ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Tara Borin. Tara is the winner of the 2022 Borealis Prize: The Commissioner of Yukon Award for Literary Contribution. Tara's book The Pit was published in 2021 by Nightwood Editions. In their conversation, Tara talks about what the Borealis Prize has meant to the Yukon literary community, and what inspires the work they're doing.

ABOUT TARA BORIN:

Tara Borin is a poet and writer living in the traditional territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, Dawson City, Yukon. Their debut full-length poetry collection, The Pit, was published by Nightwood Editions in March 2021; their poetry has been anthologized in the League of Canadian Poets Feminist Caucus in Conversation chapbook (LCP Press, 2022), Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #MeToo (University of Regina Press, 2021) and Best New Poets in Canada 2018 (Quattro Books), as well as published in various literary journals both online and in print.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:

Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:

Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Harsha Walia. Her book Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism is the winner of the 2022 Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes. In their conversation, Harsha talks about language and how the language we use has impacted how we see borders and immigration.

ABOUT HARSHA WALIA:

Harsha Walia is a South Asian activist and writer based in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish Territories. She has been involved in community-based grassroots migrant justice, feminist, anti-racist, Indigenous solidarity, anti-capitalist, Palestinian liberation, and anti-imperialist movements, including No One is Illegal and Women’s Memorial March Committee. She is formally trained in law, works with women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and is the author of Undoing Border Imperialism (2013).

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:

Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:

Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Elly MacKay and Kallie George. Their book The Secret Fawn is a finalist for the 2022 Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize. In their conversation, Elly and Kallie talk about how they met and became friends, and how they try to capture wonder for their readers, and their own kids.

ABOUT KALLIE GEORGE AND ELLY MACKAY:

Kallie George is an author, editor and creative writing teacher. She has written numerous books for early readers, including the first three books in the Anne chapter book series (Anne Arrives, Anne’s Kindred Spirits, Anne’s School Days), The Magical Animal Adoption Agency series, The Heartwood Hotel series and The Wings of Olympus series, as well as numerous picture books, such as Goodnight, Anne, If I Couldn’t Be Anne, Merry Christmas, Anne, The Secret Fawn and The Lost Gift. Kallie currently lives in Vancouver, BC.

Elly MacKay is an acclaimed paper artist and children’s book author and illustrator. She wrote and illustrated the picture book Red Sky at Night, as well as Waltz of the Snowflakes, If You Hold a Seed and Butterfly Park, among others. Elly’s art was also featured on the covers of Tundra’s reissues of L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon series. Her distinctive pieces are made using paper and ink, and then are set into a miniature theater and photographed, giving them their unique three-dimensional quality. She frequently collaborates with author Kallie George and their first picture book together is The Secret Fawn. Elly lives in Owen Sound, Ontario, with her two children.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:

Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:

Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Jenny Boychuk. Her book Antonyms for Daughter is a finalist for the 2022 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. In their conversation, Jenny talks about writing about family, and how antonyms helped her explore the complexity of her relationship with her mother.

ABOUT JENNY BOYCHUK:

Jenny Boychuk was born in New Westminster, British Columbia, and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers’ Program. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Walrus, CBC Books, Best New Poets 2016, The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead,, Grain, The New Quarterly, PRISM international, among other publications. In 2018, she won the Copper Nickel Editors’ Prize in Poetry. She is also the winner of the 2019 CBC Nonfiction Prize. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:

Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:

Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Carrie Jenkins. Her book Victoria Sees It is a finalist for the 2022 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. In their conversation, Carrie talks about how the novel became a way for her to talk about topics and themes that she hadn't been able to discuss in other writing projects, and why Cambridge was the setting for Victoria Sees It.

ABOUT CARRIE JENKINS:

Carrie Jenkins is an award-winning philosopher and writer. She is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy at the University of British Columbia and holds a PhD from Trinity College, Cambridge, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She is the author of What Love Is and What It Could Be and Uninvited: Talking Back to Plato.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:

Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:

Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Matt Rader. His book Ghosthawk is a finalist for the 2022 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. In their conversation, Matt talks about how walking and riding his bike helped him experience the land, plants and animals that inspired his book.

ABOUT MATT RADER:

Matt Rader is an award-winning author of four volumes of poetry and a collection of stories, What I Want to Tell Goes Like This (Nightwood Editions, 2014). His work has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry, Geist, The Walrus, Wales Arts Review, The Fiddlehead and The Malahat Review. Rader is a core member of the Department of Creative Studies at UBC Okanagan where he lectures in creative writing. He lives in Kelowna, BC.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:

Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:

Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Jordan Abel. Jordan's book NISGHA is a finalist for the 2022 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize and the 2022 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize. In their conversation, Jordan talks about thinking expansively about genre and writing, and how he approached the balance of text, white space and visuals in NISGHA.

ABOUT JORDAN ABEL:

Jordan Abel is a Nisga’a writer from Vancouver. He is the author of The Place of Scraps (winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize), Un/inhabited, and Injun (winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize). Abel’s work has recently been anthologized in The New Concrete: Visual Poetry in the 21st Century (Hayward), The Next Wave: An Anthology of 21st Century Canadian Poetry (Anstruther), Best Canadian Poetry (Tightrope), Counter-Desecration: A Glossary for Writing Within the Anthropocene (Wesleyan), and The Land We Are: Artists and Writers Unsettle the Politics of Reconciliation (ARP). Abel’s work has been published in numerous journals and magazines–including Canadian Literature, The Capilano Review, and Poetry Is Dead–and his visual poetry has been included in exhibitions at the Polygon Gallery, UNIT/PITT.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:

Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:

Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Ruth Ozeki. Ruth's novel The Book of Form and Emptiness is a finalist for the 2022 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. In their conversation, Ruth talks about the questions at the centre of The Book of Form and Emptiness, and her love of libraries.

ABOUT RUTH OZEKI:

Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest. She is the award-winning author of three novels, My Year of Meats, All Over Creation, and A Tale for the Time Being, which was a finalist for the 2013 Booker Prize. Her nonfiction work includes a memoir, The Face: A Time Code, and the documentary film, Halving the Bones. She is affiliated with the Everyday Zen Foun­dation and teaches creative writing at Smith College, where she is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:

Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:

Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Nancy J. Turner. Nancy co-wrote Luschiim's Plants: Traditional Indigenous Foods, Materials and Medicines with Dr. Luschiim Arvid Charlie. Luschiim's Plants is a finalist for the 2022 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, and the 2022 Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award. In their conversation, Nancy talks about why we need books like Luschiim's Plants, and how it can help us establish a closer relationship with the land and plants.

ABOUT NANCY J. TURNER:

Nancy J. Turner is an ethnobotanist, Distinguished Professor Emerita, Fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and former Hakai Professor in Ethnoecology with the School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She has worked with First Nations elders and cultural specialists in northwestern North America for over 50 years, helping to document, retain and promote their traditional knowledge of plants and environments, including Indigenous foods, materials and traditional medicines. She has been formally adopted into Haida, Kwakwaka’wakw, Songhees and Nisga’a families. Her two-volume book, Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America (July, 2014; McGill-Queen’s University Press), represents an integration of her long term research. She has authored or co-authored/co-edited 30 other books, including: Plants of Haida Gwaii; The Earth’s Blanket; “Keeping it Living”: Traditions of Plant Use and Cultivation on the Northwest Coast of North America (with Doug Deur); Saanich Ethnobotany: Culturally Important Plants of the WSÁNEC’ People (with Richard Hebda), and Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples, and over 150 book chapters and papers. Her most recent edited volume is Plants, People, and Places: the Roles of Ethnobotany and Ethnoecology in Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights in Canada and Beyond (2020). She has received a number of awards for her work, including membership in Order of British Columbia (1999) and the Order of Canada (2009), honorary degrees from Vancouver Island University, University of British Columbia, University of Northerm British Columbia and Simon Fraser University; the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences’ Canada Prize in the Social Sciences for Ancient Pathways, and The Royal Society of Canada’s Innis-Gérin medal.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:

Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:

Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to David A. Robertson and Julie Flett. Their book On the Trapline is a finalist for the 2022 Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize. In their conversation, Julie and David talk about the trust in their collaborative relationship and the special spiritual connections that have emerged in their projects.

ABOUT THE GUESTS:

David A. Robertson is the author of numerous books for young readers including When We Were Alone, which won the 2017 Governor General’s Literary Award. The Barren Grounds, the first book in the middle-grade The Misewa Saga series, received a starred review from Kirkus and was a Kirkus and Quill & Quire best middle-grade book of 2020, as well as a USBBY and Texas Lone Star selection, and nominated for the Ontario Library Association’s Silver Birch Award. A sought-after speaker and educator, as well as recent recipient of the Writers’ Union of Canada’s Freedom to Read Award, Dave is a member of the Norway House Cree.

Julie Flett, a Cree-Métis author, illustrator, and artist, has received numerous awards for her work, including a Governor General’s Award and the American Indian Library Association Award. She is the author of many books, including Birdsong (Greystone Kids, 2019), winner of the 2020 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, an American Indian Youth Literature Honor Book and Boston Globe Horn Book Title. Flett lives on Vancouver Island, Canada.

ABOUT MEGAN COLE:

Megan Cole the Director of Programming and Communications for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. She is also a writer based on the territory of the Tla'amin Nation. Megan writes creative nonfiction and has had essays published in Chatelaine, This Magazine, The Puritan, Untethered, and more. She has her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of King's College and is working her first book. Find out more about Megan at megancolewriter.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST:

Writing the Coast is recorded and produced on the traditional territory of the Tla'amin Nation. As a settler on these lands, Megan Cole finds opportunities to learn and listen to the stories from those whose land was stolen.

Writing the Coast is a recorded series of conversations, readings, and insights into the work of the writers, illustrators, and creators whose books are nominated for the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. We'll also check in on people in the writing community who are supporting books, writers and readers every day. The podcast is produced and hosted by Megan Cole.