Book Award winners and short listsReview the shortlisted winner, finalists, and jury from current and past Vancouver Book Awards.
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Tiná7 Cht Ti Temíxw: We Come From This Land: A Walk Through the History of the Squamish People
Page Two
A story of the Squamish Nation: past, present, and future. One hundred years after Squamish leadership signed an amalgamation agreement that declared several communities in Squamish territory as one nation, this accessible history of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people traces their stories from ancient times to the present.
Under the White Gaze
Purich Books, UBC Press
A critical look at race and representation in Canadian journalism, exploring how media perpetuates stereotypes and calling for deeper newsroom accountability and inclusive storytelling.
The Tenants
Anvil Press
Three Vancouver residents—each struggling with housing, relationships, and urban survival—form a darkly comic portrait of life in a city increasingly hostile to its most vulnerable.
cop city swagger
Talonbooks
A poetic threat assessment of Vancouver policing, juxtaposing institutional rhetoric with lived experiences of violence and care in marginalized communities like Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside.
The Best Place
Rutgers University Press
An ethnographic study of young drug users in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, revealing their hopes, critiques, and survival amid overlapping crises of addiction, intervention, and urban inequality.
Crash Landing
Annick Press
A queer coming-of-age story set in Vancouver following Jay Wong as she navigates identity, friendship, and skateboarding while confronting expectations and discovering herself through a transformative bond with Ash Chan.
Crooked Teeth
Viking
A memoir tracing the queer Syrian refugee experience. Danny Ramadan revisits painful memories and underground queer networks in Damascus while navigating displacement and identity in Canada.
White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver
Arsenal Pulp Press
Essays and photographs that document the anti-Asian riots of 1907 in the context of contemporary anti-Asian sentiment.
Baby Drag Queen
Orca Book Publishers
Transgender teen Ichiro enters a drag contest in hopes of earning enough money to live off the grid.
It Stops Here: Standing Up for Our Lands, Our Waters, and Our People
Allen Lane Canada
A personal account of one man’s confrontation with colonization that illuminates the philosophy and values of a First Nation on the front lines of the fight against an extractive industry, colonial government and threats to the life-giving Salish Sea.
Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart
McClelland & Stewart
An intimate memoir-in-pieces that uses one woman's life-long love affair with pop culture as a revelatory lens to explore family, identity, belonging, grief and the power of female rage.
What Are Our Supports?
Doryphore / Richmond Art Gallery / Art Metropole / Information Office
An anthology of over 20 local and international contributors that draws attention to what we can do amidst the current conditions of environmental, social and political precarity.
Junie
Book*hug Press
Chelene Knight is the author of 3 books. She is currently working on a commissioned book on Black self-love and joy. Let it Go is forthcoming with HarperCollins Canada in 2024. Chelene is the founder of Breathing Space Creative Literary Studio.
PAWS: Mindy Makes Some Space
Razorbill
Michele Assarasakorn (also known as MSASSYK) is a colourist who has worked on comic series such as Eisner-nominated Isola, Gotham Academy, and the Magnificent Ms. Marvel.
Originally from Bangkok, Thailand, Michele now calls Vancouver home but also likes to travel the world working remotely as an artist. You can follow her on Twitter External website, opens in new tab and Instagram External website, opens in new tab and enjoy more of her work on her online gallery External website, opens in new tab.
Nathan Fairbairn is a New York Times bestselling and Eisner-nominated creator who has worked as a colourist for such iconic characters as Spider-Man, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Scott Pilgrim. He’s also co-creator, writer, and colourist of the graphic novel Lake of Fire. He started writing PAWS, his middle-grade debut, as a way to share his passion for comics and storytelling with his daughter.
Nathan lives with his family in Vancouver. You can follow him on Twitter External website, opens in new tab and Instagram External website, opens in new tab and review more of his work on his online gallery External website, opens in new tab.
