the role of awe and wonder

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
In this episode, Polly Horvath talks about her book Pine Island Visitors. Pine Island Visitors was a finalist for the 2024 Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize. In her conversation with host Megan Cole, Polly talks about relying on her voice as an author. She also talks about why she writes novels for young readers and how she develops her characters.

Visit BC and Yukon Book Prizes: bcyukonbookprizes.com/

About Pine Island Visitors: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/pine-island-visitors/

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Polly Horvath is the author of many books for young people, including The Night Garden, Everything on a Waffle, The Pepins and Their Problems, The Canning Season and The Trolls. Her numerous awards include the Newbery Honor, the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor and the Vicky Metcalf Award for Children’s Literature. She has also been shortlisted for The Deutscher Jugenliteraturpreis, Germany’s most prestigious literature award. Horvath grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She lives in Metchosin, British Columbia.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:
Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:
Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

Season 6 Episode 24: Polly Horvath talks about developing characters for her middle grade novels

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
In this episode, Kirsten Pendreigh talks about her book Maybe A Whale. Maybe A Whale was a finalist for the 2024 Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize. In her conversation with host Megan Cole, Kirsten talks about how nature and the environment has inspired her work. She also talks about the importance of writing children's books that tackle topics like grief and death.

Visit BC and Yukon Book Prizes: bcyukonbookprizes.com/

About Maybe A Whale : https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/maybe-a-whale/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kirsten Pendreigh is a children’s author and poet from Vancouver, BC. Her books celebrate our early instincts to care for the plants and creatures that share our planet. She is the author of Luna’s Green Pet, illustrated by Carmen Mok. Kirsten’s poems can be found in Canadian literary magazines and in Best Canadian Poetry 2021. Formerly a CBC and NPR journalist, Kirsten also writes non-fiction for children.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:
Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:
Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

Season 6 Episode 25: Kirsten Pendreigh talks about writing about death in children's books

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
In this episode, Katherine Palmer Gordon, Geoffrey Morrison, and Jess Housty share their thoughts and reflections about storytelling. Katherine Palmer Gordon is the author of This Place is Who We Are: Stories of Indigenous Leadership, Resilience, and Connection to Homelands, a finalist for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize. Geoffrey Morrison is the author of Falling Hour, a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Jess Housty is the author of Crushed Wild Mint, winner of both the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award.

Visit BC and Yukon Book Prizes: bcyukonbookprizes.com/

To watch the full Storied video On Storytelling: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1004669107

About This Place is Who We Are : https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/this-place-is-who-we-are-stories-of-indigenous-leadership-resilience-and-connection-to-homelands/

About Falling Hour: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/falling-hour/

About Crushed Wild Mint: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/crushed-wild-mint/

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Katherine Palmer Gordon is the author of eight books of non-fiction, including several BC Bestsellers: The Slocan: Portrait of a Valley, The Garden That You Are, and Made to Measure: A History of Land Surveying in British Columbia, for which she was awarded the 2007 BC Haig-Brown prize. She is also an award-winning freelance journalist and lives on Gabriola Island, BC.

Geoffrey D. Morrison is the author of the poetry chapbook Blood-Brain Barrier (Frog Hollow Press, 2019) and co-author, with Matthew Tomkinson, of the experimental short fiction collection Archaic Torso of Gumby (Gordon Hill Press, 2020). He was a finalist in both the poetry and fiction categories of the 2020 Malahat Review Open Season Awards and a nominee for the 2020 Journey Prize. He lives on unceded Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh territory (Vancouver).

Jess Housty (‘Cúagilákv) is a parent, writer and grassroots activist with Heiltsuk (Indigenous) and mixed settler ancestry. They serve their community as an herbalist and land-based educator alongside broader work in the non-profit and philanthropic sectors. They are inspired and guided by relationships with the homelands, their extended family and their non-human kin, and they are committed to raising their children in a similar framework of kinship and land love. They reside and thrive in their unceded ancestral territory in the community of Bella Bella, BC.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:
Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:
Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

Season 6 Episode 26: Katherine Palmer Gordon, Geoffrey Morrison, and Jess Housty on Storytelling

In this episode, Lindsay Wong talks about her book Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality. Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality was a finalists for the 2024 Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes. In her conversation, Lindsay talks about why BIPOC writers are using horror to writer their stories. She also talks about the need for well-timed comedy when writing horror.

Visit BC and Yukon Book Prizes: bcyukonbookprizes.com/

About Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/tell-me-pleasant-things-about-immortality/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lindsay Wong is the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling memoir The Woo-Woo, which was a finalist for Canada Reads 2019. She has written a YA novel entitled My Summer of Love and Misfortune. Wong holds a BFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in literary nonfiction from Columbia University. She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Winnipeg.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:
Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:
Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

Season 6 Episode 27: Lindsay Wong talks about horror and subverting food tropes in BIPOC writing

In this episode, Wanda John-Kehewin talks about her book Hopeless in Hope. Hopeless in Hope won the 2024 Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize. In her conversation, Wanda talks about the real life experiences that inspired the book. She also talks about how the creative process for the novel differed from the work she's been doing on graphic novels.

