Writing the Coast: BC and Yukon Book Prizes Podcast

Writing the Coast: BC & Yukon Book Prizes podcast
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Welcome to Writing the Coast! This is the weekly podcast where we chat with the authors and illustrators of the books who make up the shortlist of the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. On the episodes you'll hear host and podcast coordinator Megan Cole chat with the folks who are creating some of BC and Yukon's best books. We'll also check in with the literary community in our region. For more information about the BC and Yukon Book Prizes visit: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/

  1. Chris Labonté shares what he wishes readers knew about BC book publihsers

    Mar 14

    Chris Labonté shares what he wishes readers knew about BC book publihsers

    ABOUT THIS EPISODE: In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Chris Labonte. Chris is the president of Figure 1 Publishing. Figure 1 was the publisher of Curve!: Women Carvers on the Northwest Coast, which one the 2025 Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award. In their conversation, Chris talks about what first drew him to working in publishing, and he talks about what could help BC book publishers stand up to multinational publishers. For more about Curve!: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/curve-women-carvers-on-the-northwest-coast/ To view the 2025 BC and Yukon Book Prizes shortlists: bcyukonbookprizes.com/2025/04/10/bc-…sts-announced/ ABOUT CHRIS LABONTE: Chris shapes the Figure 1 publishing program, collaborating with our authors and partners to produce books of the highest quality. He has worked in the book industry for nearly twenty years, in roles including writer, bookseller, acquiring editor, and publisher. He spends far too much time following the Whitecaps, weeding his vegetable garden, and figuring out which of his kids has his iPad. ABOUT MEGAN COLE: Megan Cole is the Executive Director 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.

    27 min
  2. Laurel Dykstra on how activism is a balm for climate anxiety

    Mar 7

    Laurel Dykstra on how activism is a balm for climate anxiety

    ABOUT THIS EPISODE: In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Laurel Dykstra. Laurel's book, Wildlife Congregations: A Priest’s Year of Gaggles, Colonies and Murders by the Salish Sea, was a finalist for the 2025 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize. In their conversation, how they started the project that inspired the book. Laurel also talks about inter-species loneliness, and that community and activism can hold us up during times of climate crisis. For more about Wildlife Congregations: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/wildlife-congregations-a-priests-year-of-gaggles-colonies-and-murders-by-the-salish-sea/ To view the 2025 BC and Yukon Book Prizes shortlists: bcyukonbookprizes.com/2025/04/10/bc-…sts-announced/ ABOUT GREGOR CRAIGIE: Laurel Dykstra is an Anglican priest, environmental activist, and amateur naturalist who lives in the lower Fraser watershed on Coast Salish territory with a haphazard queer family and a cat who looks like bad taxidermy. Laurel leads Salal + Cedar, a tiny church that worships outdoors. Writing from Laurel includes books, articles, and anthologies mostly at the intersection of Bible and social action with occasional helpings of parenting and racial justice. ABOUT MEGAN COLE: Megan Cole is the Executive Director 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.

    33 min
  3. Janice Lynn Mather on why she loves writing short fiction

    Feb 28

    Janice Lynn Mather on why she loves writing short fiction

    ABOUT THIS EPISODE: In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Janice Lynn Mather. Janice's book Uncertain Kin was a finalist for the 2023 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. In their conversation, Janice talks about her love of short fiction, food, and folk lore. Visit BC and Yukon Book Prizes: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/ About UNCERTAIN KIN: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/uncertain-kin/ ABOUT JANICE LYNN MATHER: Janice Lynn Mather is the author of two acclaimed novels for young adults: Learning to Breathe, which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, and Facing the Sun, which won the Amy Mathers Teen Book Award. She lives in Vancouver. Uncertain Kin is her adult debut. ABOUT MEGAN COLE: Megan Cole is the Executive Director 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 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.

    29 min
  4. Ian Williams talks about putting himself on the page in his book Disorientation

    Feb 21

    Ian Williams talks about putting himself on the page in his book Disorientation

    ABOUT THIS EPISODE: In this episode, we return to a past episode with Ian Williams. Ian's book Disorientation: Being Black in the World was a finalist for the 2022 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize. In their conversation Ian talks about the word "disorientation" and how he used it in the book, he also reflects on polarization and conversation. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ian Williams was born in Trinidad and raised in Canada. In 2019 he won the Scotiabank Giller Prize for his first novel, Reproduction, which was published in Canada, the US, and the UK, and translated into Italian. His poetry collection, Personals, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award. His short story collection, Not Anyone’s Anything, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for the best first collection of short fiction in Canada. His first book, You Know Who You Are, was a finalist for the ReLit Poetry Prize. Williams holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Toronto and has recently returned to that university as a tenured professor, after several years as a professor of poetry. ABOUT MEGAN COLE: Megan Cole is the Executive Director 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.

