Story Gallery Festival: Great Day!

We had an excellent afternoon participating in the Story Gallery Festival at Britannia.  My The Drive Press shared a table with the Grandview Heritage Group (see below) and we were cheek-by-jowl to the other festival producers:  the Downtown Eastside Studio Society’s “The View From Here“; the Our Roots oral history project and their book “Vancouver Dialogues“; and the Under One Umbrella’s “Voices From Grandview Woodland.”

There was good music throughout the afternoon, and a steady crowd of interested folks.  I sold a few books but the highlight was meeting some of the people I already know from my research. Folks who have lived on the Drive for 50, 60 and 70 years, and who are happy to chat about the way things were.

I gave a couple of readings: “Shoot Out At First and Commercial” which seemed sharper with the proximity of today’s police-shooting incident at Grandview Park; and “The Creation of First and Commercial.”  They both got a good reception from small groups of listeners.

Today was the official outing of the Grandview Heritage Group, the local group of historians and local enthusiasts that has been meeting informally for the last few months.  We are interested in all aspects of Grandview’s history and heritage, physical and cultural.  We launched ourselves into the public today with the distribution of a flyer explaining who we are and offering an email address (grandviewheritage@gmail.com) for others who might care to join us.

I also met some old friends I haven’t seen in way too long.  It was a good day.

Story Gallery Festival Reminder

This is a reminder that the Story Gallery Festival is taking place tomorrow, Saturday, between 1 and 4 (or until 6 if you stay for a screening of the Vancouver Stories film) at Britannia (Napier and Commercial).

Lots of music, food, weather-covered booths from organizations launching their books and other multi-media projects, and readings every 15 minutes inside the library.

I’ll be doing readings from “The Drive” at 1:45pm and 3:00pm.

Autographed copies of “The Drive” will be available at no additional cost!   Hope to see you all there!

Story Gallery Festival: October 22nd

Here’s a good date for your calendar:   the Story Gallery Festival that will take place in and around Britannia Library and Info Centre on Saturday 22nd October from 1pm until 4pm.

The Festival celebrates the number of books and stories in various art forms about East Vancouver that have emerged this year. Along with my own “The Drive,” other featured groups are the Under One Umbrella group which will be launching its book of local stories the collection of which was organized as part of the Vancouver 125 celebrations; the Eastside Studio Society‘s collection “View From Here“; Our Roots, an audio collection of stories from Aboriginal and new Canadians; a collection of video interviews called, I believe, “Vancouver Stories”; and new work from a group that gives voice to youth in the community.

There will be story readings in the Library Art Gallery every quarter-hour from 1:30pm to 4pm (I’ll be doing readings at 1:45pm and 3:00pm) and the usual fun-filled raft of local artists, food, music and ceremony from all over in the central plaza.

This will be a bright spot in the middle of Fall!