Cactus Gardens
Anvil Press
Evelyn Lau is a lifelong Vancouverite who has authored 14 books, including 9 volumes of poetry. Evelyn’s poetry has won multiple awards, and has been nominated for the Governor-General’s Award. From 2011 to 2014, Evelyn served as Poet Laureate for the City of Vancouver.
Holden After and Before: Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose
Arsenal Pulp Press
Tara McGuire is a former broadcaster whose first book Holden After and Before: Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose (Arsenal Pulp Press) was recognized by The Walrus as one of the best Canadian books of 2022. She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia’s School of Creative Writing and is a graduate of The Writers Studio at Simon Fraser University. Tara lives in North Vancouver.
The Foghorn Echoes
Penguin Random House
Danny Ramadan (he/him) is a Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker, and advocate for LGBTQ+ refugees.
His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, longlisted for Canada Reads, and named the Best Book of the Year by The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.
He has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and currently lives in Vancouver with his husband.
Soul Power
Information Office, Vancouver Art Gallery
Jan Wade was born in Hamilton, Ontario, to a Black Canadian father with familial origins in the American South and a Canadian mother of European descent. After studying at the Ontario College of Art and Design, Wade moved to Vancouver in 1983 and became part of the underground art and music scene in the city. During this period Wade began her research into African diasporic spiritual practices and decided she wanted her art to reflect where she came from and who she is, commencing her unique artistic journey marked by self-sufficiency, empowerment, hope, and radical joy.
Deanna Bowen is a descendant of two Black Prairie pioneer families from Amber Valley and Campsie, Alberta. Recently, her work has involved close examination of her family’s migration and their connections to Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley and Black Strathcona, the “All-Black” towns of Oklahoma, the Kansas Exoduster migrations, and the Ku Klux Klan in Canada and the US. She is a recipient of numerous accolades including a 2020 Governor General Award for Visual and Media Arts and the 2021 Scotiabank Photography Award.
Wayde Compton is the author of 49th Parallel Psalm, Performance Bond, After Canaan: Essays on Race Writing and Region, and The Outer Harbour: Stories. He also edited the anthology Bluesprint: Black British Columbian Literature and Orature. He is a co-founder of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project, and is the former director of the creative writing program at SFU Continuing Studies. He currently teaches Creative Writing at Douglas College.
Daina Augaitis was Chief Curator/Associate Director at the Vancouver Art Gallery from 1996 to 2017 and was formerly Director of Visual Arts at the Banff Centre for the Arts. She has held curatorial positions at Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff; Western Front, Vancouver; Convertible Showroom, Vancouver; and Franklin Furnace, New York.
Siobhan McCracken Nixon is currently Assistant Curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Recent exhibition projects include Where do we go from here?; Transits and Returns; Mowry Baden; and Dana Claxton: Fringing the Cube. Previously she worked as Assistant Curator at the Hayward Gallery (London, UK) and worked in Exhibitions and Displays at Tate Britain (London, UK).
Where the Power Is: Indigenous Perspectives on Northwest Coast Art
Figure 1 Publishing
Where the Power Is: Indigenous Perspectives on Northwest Coast Art is a landmark volume that brings together over eighty contemporary Indigenous knowledge holders with extraordinary works of historical Northwest Coast art. First Nations Elders, artists, scholars, and other community members visited the Museum of Anthropology to connect with these objects, learn from the hands of their ancestors, and share their thoughts and insights.
Erase and Rewind
Book*hug Press
The stories in Erase and Rewind probe the complexities of living as a woman in a skewed society. Told from the perspective of various female protagonists, they pick at rape culture, sexism in the workplace, uneven romantic and platonic relationships, and the impact of trauma under late-stage capitalism. Bell’s debut collection is a highwire balance of levity and gravity, finding the extraordinary in common experiences.
No Shelter
Anvil Press
These down-to-earth poems take readers on a hard-scrabble journey, starting from Doyle’s early years as a runaway from foster homes, an incarcerated youth, a boxer, and a homeless wage-earner living in shelters and on the streets of Ottawa and Toronto, to his eventual arrival in Vancouver to work in the construction labour pools before landing work as a custodian and maintenance man.
Chiru Sakura—Falling Cherry Blossoms
Caitlin Press
A vital memoir by two Japanese Canadian women reflecting on their family history, cultural heritage, generational trauma, and the meaning of home. At eight years old, Grace Eiko Nishikihama was forcibly removed from her Vancouver home and interned with her parents and siblings in the BC Interior. This is a moving and politically outspoken memoir written by Grace, now a grandmother, with passages from a journal kept by her late mother, Sawae Nishikihama.
Occupying Chinatown
On Main
Occupying Chinatown focuses on several of Wong’s major artworks exploring Chinese Canadian identity and his engagement with Vancouver’s Chinese communities. With full-colour photos and documentation of Wong’s artwork as well as three original essays, Occupying Chinatown is an evocative exploration of language, amnesia, and cultural displacement, inspired by 900 letters sent to Suk-Fong Wong, Paul Wong’s mother, over the course of 65 years.
Michelle GoodFive Little Indians
Harper Collins
Five Little Indians tells the story of how the paths of five friends cross and crisscross over decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission - a remote, church-run residential school. The teens find their way to the foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them. Good chronicles, with compassion and insight, the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past, and ultimately find a way forward
Catherine B. ClementChinatown Through a Wide Lens: The Hidden Photographs of Yucho Chow
Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC
Clement’s book showcases the long-hidden work of Vancouver’s first and most prolific Chinese photographer. For almost 80 years, Yucho Chow’s affordable and friendly studio in Chinatown opened its doors to everyone. He captured the faces of many early marginalized communities denied service by white photographers. Collected over 10 years from private, family collections, these aging images are visual evidence of the diverse communities that once turned to Vancouver’s Chinatown for acceptance and services during a time of enormous racism.
Joseph DandurandThe East Side of it All
Nightwood Editions
The East Side of it All follows the experiences of life as a drug user and single-room occupant in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and of the ongoing process of healing through reconnection with family, the natural world, and traditional Indigenous (Kwantlen) storytelling.
Danny Ramadan & Anna Bron Salma the Syrian Chef
Annick Press
Ramadan creates a beautiful representation of Syrian culture told through the meal Salma prepares and Anna Bron’s vibrant illustrations, while the diverse cast of characters speaks to the power of cultivating community in challenging circumstances.
Marlene YuenHo Sun Hing Printers
Self-published
An honourable mention goes to Yuen’s short print-run artist book, co-publised with the grunt gallery. Yuen tells the story, through text, letterpress, and risograph printing, of Canada’s first Chinese-English letterpress printing shop located in the historic Chinatown of Vancouver.
Francine Cunninghamon/me
Caitlin Press
Explores, with keen attention and poise, what it means to be forced to exist within the margins. Cunningham holds a lens to residential schools, intergenerational trauma, Indigenous Peoples forcibly sent to sanatoriums, systemic racism and mental illness, and translates these topics into lived experiences that are nuanced, emotional, funny, and heartbreaking all at once.
Alex LeslieVancouver for Beginners
Book*hug Press
Nostalgia of place is dissected through the mapping of a city where Leslie leads readers past surrealist development proposals, post-apocalyptic postcards, childhood landmarks long gone, and a developer who paces at the city’s edge, shoring it up with aquariums.
The seven titles were chosen by an independent selection panel that included:
Hilary Atleo is the co-owner of Iron Dog Books, metro Vancouver's only bookshop on wheels, and now an immobile storefront located in Hastings-Sunrise. Hilary is Anishinaabe from Curve Lake, Ontario, but now spends more time in her husband Cliff Atleo's Nuu Chah Nulth territories on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Hilary believes books should be available and accessible, and that bookshops are fundamentally place-making.
