LitFest New West!

Fabulous Lit Fest Lineup This Year

books

I feel lucky as all get out to have snagged tickets to what seems to be one of the hottest tickets of the season. LitFest New West’s event about craft beer on May 13 – Royal City Craft Beer Revolution-  is about books and beer. This event will look at the history of brewing in New Westminster, and will feature Joe Wiebe, author of Craft Beer Revolution: An Insider’s Guide to BC Brewerieshost Stephen Quinn from CBC’s On The Coast, as well as beer samples from local breweries Steel & Oak, Dageraad, and Four Winds.

If this is what a literary festival is like, count me in, right?

LitFest New West started as the Royal City Book Festival in 2009. This year’s iteration features some really non-booky type events I’m rather excited about, and that I think will really show off what the potential for a literary festival really is. It’s not just about books, but rather songwriting, discussions, enjoyment, and diversity. Three of the many Lit Fest events on my personal radar are:

  • The RCFM’s Author Market on May 12 – This special market – and also the opening of the summer season for RCFM – will feature numerous local authors who will be on hand to sign and sell their books, as well as answer your questions! Admittedly, I’m biased as the RCFM President, but direct author access is wonderful no matter what the setting is. It’s from 3-7 in Tipperary Park, right beside City Hall. Don’t forget your shopping tote and bring cash as many of the authors aren’t set up to take your debit or credit cards.
  • Singer/Songwriter Panel – May 14 – Into music at all? This roundtable panel features an all star lineup of artists: Art Bergmann, Carolyn Mark,  D. Trevlon, New Wester Eden Fine Day, Joe Keithley (of DOA) and Sean Nelson (of Harvey Danger and The Long Winters). Stuart Derdeyn hosts and each panelist will perform two songs after the discussion. This one is ticketed, get the tickets here. At the Laura C Muir Theatre at Douglas College from 7-9pm.
  • How to Read a Graphic Novel – May 17 this is a great look at graphic novels featuring local author and artist Kurtis Findlay. I wrote a post over on Kids New West.ca about it that sums up the event plus gives you some recommendations for graphic novels for your kids to try. At the Queens Park Gallery from 7-9pm. Registration is appreciated, but stopping by is fine too.

The complete list of events is available on the Lit Fest website, and most events are free.

Bonus:

The New Westminster Public Library has prepared a list of books that are inspired by the LitFest so if you’re looking for something new on your bookshelf, check them out. And, if I can give you a hint, one of the best book reading places is the hammocks at the Pier Park.

Litfest-New-West-Poster-2016-web

 

 

 

 

Jen Arbo

Jen Arbo is the editor and co-publisher of Tenth to the Fraser. She's been writing for the site since 2007 and lives in Sapperton with her family. A project manager at heart, she also operates Hyack Interactive, a digital communications company. Find her on Twitter or Instagram.

Jen Arbo is a really valued member of the Tenth to the Fraser community. Interested in joining our pool of writers? Please see these submission guidelines.

Tenth to the Fraser
http://www.tenthtothefraser.ca/2016/05/09/new-west-lit-fest/
www.tenthtothefraser.ca
crawl=CC-MAIN-2016-44
49532
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:EGUF6R7TT76WKB64P7SUHSNVWQAOM435
<urn:uuid:82866295-7edc-4d93-8186-1073ea553acd>
2016-10-28T00:25:49Z
208.97.148.161
sha1:DRLGVQCI467GKOSDSPJH63ZW2DPZCM5Z
<urn:uuid:fcddc20d-2789-442e-901b-948ff50d5f54>
http://www.tenthtothefraser.ca/2016/05/09/new-west-lit-fest/
length
response
<urn:uuid:f5807be1-f4a4-452b-af8c-36aee639ef5e>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2016-44
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for October 2016
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf