The 26th annual Harmony Arts Festival celebrates the written word with inaugural ‘Readings in the Park’ series.
With its breathtaking waterfront venues and natural surroundings, the Harmony Arts Festival, presented by Odlum Brown Limited, is an ideal location to experience unique and unforgettable cultural events. This year, working closely with the West Vancouver Memorial Library, the organizers of the festival have created a new literary program called Readings in the Park, sponsored by Amica Mature Lifestyles.
Responding to the unqualified success of a reading by bestselling author Patrick Taylor at the 2015 Harmony Arts Festival, organizers were encouraged to create an expanded literary arts program. For this year’s festival, two readings will be held on the West Vancouver Community Foundation Stage in John Lawson Park. These events feature well respected authors whose appearances will surely draw large and diverse crowds from across Metro Vancouver.
The first event is the Crime + Mystery Panel, which will be held between 4-5 p.m. on Tuesday, August 2, 2016. Like all Harmony Arts Festival events, the panel is free and open to the public.
Moderated by Robin Spano, author of the Claire Vengel Undercover novels, the Crime + Mystery Panel will feature talks and readings from William Deverell, the noted Canadian crime writer and criminal lawyer who is the author of the popular Arthur Beauchamp series. Ian Hamilton, the former journalist and mystery writer, responsible for the acclaimed Ava Lee crime novels, will join Deverell on stage, along with Sam Wiebe, the award-winning writer of Last Of The Independents.
The Harmony Arts Festival is honoured to host An afternoon with Joseph Boyden between 4-5 p.m. on Thursday August 4, 2016.
Of Irish, Scottish and Anishinaabe heritage, Joseph Boyden has emerged as one of the most important Canadian literary voices of the new millennium and as a tireless advocate who sympathetically represents First Nations culture.
His debut novel, Three Day Road, which told the story of Xavier Bird, a First Nations sniper, won the Amazon/Books in Canada first novel award and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His second novel, Through Black Spruce, continued the Bird family saga and won the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize. His most recent work, The Orenda, completed the Bird Family trilogy and made many best novel lists in 2013.
From there, Boyden collaborated with The Winnipeg Ballet on the critically acclaimed, Going Home Star – Truth And Reconciliation, the first ballet to explore the aboriginal experience in Canada. Boyden was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada in 2005 for his contribution as an author who tells stories of common heritage, and for his social engagement in support of First Nations.
Boyden is currently working on Project Charlie, an animated film which focuses on the life and death of Charlie Wenjack in the residential school system nearly 50 years ago. An afternoon with Joseph Boyden will surely be one of the most popular events of the Harmony Arts Festival, so arrive early!
For more information about the Readings in the Park, along with additional events at the Harmony Arts Festival, please visit the website HERE.