Chris Lee is Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literatures and Director of the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program (ACAM) at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of /The Semblance of Identity: Aesthetic Mediation in Asian American Literature/ (2012) and was awarded the Killam Research Prize in 2015. His current research focuses on the Chinese Canadian historical fiction and Asian Canadian visual cultures.
Shazia Hafiz Ramji is the award-winning author of Port of Being. She was a finalist for the 2021 Mitchell Prize for Faith and Poetry and the 2021 National Magazine Awards. She is at work on a novel.
Robert Watt and Susan PointPeople Among the People: The public art of Susan Point
Figure 1 Publishing with The Museum of Anthropology
MA, AIH, LVO studied at UBC and Carleton University before working in the Public Archives of Canada, Capilano College, and as the City Archivist for the City of Vancouver.
In 1973 he joined the Centennial Museum (now known as the Museum of Vancouver) as the Curator of History. While at the museum Mr. Watt developed a deep and enduring interest in the art and cultures of the Indigenous Peoples of the West Coast.
In 1977 he worked with Bill Reid on the creation of the Jubilee Goldsmith’s Workshop for young Indigenous artists. This interest led to Mr. Watt’s introduction to the earliest stages of Susan Point’s art. He was appointed Director of the Museum in 1980.
In 1988, Mr. Watt was appointed the first Chief Herald of Canada. He oversaw the creation of a contemporary and Canadian system of heraldic identification before his retirement in 2007, when then–Governor General Michaëlle Jean appointed him Rideau Herald Emeritus.
From 2009 to 2012, he served as Citizenship Judge in the Vancouver office of Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Mr. Watt has received many honours and awards including the 125th Canadian Confederation Medal and the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilee medals.
In 2008, he was invested into the Royal Victorian Order by Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace. Currently, Mr. Watt serves as President of l’Académie international d’héraldique and Honorary Colonel of the 12th Vancouver Field Ambulance.
He lives in North Vancouver with his wife, Alison Jean Watt.
OC, DFA, DLITT, RCA, is a descendant of the Musqueam, Coast Salish Peoples. She is the daughter of Edna Grant and Anthony Point. Susan inherited the beliefs of her culture and the ancestral traditions of her people from her mother, Edna, who learned from her mother, Mary Charlie-Grant.
Susan’s distinctive style has led the resurgence of Coast Salish art. She draws creativity from the stories of her ancestors and continually innovates with non-traditional materials and techniques, thereby inspiring a new generation of artists. Susan is most proud to be an Officer of the Order of Canada, and has been presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her contributions to Canada.
She has been recognized with an Indspire Achievement Award, a YWCA Woman of Distinction Award, a BC Creative Achievement Award and Lifetime Achievement Award, and a lifetime appointment to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and was named to the Vancouver Sun’s 2010 “BC’s Top 100 Influential Women” list and the City of Vancouver’s 2012 “Remarkable Women” list.
Susan has honorary doctorates from the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia, and Emily Carr University of Art and Design.
In 2016, Susan became a member of the City of Vancouver’s Civic Merit Award, and in 2018 she was awarded the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts, and named Ambassador of the Arts by the Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts.
Eve LazarusMurder by Milkshake: An Astonishing True Story of Adultery, Arsenic, and a Charismatic Killer
Arsenal Pulp Press
Eve Lazarus is a Vancouver writer with a passion for true crime stories, cold cases, and non-traditional history. She is the author of five books:
Philip HuynhThe Forbidden Purple City
Goose Lane Editions
Philip Huynh was born in Vancouver to parents who had fled Vietnam during the civil war. His stories have been published in the Malahat Review, the New Quarterly, Event, and the Journey Prize Anthology, and cited in The Best American Stories.
He is the winner of the Open Season Award from the Malahat Review, a Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, and the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award.
A practicing lawyer, he lives in Richmond, BC.
Shazia Hafiz RamjiPort of Being
Invisible publishing
Shazia Hafiz Ramji is the author of Port of Being, a finalist for the 2019 BC Book Prizes (Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize), Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, and winner of the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Quill & Quire, Best Canadian Poetry 2019 and Canadian Literature.
CBC recently named her as a "writer to watch" and listed Port of Being as one of the best Canadian poetry books of 2018.
Shazia lives on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh nations, where she works as an English and creative writing instructor and as an editor for various presses across Canada.
She will appear at the Singapore Writers Festival in November 2019. Shazia is a columnist for Open Book and is currently at work on a novel.
Susin NielsenNo Fixed Address
Tundra Books
Susin Nielsen got her start writing for the hit TV series Degrassi Junior High, and went on to write for over twenty Canadian shows.
She is the author of six critically-acclaimed and award-winning titles, including Optimists Die First, We Are All Made of Molecules, Word Nerd, and The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen (winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award).
Nielsen has been called “The John Green of Canada” (and she once had a dream that he had been called “The Susin Nielsen of the United States”). Her books have been translated into many languages.
She lives in Vancouver, BC, with her family and two naughty cats.
Dear Current Occupant
Book*hug
Chelene Knight’s honest and powerful memoire of a childhood in East Vancouver genre-busts its way to deeper understanding of memory and of belonging. Growing up precariously-housed in 20 different homes, the author pens letters to their current occupants and so deconstructs her past and re-defines what it means to be home.
In the vibrant community space at the Central Library’s top floor, the short-listed titles were celebrated in our 30th annual Vancouver Book Award on Dec 8. Authors and collaborators came together through an intimate conversation and read from their works.
Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City's Struggle with Addiction
Arsenal Pulp Press
Travis Lupick has written a tour de force of long form journalism. This award-winning local story chronicles, not just the struggle of courageous and committed people, but the passion and vigor that placed Vancouver at the vanguard of harm reduction against a deadly drug epidemic whose toll most heavily impacts the city’s most marginalized citizens.
Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue, by Toots
New Star Books
Over seven days, Erín Moure wrote the life history of Paul Émile Savard who left his SRO on the Downtown Eastside and died the next day, alone, at St. Paul’s hospital. Refusing to let his life be ungrievable and ungrieved, she created a meditation on the impermanence of life and memory—especially in our fast-changing city.
Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food
Anvil Press
Rachel Rose’s legacy project as Vancouver’s fourth Poet Laureate gives voice to people of diverse cultures, belief systems, and economic backgrounds in Vancouver’s literary and culinary communities. Bold new voices are paired with award-winning writers. They serve us poems, memories, recipes, sumptuous photos and interviews that satiate and satisfy.
Carleigh Baker for Bad EndingsStumbling through the fogs of loneliness, Carleigh Baker's finely drawn characters find respite in the particular intimacy afforded by ephemeral relationships. A renewal of connection with the more-than-human world offers the characters sustenance amidst the demands of an ever-accelerating city.
This year, the City of Vancouver honours local authors at the Mayor's Arts Awards on October 11. In its 29th year, the book award recognizes books of any genre that demonstrate excellence in content, illustration, design, and reflect Vancouver’s unique character, rich diversity, culture, and history.
The role of connection and healing take center stage in this year's four finalists for the Book Award. They explore the great mysteries of what it means to belong to land, community, self, and place.
The first novel in a series of mysteries focused on character Dave Wakeland. This fast-paced thriller set in Vancouver's criminal underworld follows a private investigator on a journey to solve an unsolvable mystery.
A middle-grade novel about a young girl who rallies her friends and neighbors on the poverty-stricken Eastside to save two pandas from being sent back to China.
A visually pleasing discovery of the works of Coast Salish artist Susan Point who uses the spindle whorl to create traditional art.
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun: Unceded Territories
Figure 1 Publishing and Museum of Anthropology at UBC
This provocative book explores the emphatically political and visually stunning artwork by celebrated contemporary artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. It is a beautiful and well-written publication, providing a timely challenge to the notion of what Vancouver is as the city moves towards reconciliation with First Nations communities.
The Revolving City: 51 Poems and the Stories Behind Them
Anvil Press and SFU Public Square
This exquisite and accessible collection of poetry invites an intimate exploration of our complex city. Expertly edited, this gem of an anthology contains a myriad of perspectives, styles, and voices, revealing Vancouver in all of its diversity.
That Lonely Section of Hell
Greystone Books
In this memoir, ex-police detective Lorimer Shenher (previously known as Lori Shenher) recounts his experience working on Vancouver’s Missing and Murdered Women Investigation. Detailing the prejudices that shrouded the case, it is an honest look at our institutionalized failures and a call to value all lives in our city.
The Outer Harbour
Arsenal Pulp Press
This collection of short stories is a creative manifesto for a radical change in Vancouver’s attitude to its marginalized citizens and land use to avert a crash-course with a dystopic, very-near future. Borrow this book from the library.
Hastings-Sunrise
Nightwood Editions
This book-length poem is a whimsical, yet political collection which balances vibrancy and eccentricity against the anxiety and despair of living amidst an affordability crisis in East Vancouver. Borrow this book from the library.
Live at the Commodore
Arsenal Pulp Press
This work of non-fiction is an homage to the “Fabulous Commodore Ballroom,” a music venue which for 85 years has served as a cultural barometer for Vancouver. Borrow this book from the library.
Mister Got To Go, Where are you?
Red Deer Press
This children’s book is the third in a lovingly written and illustrated Vancouver-based series featuring an impromptu journey by the iconic cat from the Sylvia Hotel. Author: Lois Simmie. Illustrator: Cynthia Nugent Borrow this book from the library.
Arthur Erickson: An Architect’s Life
Douglas & McIntyre
This narrative spotlights an iconic local figure, providing a peccadillos-and-all portrait of the man, his milieu and accomplishments.
What Makes Olga Run?
Random House
This work of non-fiction focuses on the extraordinary achievements of an athlete who began a championship track career at the age of 77.
How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?
Nightwood Editions
This witty and imaginative volume of short stories features the children and grandchildren of immigrants, adoptees, and multiracial adults with perspectives on what it means to be Canadian.
Anatomy of a Girl Gang
Arsenal Pulp Press
This intense, surprising novel tells the stories of strong girls who, while deeply troubled, are agents of their own destinies.
Artificial Cherry
Arsenal Pulp Press
This poet presents a collection of pieces which play with pop culture references and deconstruct the everyday into resonant moments.
Amber DawnA memoir of her time as a sex trade worker, this honest and brave book incorporates her personal and poignant revelations, narrative, and poetry to hold a fractured mirror up to our city.
Jancis M. AndrewsThis collection of poems gives a startlingly fresh take on an ageless story of a fall from grace and redemption.
Brad CranThis collection of poetry from the City's former Poet Laureate. The sometimes funny and other times deeply-affecting poems highlight powerful verse and stories that make us more aware of often marginalized people.
Harold Kalman and Robin WardThis beautiful and highly useful book of photographs and text provides an extensive tour of the city's past and present buildings and demonstrates how the city's natural setting inspired a quintessential West Coast style.
Sean KherajAn environmental history that provides a fascinating, nuanced and often surprising look at Vancouver's iconic park with beautiful illustrations and textual details.
WH NewThe city reverberates with life as Bill New explores Vancouver in verse. His powerful poems capture history, geography, politics, and more. In his hands, even the place names of city parks thrive with rhythm.
John Mikhail Asfour and Elee Kraljii Gardiner, editorsThis remarkable anthology, which grew out of the Thursdays Writing Collective at Carnegie Community Centre, shows the intellectually and culturally rich heart of the Downtown Eastside. Work by writers both known and new makes for a potent mix.
Claudia CornwallThis biography of Curt Lang reveals, with precision and suspense, how he packed his too-short life with pursuits ranging from poetry and painting to log salvage, boat building, and software development. His story parallels Vancouver's own mid-twentieth-century evolution.
Ali KazimiIn this splendidly illustrated and designed book, Ali Kazimi enlarges our understanding of the months-long Komagata Maru standoff, where racist immigration policies were challenged and transformed when more than 350 South Asian people were turned away from Vancouver's shores.
Jen Sookfong LeeThis atmospheric novel follows Danny Lim, a gay photographer from Chinatown, and Valerie Nealy, an older burlesque artist who grew up in abject poverty on River Road. Vancouver, in its many moods and guises, is witness to the blossoming of their unlikely friendship.
Michael ChristieSet in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, The Beggar's Garden is Christie's debut collection of nine linked stories, each full of wit and sensitivity for its misfit characters.
Michael Christie received his MFA in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. Originally a professional skate boarder, he has also worked in a homeless shelter in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and provided outreach to the severely mentally ill. Christie lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario, with his wife and son.
Lynne BowenWhoever Gives Us Bread is a comprehensive non-fiction title that recounts the history of Italian immigrant settlement in a burgeoning British Columbia and the Italian-Canadian contribution to Vancouver.
Lynne Bowen was the Rogers Communications Co-Chair of Creative Non-fiction Writing at the University of British Columbia between 1992 and 2006. She has written five other books on Western Canadian history, including, Robert Dunsmuir; Those Lake People: Stories of Cowichan Lake; Muddling Through: The Remarkable Story of the Barr Colonialists; Three Dollar Dreams; and Boss Whistle. For her non-fiction writing, Bowen has won the Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for Writing British Columbia History and the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize.
Wayde ComptonAn insightful collection of essays, After Canaan: Essays on Race, Writing, and Region examines the politics of race in Western Canada and Vancouver's black history, politics, and contemporary culture.
Wayde Compton was the 2011 Writer-in-Residence at the Vancouver Public Library. A diverse artist, Compton is the author of two poetry collections, 49th Parallel Psalm (shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize) and Performance Bond, and is the editor of Bluesprint: Black British Columbian Literature and Orature. Compton also performs turntable-based sound poetry, teaching English composition and literature at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and at Coquitlam College, and is a founding member of the Hogan's Alley Memorial Project. After Canaan is Compton's first non-fiction book.
Lesley McKnightVancouver Kids is based on the real lives of Vancouver kids, and is a unique collection of 22 stories that tells the tale of Vancouver's diverse and eclectic history through the eyes of children.
Leslie McKnight is a freelance researcher and writer living in Vancouver with her husband and three children. Her articles have been published in the likes of The Globe & Mail and the Vancouver Courier.
Bruce Grenville and Scott SteedmanDrawing primarily from the collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery, images by notable visual artists are matched with texts from acclaimed Vancouver and BC writers. They speak to the diverse visions of this place, its peoples, and its histories.
Bruce Grenville is senior curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery. He has organized many group exhibitions, including The Uncannj: Experiments in Cyborg Culture and KRAZY! The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art.
Scott Steedman is a freelance editor and the author of a dozen books. He has worked in publishing since 1987 in the UK, France, and Canada, and spent five years as the literary critic for The Paris Voice.
George BoweringA tour through the glory days of the 1960s in Vancouver led by Canada's first Poet Laureate. In a series of ten stories introduced by archival photographs, The Box breaks with the convential short story genre by weaving together biography, autobiography, parable, and drama.
George Bowering taught English at Simon Fraser University from 1972 until his retirement in 2001. Canada's first Poet Laureate, he is an Officer of both the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia. He was one of the founders of the poetry publication Tish, and has received two Governor-General's awards: the first, for poetry, in 1969, for The Gangs of Kosmos and Rocky Mountain Foot, and the second, in 1980, for Burning Water, reissued by New Star in 2007.
