| page id: Bookends
head: Fall book season peaks in Banff
byline: Harry Vandervlist
By the time you read this The Banff Mountain Book Festival will already be well under way, but there's still time to catch the big event on Thursday evening. The ninth annual Banff Mountain Book Festival Awards will be presented on October 31 at 8 p.m in the Banff Centre's Eric Harvie Theatre. The evening's readers are Karsten Heuer, whose Walking the Big Wild tells the story of his 3,400-kilometre Y2Y hike (that's from Yellowstone Park to the Yukon) in 1988. Appearing with Heuer, Lynn Hill, the only person who has managed to free-climb the famous El Capitan, will present her book Climbing Free.
On Friday, November 1, biographer Kathryn Bridge reads from Phyllis Munday, Mountaineer, the story of the first woman to reach Mt. Robson's summit (back in 1924). That's at 9 a.m. in the Max Bell Auditorium. At 10:30 a.m., Detectives on Everest author Eric Simonson speaks about locating George Mallory on Mt. Everest in 1999. Roger Hubank reads at lunch, and at 1:30 p.m., Lonnie Dupre, Larry Millman and Jerry Kobalenko discuss Writing the Arctic. At 3 p.m., Greg Mortenson of the Central Asia Institute discusses community-based education projects in the wartorn mountain villages of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mongolia. The Mountain Film Festival takes over Banff for the weekend, too: see www.banffcentre.ca/mountainculture/.
Poet Robert Budde returns to Calgary, along with Edmonton poet Thomas Trofimuk, at Pages on Friday, November 1. Next Thursday, November 7 at Pages it's Brian Brennan reading from Scoundrels and Scallywags: Characters from Alberta's Past. Both events are at 7:30 p.m.
It's been a quarter century since NeWest Press began, and both Pages and The Writers Guild of Alberta have extended invitations for the public to join in celebrating the first 25 years of this important part of Canada's literary growth. Doug Barbour, George Melnyk, Suzette Mayr, Fred Stenson and Catherine McKay will all speak. This free event is at the Art Gallery of Calgary (117 - 8 Ave. S.W.) on Saturday, November 2 at 3:30 p.m. RSVP to 780-432-9427 or info@newestpress.com.
He may seem ubiquitous, but he's never obsequious, or iniquitous (as far as I've heard.) Fred Stenson also appears at the The Alexandra Writers Centre Society on Wednesday, November 6 at 7:30 p.m., in a session based on his book Things Feigned or Imagined: The Craft of Fiction. The event is free for members, with a small fee for others, and takes place at the Alexandra Centre (922 9th Ave S.E.). There's more info at 264-4730 or awcs@telusplanet.net.
Timothy Findley will be celebrated next Thursday during an evening event hosted by Alberta Theatre Project's artistic director Bob White, and featuring several local organizations that worked with Findley in recent years: The Writers Guild of Alberta, WordFest, the University of Calgary's Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers Programme, and The Banff Centre. Readers at the event include Darlene Quaife and Aritha van Herk. Everyone is welcome to attend, and it's free. That's on November 7 at 7:30 p.m. in the Engineered Air Theatre. Call 220-8177 for further details. |
