Special Events

Throughout the year, the Festival hosts several special events. Subscribe to our email notification service, and we’ll let you know when updates are posted to this site.

Authors from across Canada speak to students on the Sunshine Coast

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Family Literacy Week in British Columbia is January 21-28, 2024, and to celebrate, School District 46 and the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts have partnered together to bring ten virtual author presentations to students January 22-26.

Featured authors include Kenneth Oppel, bestselling author of Silverwing; Karl Subban, whose book, The Hockey Skates, features his son, former NHL defenceman PK Subban; Kim Spencer, who won the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award for her middle-grade novel Weird Rules to Follow; and Samantha Beynon, who wrote School District 46’s Coast Reads pick Oolichan Moon, published by local company Harbour Publishing.

The authors hail from as far away as New Brunswick and Ontario, and as close as Gibsons. Local author and editor Kallie George is offering a writing presentation to intermediate students and will talk about her book series Wings of Olympus.

Other authors Zooming into schools during Family Literacy Week are Andrea Fritz, Natalie Hyde, Valerie Sherrard, Jack Wong and Karina Zhou, all of whom will inspire students and share information about their writing process and themes.

Canadian authors have visited School District 46 classrooms, both in-person and virtually, every year since 2007.

The literacy programming is organized by Celebration of Authors, Books and Community (CABC), a joint initiative of SD 46 and the Festival of the Written Arts that was formed to support literacy on the Sunshine Coast by bringing authors in to talk about books and encourage students to express themselves through both the written and spoken word.