Harbour Publishing congratulates its BC Book Prize winners! It was a sweep at Saturday’s 28^th annual Lieutenant Governor’s BC Book Prizes held at SFU Woodward’s on May 12^th.

The late, great Chuck Davis won two awards for his famed book The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver. Edna Davis, Chuck’s widow, accepted the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize and the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award on his behalf. In his sweeping magnum opus, Chuck Davis tackled the history of metropolitan Vancouver with his characteristic flair for storytelling and quirky detail, an impressive work that was embraced by readers all across the province. Chuck’s tome was up against some tough competition for the Bookseller’s Choice Award, beating out Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill (Greystone Books in partnership with the David Suzuki Foundation), Fred Herzog: Photographs by Fred Herzog (Douglas & McIntyre Publishers Inc.), Island Wineries of British Columbia by Gary Hynes (TouchWood Editions) and Walk Like a Man: Coming of Age with the Music of Bruce Springsteen by Robert J. Wiersema (Greystone Books).

Sunshine Coast poet John Pass was awarded the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize for crawlspace. The poems in crawlspace work within the narrowing passages imposed upon us by the inevitable strictures and limitations of living and experience: aging, love and loss, tightening or unraveling family ties.

The BC Book Prizes, established in 1985, celebrate the achievements of British Columbia writers and publishers. The Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize is awarded to the author of the best work of poetry. The Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize is awarded to the author(s) of the book which contributes most to the enjoyment and understanding of British Columbia. The Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award is presented to the originating publisher and author(s) of the best book in terms of public appeal, initiative, design, production and content. BC bookstore owners determine the winner by ballot.

Harbour Publishing is honoured to work with such talented authors on books that contribute so much to our province. Congratulations to all the other winners and nominees!

Congratulations are in order for Nightwood author Nick Thran, who has been shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry for his second collection, Earworm.

The Ontario government established the Trillium Book Award in 1987--the province’s leading award for literature--to recognize excellence, support marketing and foster increased public awareness of the quality and diversity of Ontario writers and writing. The Trillium Book Award for Poetry was established in 2003 to recognize new and emerging poets. The $10,000 prize is awarded to a deserving Ontario poet for a first, second or third book.

The jury for this year’s poetry award says of Thran’s work: “Here is an answer to why poetry matters, to how alchemical stanzas can turn experience to gold. Earworm is just as likely to make you cry as laugh, long and loud.” ...

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The Kootenays proved to be a welcome host for bestselling author and CBC host Grant Lawrence. Grant wrapped up April with a week-long tour via the Kootenay Library Federation with his book Adventures in Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nude Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound. Grant brought his now famous stories to Grand Forks, Salmo, Fruitvale, Kaslo, Nelson, Fernie and Invermere, along with an event at Hooked on Books in Penticton and Bookland in Kamloops. No matter the population of each stop, readers showed up in healthy numbers--over 100 attended the event in Fernie. In an interview with The Boundary Sentinel, Grant said of his readers, "I hope they come away with an appreciation not only for the West Coast but for the wild places of Canada. I hope they come away with an urge to go beyond the end of the road. Just go somewhere by boat. Just go somewhere that cars can't get to. Follow the road to the very, very end and then try to go beyond that...Just take it a little further. I hope people get that inspiration from reading the book."

You won't want to miss the chance to see Nightwood's Jamella Hagen as she sets out on a cross-country reading tour to promote her debut poetry book, Kerosene. Jamella will be in Toronto, Cobourg, St. Catharines, Moose Jaw, Regina, Calgary, Kelowna, Hazelton, Vancouver and Victoria.

Patterned on Jamella's own experience, Kerosene follows the story of a young woman's life, encompassing the beauty and harshness of a childhood spent in the wilderness of Northern BC, the difficult process of adapting to city life, a period of extensive travel in South America, and her eventual return to the north. From a position of experience, the poet is able to contemplate the events of her lifetime with a thoughtful and sometimes gently ironic voice.

For more information about Jamella's events, please visit our Events Calendar!

How the Afghan War has impacted daily life in Canada is the focus of author Tom Wayman’s eighteenth collection of poems, Dirty Snow, which will be launched in Nelson on Friday, April 27 at 7:30pm at the Oxygen Art Centre and in Calgary on Thursday, May 3 at 7:30pm at Pages on Kensington. Tom will also be reading at the Vancouver Public Library (Central Branch) with Kate Braid on Thursday, June 21 at 7pm. For more information, please visit our Events Calendar!

Just in time for the growing season, Christina Symons and John Gillespie have brought out a new book, Sow Simple: 100+ Green and Easy Projects to Make Your Garden Awesome. This collection of gardening tips, ideas and projects will inspire beginner green thumbs and master gardeners alike to experiment, have fun, and create their own backyard eden.

Meet Christina and John at a series of events this spring:

• Wednesday, April 25 at 7:00 pm – Book Launch at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre in Sechelt
• Saturday, April 28 at 3:00 pm – Workshop & book signing at Cedar Rim Nursery in Langley
• Thursday, May 3 at 6:30 pm – Workshop & book signing at Dig This in downtown Victoria (Fort Street location)
• Friday, May 4 at 5:30 pm – Workshop & book signing at Dig This in Nanaimo
• Saturday, May 5 at 2:00 pm – Demonstration & gardening Q & A at Cannor Nursery in Victoria
• Saturday, May 19 from 10:30am-1:00 pm – Special “May Day” display and book signing at Blue Waters Book. Co. in Madeira Park
• Saturday, June 2 from 12:00-2:00 pm – Special “Local and Sustainable Day” display and book signing at Save On Foods Park & Tilford in North Vancouver

For more information about the events, please visit our Events Calendar!

Celebrate with Nightwood authors Darren Bifford (Wedding in Fire Country) and Chris Hutchinson (A Brief History of the Short-Lived) as they launch their new poetry collections with a series of readings in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto.

Make sure to catch Chris Hutchinson and Darren Bifford at one of the following events:
• Thursday, April 24 at 8:00 pm--Arts Court in Ottawa, as part of the Tree Reading Series
• Wednesday, April 25 at 7:30 pm--The Word Bookstore in Montreal
• Saturday, April 28 at 5:00 pm--Type Books in Toronto

All these events are made possible with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. For more information about the events, please visit our events calendar. ...

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Renowned Nightwood Editions poet Tim Bowling has just been nominated for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry for his tenth collection of poems, Tenderman.

The Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry is one of five Alberta Literary Awards, administered by the Writers Guild of Alberta, which recognize and celebrate the highest standards of literary excellence from Alberta authors.

Bowling, who lives in Edmonton, has been nominated for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry seven times, and has twice won the award, in 1998 and 2007. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, his other awards include the Canadian Authors Association National Poetry Prize, the Petra Kenney International Poetry Prize, the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction and the Stephan G. Stephansson Alberta Book Award. He has also been a finalist for two Governor General’s Literary Awards for Poetry and the Nereus Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize. ...

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The late Chuck Davis has won this year’s Lieutenant-Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing for his celebrated final book The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver. This past fall, The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver proved to be what the author described as “the capstone of my writing career.” The hefty tome flew off the shelves in cities far beyond Vancouver, and nominations for awards—including two BC Book Prizes—are sweeping in.

In his extensive magnum opus, Chuck Davis embraces the history of metropolitan Vancouver with his characteristic flair for storytelling and quirky detail. Arranged chronologically and illustrated with the greatest collection of archival photographs of Vancouver ever published, The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver is a testament to the late author’s dedication to the city he adopted as home. Alongside hilarious anecdotes like the near-decapitation of former Vancouver mayor Louis D. Taylor (“if he’d had an ounce more brains he’d have been a dead man,” said a wag), are the city’s major events—great fires, floods, world wars, epidemics, depressions and more.

Each year, the British Columbia Historical Federation invites submissions for its Annual Historical Writing Competition to authors of British Columbia history. The BC Lieutenant-Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing is awarded together with $600 to the author whose book makes the most significant contribution to the historical literature of British Columbia. Honourable mention goes to fellow Harbour Publishing author Heather Harbord forTexada Tapestry.

Harbour Publishing congratulates author Heather Harbord for her book Texada Tapestry: A History which received an Honorable Mention in the BC Historical Federation's Competition for Historical Writing for 2011!  The annual awards recognize books that feature outstanding stories and writings about British Columbia's history. 

Texada Tapestry provides an in-depth look at the people and places that have contributed to the fascinating history of the largest island in the Strait of Georgia.  Best known for its long strip of coveted mineralized granite and limestone dividing the upper gulf, Texada Island is now better known as the home of the illegal agriculture product called Texada Gold. ...

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April is on the horizon, and Harbour Publishing is eager to release its first batch of spring titles.

A familiar name on the Harbour list, Arthur Black, will release his humorous collection of tales, Looking Blackward, in early April. Enjoy dinner and a reading with this award-winning author in Parksville on Thursday, April 12th at 6:00pm. Catch him, again, in Sidney on April 20th.

Nightwood Editions will release four books of poetry in April. Don't miss the launches and readings in Victoria, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto.

For more information about these and other events, visit the events calendar.

Harbour Publishing is pleased to announce the press has received four nominations for this year’s BC Book Prizes. Only two other publishers have as many shortlisted titles in the competition.

Harbour’s fall 2011 BC bestseller, The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver, written by the late Chuck Davis, is nominated for two prizes: the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Book Prize, which is awarded to the book which contributes most to the enjoyment and understanding of British Columbia, and the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award, which is presented to the publisher and author of the best book in terms of public appeal, initiative, design, production and content.