Visit BC and Yukon Book Prizes: bcyukonbookprizes.com/

About Hopeless in Hope: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/hopeless-in-hope/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Wanda John-Kehewin (she, her, hers) is a Cree writer who uses her work to understand and respond to the near destruction of First Nations cultures, languages, and traditions. When she first arrived in Vancouver on a Greyhound bus, she was a nineteen-year-old carrying her first child, a bag of chips, a bottle of pop, thirty dollars, and a bit of hope. After many years of travelling (well, mostly stumbling) along her healing journey, she shares her personal life experiences with others to shed light on the effects of trauma and how to break free from the “monkeys in the brain.”

Now a published poet, fiction author, and film scriptwriter, she writes to stand in her truth and to share that truth openly. She is the author of the Dreams series of graphic novels. Hopeless in Hope is her first novel for young adults.

Wanda is the mother of five children, two dogs, two cats, three tiger barbs (fish), and grandmother to one super-cute granddog. She calls Coquitlam home until the summertime, when she treks to the Alberta prairies to visit family and learn more about herself and Cree culture, as well as to continuously think and write about what it means to be Indigenous in today’s times. How do we heal from a place of forgiveness?
ABOUT MEGAN COLE:
Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:
Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

Season 6 Episode 28: Wanda John-Kehewin talks about books that build empathy in young readers

In this episode, Christopher Patterson. Christopher is an author and professor at the University of British Columbia, but for today’s episode he’ll be talking about his partner, Y-Dang Troeung’s book Landbridge. Landbridge was a finalist for the 2024 Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes. Christopher talks about Y-Dang’s approach to writing in fragments, and how she approached rejection.

Visit BC and Yukon Book Prizes: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/

About Landbridge: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/landbridge/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Y-Dang Troeung was Assistant Professor of English at the University of British Columbia, where she did research and taught in the fields of transnational Asian literatures, critical refugee studies, global south studies, and critical disability studies. She was also an Associate Editor of the journal Canadian Literature, and a 2020 Wall Scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. Her recent publications can be found in Canadian Literature, Brick: A Literary Magazine, Amerasia Journal, and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. Y-Dang passed away in November 2022, after completing the final draft of her extraordinary memoir, Landbridge.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:
Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:
Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

Season 6 Episode 30: Christopher Patterson talks about Y-Dang Troeung's book Landbridge

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
In this episode, Maya McKibbin and Ellen Rooney share their thoughts and reflections the magic of illustration in picture books. Maya is the illustrator of The Song that Calls Them Home and Ellen Rooney is the illustrator of What to Bring, both were finalists for the Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize.

Visit BC and Yukon Book Prizes: bcyukonbookprizes.com/

To watch the full Storied video: https://vimeo.com/1046872971

About The Song that Called Them Home: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/the-song-that-called-them-home/

About What to Bring: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/what-to-bring/



ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Maya McKibbin is a Two-Spirited Ojibwe, Yoeme and Irish filmmaker, illustrator and storyteller. Using their education in computer graphics and interactive media, Maya’s work is rooted in the natural world and our relations to it. Maya’s previous picture book, Swift Fox All Along written by Rebecca Thomas, was nominated for numerous awards including a Governor General’s Literary Award.

Ellen Rooney is a children’s book illustrator whose books include the critically acclaimed Her Fearless Run and Grandmother School. Ellen lives in the southern Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, where hot, dry summers bring tourists, peaches, swims in the lake, and the threat of wildfire. The uniquely beautiful landscape inspired the setting for this book.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:
Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:
Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

Season 6 Episode 34: Maya McKibbin and Ellen Rooney on the magic of picture book illustration

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
In this episode, host Megan Cole revisits one of the most popular episodes of Writing the Coast. It features Michelle Good, author of Five Little Indians which was a finalist for the 2021 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the 2021 Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes. Michelle talks about what it means to be an emerging writer and how she developed the characters in her novel.

ABOUT MICHELLE GOOD:
Michelle Good is a writer of Cree ancestry and a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. Her debut novel, Five Little Indians, won a Governor General’s Literary Award, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Kobo Emerging Author Prize, and CBC’s Canada Reads in 2022. She was a finalist for the 2023 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy for Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada. Good lives in southern Saskatchewan.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:
Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:
Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

S6 Episode 37: Popular past episodes: Michelle Good, author of Five Little Indians, talks about humor as a decolonizing tool

Welcome to Writing the Coast! This is the weekly podcast where we chat with the authors and illustrators of the books who make up the shortlist of the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. On the episodes you'll hear host and podcast coordinator Megan Cole chat with the folks who are creating some of BC and Yukon's best books. We'll also check in with the literary community in our region. For more information about the BC and Yukon Book Prizes visit: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/

New tracks tagged #bookprize