Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts

Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts Celebrating 44 years in 2026
August 13-16, 2026
Telephone: 1-800-565-9631 or 604-885-9631

Two atmospheric mystery stories on P*s tackling corruption, crime and dark secrets come together in this exciting event ...
06/06/2026

Two atmospheric mystery stories on P*s tackling corruption, crime and dark secrets come together in this exciting event for mystery fiends. 🫆🔎 Join Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson and Sam Wiebe in conversation with fellow author Antonio Michael Downing as they delve into their new crime novels, Opposite Sully’s Gym and Guns Across the Water.

Alexis and Sam join the 44th Sunshine Coast Festival of Written Arts on August 13 at 2:00 p.m. Buy your tickets for this event and more on our website.

Did you know our official Festival bookseller is Talewind Books? For the duration of the Festival from August 13-16, the...
06/05/2026

Did you know our official Festival bookseller is Talewind Books?

For the duration of the Festival from August 13-16, the team will have a fabulous pop-up shop on-site (the Book Tent). They also manage the author signings that take place after each event, so don’t miss out on getting your books signed!

While you’re in town, you can visit their regular shop at 5494 Trail Avenue in Sechelt, where you will find a fantastic selection of books, stationery and other literary temptations. It makes for the perfect literary stop. 😍

We were so very sorry to hear that the inimitable David Roche passed away on May, 27, 2026. It was a great honour to hos...
06/03/2026

We were so very sorry to hear that the inimitable David Roche passed away on May, 27, 2026. It was a great honour to host David at our 2024 festival when he was celebrating the publication of Standing at the Back Door of Happiness, published by Harbour Publishing. The book is just like David himself--delightfully quirky, and full of humour, insight, wisdom, and most of all, love. We send our deepest condolences to David's family and many, many friends, especially Marlena.

These photos were taken by Rik Jespersen at David's presentation in 2024. Thinking about the standing ovation he and his co-presenter (fellow Sunshine Coast author Marion McKinnon Crook) received that festival morning still gives us goosebumps. Rest in peace, David. Thank you for the love and laughs.

In Tell It to the Water, Donna Morrissey crafts a voice-driven family memoir capturing the grief that engulfs her family...
06/02/2026

In Tell It to the Water, Donna Morrissey crafts a voice-driven family memoir capturing the grief that engulfs her family after her mother’s death. Blending love, loss, and the fierce complexities of kinship, her Newfoundland storytelling is rich in character, humour and emotional truth.

She has won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Fiction for The Fortunate Brother; Sylvanus Now was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize; and The Deception of Livvy Higgs was a One Read pick for Nova Scotia in 2017. Her fiction has also won awards in the US and the UK, and has been translated into several languages.

Donna joins the 44th Sunshine Coast Festival of Written Arts on August 14 at 6:30 p.m. Buy your tickets for this event and more on our website.

Tickets for the 44th annual Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts are on sale now! 🎟️This summer from August 13–16...
06/01/2026

Tickets for the 44th annual Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts are on sale now! 🎟️

This summer from August 13–16, come get involved with our stellar lineup of artists and writers and get to know your fellow book lovers from on the coast and beyond.

Buy your tickets online today on our website, or you can purchase by telephone at (604) 885-9631 or 1-800-565-9631. We can’t wait to see you!

(Illustration by Carol LaFave 🎨)

Named the Best Canadian Poetry Book of 2025 by CBC Books, The Idea of An Entire Life delivers an intimate examination of...
06/01/2026

Named the Best Canadian Poetry Book of 2025 by CBC Books, The Idea of An Entire Life delivers an intimate examination of twenty-first-century anguish, love, queerness, and political possibility. Through lyric verse, sonnets, fieldnotes, and fragments, the poems, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes slyly humorous, are always finely crafted, putting to use the autobiographical and philosophical style that has come to define Belcourt’s body of work.

Billy-Ray Belcourt will be joining the festival on August 14 at 3:30pm. Tickets will be available for this event on June 1.

We’re gearing up to launch the best literary festival for readers this summer! There are over 20+ events for you to expl...
05/27/2026

We’re gearing up to launch the best literary festival for readers this summer! There are over 20+ events for you to explore featuring writers and artists who represent the best of BC literature—both established and exciting emerging voices.
We can’t think of a better way to spend a weekend on the Sunshine Coast. ☀️

The 44th annual Sunshine Coast Festival for the Written Arts is August 13-16. Tickets go on sale starting from June 1 at 8:30 a.m. PT. Visit our website for more details.

Featured books (in order of appearance):

⚪ Brassy Bit of Aging by Mary Walsh | Event #1
🟡 The Astronaut Children of Dunbar Street by Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho | Event #15
⚫ Nobody Asked for This by Georgia Toews | Event #14
🟠 Black Cherokee by Antonio Michael Downing | Event #17
🔵 Everything is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe | Event #15
🟢 In Trees by Robert Moor | Event #8
🔴 The Road to Bard: A Legacy of Shakespeare on Canada’s West Coast by Christopher Gaze | Event #12
🟠 Sharing the Light by Monique Gray Smith | Event #18
🟤 Outspoken: A Journey from Olympic Athlete to Activist by Betty Baxter | Event #2
🟣 The Idea of An Entire Life by Billy-Ray Belcourt | Event #5

Attention Sunshine Coasters! We are recruiting volunteers for this year's Festival of the Written Arts, taking place Aug...
05/26/2026

Attention Sunshine Coasters! We are recruiting volunteers for this year's Festival of the Written Arts, taking place August 13-16, 2026 in Sechelt. Are you volunteer curious? Would you like to be a part of this special Sunshine Coast event? We are holding a drop-in orientation meeting on Wednesday, May 27 from 4-6 pm at the Seaside Centre in Sechelt. Please come by to say hello and pick up some information! If you can't come by on Wednesday, you can also fill out a volunteer form, available on our website. https://writersfestival.ca/acknowledgements/volunteer/

Join us to celebrate the inaugural shortlist for the Al and Eurithe Purdy BC Award for Excellence. ✨📚 Three outstanding ...
05/24/2026

Join us to celebrate the inaugural shortlist for the Al and Eurithe Purdy BC Award for Excellence. ✨📚 Three outstanding authors from British Columbia will grace our stages to speak about and read from their shortlisted works, discuss the joys and challenges of publishing in BC, and share insights about the writing life and their literary craft. This event will be moderated by Kathryn Gretsinger.

The countdown to the winner of the prize kicks off at the 44th Sunshine Coast Festival of Written Arts on August 14 at 2:00pm. Buy your tickets for this event and more on our website.

(Illustration by Carol LaFave 🎨)

The SCFWA festival officially kicks off with wry flair as comedy icon Mary Walsh takes the stage! The Gemini-winning sta...
05/24/2026

The SCFWA festival officially kicks off with wry flair as comedy icon Mary Walsh takes the stage! The Gemini-winning star of This Hour Has 22 Minutes presents Brassy Bit of Aging Crumpet, a vulnerable, hopeful, wickedly funny memoir-in-essays celebrating her colourful—sometimes difficult but never dull—life and career.

Among her many awards and doctorates, Mary is the recipient of the Order of Canada, the Governor General’s Lifetime Achievement Award in the Performing Arts, and the CSA’s Earle Grey Award for lifetime achievement in television acting.

Mary joins the 44th Sunshine Coast Festival of Written Arts on August 13 at 8:00 p.m. Buy your tickets for this event and more on our website.

Address

5511 Shorncliffe Avenue
Sechelt, BC
V0N3A0

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