Books! Books! Books! Alberta Readers' Choice Panel

The past few days, theatre was taken over by books in my life! Certainly not a bad thing, as anyone who has been to my house could easily tell you that books and reading take up a huge part of my life. 

Saturday, I attended a Writer's Corner at the Jasper Place Library facilitated by Jason Lee Norman, EPL's Writer in Residence.  The panelists were the 4 Edmonton Authors whose books were 4/5 of the Current Alberta Readers' Choice Short List.  On hand were Todd Babiak (Come Barbarians), Theresa Shea (The Unfinished Child), Diana Davidson (Pilgrimage), and Michael Hingston (The Dilettantes).  Jason Lee Norman moderated the event and the panel answered questions about research, challenges, inspiration and how it feels to have your book nominated for this award. I was invited to speak as a reader of two of the books, Come Barbarians and Pilgrimage, as those were our first two #yegbookclub selections, and there were readers for the other two books to speak about those, as well.  It was great that the two books I had not yet read could be purchased that day, so I came home with two new books which both sounded like great reads and I got all my books signed by the authors! Can you say fangirl? All in all, it was a great afternoon activity.  I am hoping to get to a few more of the Writer's Corners at the EPL, and since the next one will feature Edmonton playwright, Chris Craddock, I figure that's a double-whammy of theatre and writing for me! The date is not set yet, but once I find out when that is, I will let you know! Voting is still open for the Alberta Readers' Choice Award so click the link and pick your choice.  There is also a 5th book by Calgary author Tyler Trafford - Almost a Great Escape. 

A note: for all you writers out there - it was mentioned that Jason Lee Norman's collection 40 Below: Volume 2 is still accepting submissions.  Check it out if you have a great winter story and submit!

Next post - more books - #yegbookclub number three!

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