Harbour’s other two nominations are in the poetry category. Victoria poet Patrick Lane is shortlisted for The Collected Poems of Patrick Lane. This monumental work contains over 400 poems, covering the breadth of Lane’s career. It is edited by Russell Morton Brown and Donna Bennett, and contains an afterword by Nicholas Bradley. Sunshine Coast poet John Pass is shortlisted for his new book, crawlspace. This is Pass’s first collection of poems since he won the Governor General’s Award for poetry in 2006.

The BC Book Prizes is awarded annually in seven categories, with the intent to celebrate the best writing and publishing in the province. The awards carry a cash prize of $2000 plus a certificate.

The winners of the BC Book Prizes will be announced in Vancouver at an awards gala at SFU Woodwards, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, on Saturday, May 12, 2012. Congratulations to all of the other nominees!

Congratulations to Caitlin Press author Adam Pottle! Adam's debut book, Beautiful Mutants, has been shortlisted for the Saskatchewan Book Awards in two categories: First Book Award and Award for Poetry.

Pottle, born in Kamloops, BC, is a graduate student at the University of Saskatchewan. He was thrilled to hear the news. “It's wonderful to be nominated. I hope that as a result of being shortlisted, more people will read this book and see the possibilities inherent in living with a disability. I hope people will see that disability can be liberating instead of stigmatic, refreshing instead of discouraging.”

The winners of the Saskatchewan Book Awards will be announced on Saturday, April 28, 2012 at a gala at the Conexus Arts Centre in Regina. ...

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Harbour Publishing and ERAC have partnered, once again, to include KnowBC.com in this year’s ERAC bundle. Member schools across British Columbia will have access to the new and expanded edition of KnowBC.

KnowBC.com was launched in 2001 as the online edition of Harbour Publishing’s Encyclopedia of British Columbia. In 2010, KnowBC underwent expansive changes to include, not just a new design, but the addition of major reference works from Harbour Publishing:

·     Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest: A Photographic Encyclopedia of Invertebrates, Seaweeds and Selected  Fishes

·     The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names: A Complete Reference to Coastal British Columbia

·     Far West: The Story of British Columbia

·     Raincoast Chronicles 20: Lilies and Fireweed: Frontier Women of British Columbia

·     Where Mountains Meet the Sea: A History of Coastal BC

Other features of the expanded edition include quizzes, fact pages, French language articles, resources for students and curriculum-based resources for teachers, such as lesson plans and handouts.

“This has been a major redevelopment of the KnowBC website. Our aim is to make KnowBC the main vehicle for delivering Harbour’s continually expanding library of BC reference and history texts online. We intend this site to be a must-have product for every BC school, library and public institution.”
                                                                                                                                                                     — Howard White, publisher

KnowBC.com continues to evolve—videos, maps, feature articles, and related online and print resources are added weekly, and the KnowBC blog is updated regularly by the Encyclopedia of BC editors with, among other things, installments of a major new historical work, Where Mountains Meet the Sea: The History of Coastal BC.

The redevelopment of KnowBC.com has succeeded in making the website an essential resource for the province’s educational institutions, and represents a commitment to teaching our children their own unique local history, culture and geography. To confirm your school or library’s membership, please visit www.knowbc.com. For technical inquiries, please email knowbc@harbourpublishing.com.

ERAC is a member based association of BC public school districts and many independent schools. ERAC evaluates resources such as novels, educational software and print, and shares the results with its members through its online collection.

KnowBC.com is also available for subscription by individuals. With reference books valuing nearly $300 in printed form, and more information added regularly, KnowBC.com is an affordable and convenient medium for accessing this expansive collection. Please email knowbc@harbourpublishing.com or call 1.800.667.2988 to subscribe.

Happy New Year! Now that Christmas is over, it’s time to look forward to spring. From gardening, children’s and history books to poetry, humour and even an audiobook, Harbour Publishing and Nightwood Editions have a field of colourful titles for the shelf.

It’s our biggest season of gardening books to date, so planters get ready! The Book of Kale: The Easy-to-Grow Superfood by Sharon Hanna, Sow Simple: 100+ Green and Easy Projects to Make Your Garden Awesome by Everyday Eden authors John Gillespie and Christina Symons, The Northern Gardener: Perennials that Survive and Thrive by Barbara Rayment and Edible Landscaping: Urban Food Gardens that Look Great by Senga Lindsay will spruce up gardens in all sorts of environments.

Our history buffs will enjoy sagas of West Coast shipping, the Klondike gold rush and details about Deep Cove.

A few authors with a history at Harbour will return this spring, including Arthur Black, Tom Wayman and Grant Lawrence with his audiobook version of Adventures in Solitude.

We’re looking forward to Nightwood Editions’ impressive roster of poets this season. Expect new poems from Gillian Wigmore, Chris Hutchinson, Darren Bifford and Chris Jennings.

See the “New Titles” page on our website for the complete list of spring books.