Bowering is well-known for his love of baseball, about which he has also written. He is the author of nine novels, five books of short stories, and numerous volumes of poetry, including Autobiology (New Star, 1972). A reissue of Caprice is due in October 2010.
Matt HernThe importance of place in the urban future is explored in this series of essays and images that uses Vancouver as a foil in a global search for what makes cities liveable.
Matt Hern lives and works in East Vancouver, where he is director of the Purple Thistle Centre. He holds a PhD in urban studies, lectures globally, and teaches at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. His books include Field Day, Watch Yourself, and Everywhere All the Time.
Chris MacDonaldThis easy-to-use pocket guidebook Features Vancouver's most interesting and innovative buildings. Through full-colour photographs, architects' drawings, and critical essays, the book highlights a period of unprecedented growth in Vancouver, beginning with Expo 86 and continuing through the 2010 Winter Games.
Chris MacDonald is Director of the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and contributes regularly to popular and academic journals concerned with architecture and urbanism. He is the author of Cabin, Cottage and Camp. He lives in Vancouver.
Lee Henderson A fascinating story featuring quirky characters, nude wrestling and insights into early Vancouver culture. Henderson’s portraits of first nations, lumberjacks, vaudeville performers, race relations and class conflict in frontier BC are presented with humour and authenticity. This book, according to the independent jury, was a ‘grabber’ from the start.
Lee Henderson is the author of the award-winning short story collection The Broken Record Technique (2002). His book The Man Game won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize at the 2009 BC Book Prizes. He is a contributing editor to the arts magazines Border Crossings in Canada and Contemporary in the UK. He has published fiction and art criticism in numerous periodicals and co-organizes Father Zosima Presents, a monthly night of sound performances where he lives in Vancouver, BC.
Gabor MatéA refreshing performance of social critique that mixes documentary, medical analysis, and personal life-writing to provoke reflection on addiction and the various sites it surfaces in, most particularly Vancouver’s downtown eastside. Maté manages to balance the subjective and the objective in a debate that fosters a fuller and more poignant consideration of this personal and public blemish. The “national” response to this book underlines a considerable consensus.
Gabor Maté, M.D. is the author of the bestselling books Scattered Minds and When the Body Says No – published in ten languages on five continents – and co-author, with Gordon Neufeld, of Hold On To Your Kids. Former medical columnist for the Globe and Mail, where his byline continues to be seen on issues of health and parenting, Dr. Maté has had a family practice, worked as a palliative care physician and, most recently, with the addicted men and women in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.
Meredith QuartermainNightmarker demonstrates a wide range of Quartermain’s writerly pallet. The forms she plays with in this book, the anecdote and the prose-poem, provide a stage for the geographical imagination to roam through Vancouver’s historical and physical grounding accompanied by the ghost of Captain George Vancouver. The pleasure of the book lies in the playful and dramatic voices she uses to portray the architecture, activities, and geopolitical thinking that shape the city.
Meredith Quartermain's Vancouver Walking won the BC Book Awards 2006 Prize for Poetry. Two new books have come out since then: Matter from BookThug, and Nightmarker from NeWest. Early books include The Eye-Shift of Surface, Wanders [with Robin Blaser], and A Thousand Mornings, prose poems about old Vancouver's dockside area. Her work has appeared in magazines across Canada including The Walrus, Canadian Literature, the Literary Review of Canada, Matrix, The Capilano Review, West Coast Line, filling Station, Prism International, and other magazines. While in the cash-paid labour force, she taught English Literature and Composition at UBC and Capilano College. She has since enjoyed leading workshops at the Naropa Summer Writing Program and the Kootenay School of Writing. In 2002, she and husband Peter Quartermain founded Nomados Literary Publishers, through which they've published more than 30 books.