    30 min
  5. Chantal Gibson talks about erasure and the portrayal of Black women in culture

    Feb 14

    Chantal Gibson talks about erasure and the portrayal of Black women in culture

    ABOUT THIS EPISODE: This week we're returning to season two to celebrate Black futures and Black History Month. In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Chantal Gibson about her poetry collection How She Read, the winner of the 2020 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. In this conversation they discuss the way the work in How She Read examines the portray of black women in culture and history and how erasure impacts how we read and learn. ABOUT CHANTAL GIBSON Chantal Gibson is an artist-educator living in Vancouver with ancestral roots in Nova Scotia. Her visual art collection Historical In(ter)ventions, a series of altered history book sculptures, dismantles text to highlight language as a colonial mechanism of oppression. How She Read is another altered book, a genre-blurring extension of her artistic practice. Sculpting black text against a white page, her poems forge new spaces that challenge historic representations of Black womanhood and Otherness in the Canadian cultural imagination. How She Read is Gibson’s debut book of poetry. Her work has been published in Room magazine and Making Room: 40 years of Room Magazine (Caitlin Press, 2017), and she was shortlisted for PRISM magazine’s 2017 Poetry Prize. An award-winning teacher, she teaches writing and visual communication in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University. ABOUT MEGAN COLE: Megan Cole is the Executive Director 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.

    29 min
  6. Gregor Craigie on Canada's unique housing problem

    Feb 7

    Gregor Craigie on Canada's unique housing problem

    ABOUT THIS EPISODE: In this episode, host Megan Cole talks to Gregor Craigie. Gregor's book, Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada's Housing Crisis, was a finalist for the 2025 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize. In their conversation, Gregor talks about some of the people, whose stories appear in the book, and the lasting impression they had. We also talk about why housing isn’t just a regional or provincial problem, it’s a national one that is uniquely Canadian. For more about Our Crumbling Foundation: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/project/our-crumbling-foundation-how-we-solve-canadas-housing-crisis/ To view the 2025 BC and Yukon Book Prizes shortlists: bcyukonbookprizes.com/2025/04/10/bc-…sts-announced/ ABOUT GREGOR CRAIGIE: Gregor Craigie has been a journalist for more than 25 years at the BBC World Service, CBC Radio, CBS Radio and Public Radio International. He has hosted On The Island on CBC Radio One in Victoria, BC, since 2007. His first book, On Borrowed Time: North America’s Next Big Quake, was a finalist for both the Balsillie Prize for Public Policy and the City of Victoria Book Prize, and was a Globe and Mail Top 100 book in 2021. His first novel, Radio Jet Lag, was published in 2023. ABOUT MEGAN COLE: Megan Cole is the Executive Director 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.

    30 min
  7. Celebrating community: Mary-Ann Yazedjian on the books that transformed her, and on how Amazon devalues books

    Jan 31

    Celebrating community: Mary-Ann Yazedjian on the books that transformed her, and on how Amazon devalues books

    ABOUT THIS EPISODE: In this episode, we return to a conversation with . Mary-Ann is the special projects manager at Book Warehouse and Black Bond books. We're returning to this episode this week as we celebrate the community that supports BC and Yukon books, and keeps our books community strong. Mary-Ann and the team at Book Warehouse, Black Bond Books, and Hager Books supports authors with readings and events, puts books in readers hands, and is the happy face selling books at literary events in the community. In this conversation Mary-Ann talks about the books that transformed her, and how Amazon is devaluing books. ABOUT MEGAN COLE: Megan Cole is the Executive Director 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.

    22 min
  8. Iona Whishaw on creating compelling characters like Lane Winslow that drive a murder mystery forward

    Jan 24

    Iona Whishaw on creating compelling characters like Lane Winslow that drive a murder mystery forward

    ABOUT THIS EPISODE: In this episode, host Megan Cole interviews Iona Whishaw. Iona is the author of the Lane Winslow mystery series, and the book Lightening Strikes the Silence was a finalist for the 2025 Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award. In this conversation Iona talks about how King's Cove because the perfect cast of characters for her mystery series. Iona also talked about how she first heard about Japanese Balloon Bombs and why she decided to include them in her novel. ABOUT IONA WHISHAW: Iona Whishaw is a former educator and social worker whose mother and grandfather were both spies during their respective wars. She is the award-winning author of the Globe and Mail bestselling Lane Winslow Mystery series. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband. ABOUT MEGAN COLE: Megan Cole is the BC and Yukon Book Prizes Executive Director. 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.

    34 min
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About

Welcome to Writing the Coast! This is the weekly podcast where we chat with the authors and illustrators of the books who make up the shortlist of the annual BC and Yukon Book Prizes. On the episodes you'll hear host and podcast coordinator Megan Cole chat with the folks who are creating some of BC and Yukon's best books. We'll also check in with the literary community in our region. For more information about the BC and Yukon Book Prizes visit: https://bcyukonbookprizes.com/

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