Poetry, jazz, music, fiction - it's all happening at the Gibsons Library on June 4.
A unique literary/musical event during the 10th annual Gibsons Landing Jazz Festival will feature nationally acclaimed author and poet Peter Trower reading from various works, with jazz singer Jacqueline Allan performing musical selections. The duo, who have performed together previously, will be backed by Ken Dalgleish on piano and John Parker Toulson on bass.
Trower's long list of literary accomplishments, published since 1969, is well known to our Coast community. His 12 books of poetry, three novels and contributions to Raincoast Chronicle and Vancouver Magazine have also earned him national acclaim.
Trower has recently been named the winner of the Canadian Author's Association Jack Chalmers Poetry Award for his latest volume of poems Haunted Hills and Hanging Valleys.
Allan has been described as possessing "a voice of swinging clarity" and "a repertoire with a pure sensitivity to jazz."
She has worked and performed with many well-known and talented vocalists, among them Karin Plato, Bonnie Ferguson and the Swing Sisters, as well as musicians Ron Thompson, Miles Black and Michael Creber.
Jazzing the Language will begin at noon on June 4 at the library. Admission is free; donations are encouraged.
Call the library at 604-886-2130 for more information.
At 2 p.m., join Vancouver Island authors Marilyn Bowering and Kathy Page for an entertaining afternoon of reading and discussion on the subjects of loss, survival, crime, identity and transformation.
Bowering, novelist, poet and playwright, has seen her work published and performed internationally.
Her first novel, To All Appearances a Lady, was a New York Times Notable Book of 1990, while her second novel, Visible Worlds, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and awarded the Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction. Her new novel, Cat's Pilgrimage, was published in 2004, and she is at work on another, What It Takes to Be Human.
Page was born in England and now lives on Vancouver Island. Her career as a teacher of fiction writing has included residencies at universities in England, Finland and Estonia as well as various schools and other communities, including a fishing village and a men's prison. Her fifth novel, The Story of My Face, was long-listed for the Orange Prize in 2002, and she has also written for television and radio. Her sixth and latest novel, Alphabet, was published in 2004.
This free event promises a lively, literary afternoon. Call the library to register.