Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts

07/11/2025

A passionate activist and thinker bringing attention to issues facing Indigenous communities, especially those of Bedouin Palestinian heritage, Amal Elsana Alh’jooj will present her debut memoir, Hope Is a Woman’s Name at the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts this August.

She is a founder of several NGOs, including the Arab-Jewish Centre for Equality, Economic Empowerment and Cooperation, and the recipient of many international prizes.

She’ll speak at the festival on August 17 at 1:00pm. Tickets are available on our website, at our link in bio.

.elsana.alhjooj

07/09/2025

Engaging and honest, Ryan McMahon will be closing out this year’s festival with his unique blend of folk and rock. Ryan’s music is written from the heart and sung from the soul. While firmly rooted in folk and roots, the album also explores hints of rock and Americana, creating a dynamic range to his music that makes each song an individual journey.

Don’t miss out on this electric event happening on August 17 at 7:30pm. Grab your tickets while they’re still hot now on our website at the link in our bio.

07/07/2025

A Simon Fraser University Writer’s Studio alumna hailed by the CBC as one of “Ten Canadian women writers you need to read,” Gurjinder Basran will discuss her latest novel at the 43rd Sunshine Coast Festival for the Written Arts. In The Wedding, we bear witness to the coming together of two South Asian families and the ensuing fun and drama.

Don’t miss her event on August 15 at 10:30 am. Tickets are available now on our website, at the link in bio.

07/04/2025

David A. Robertson is an author, editor and speaker on Indigenous issues, mental health and freedom of expression. His new book, All the Little Monsters: How I Learned to Live with Anxiety, reveals what it’s like to live inside his mind and his body, describes the toll his mental health challenges have taken on him and his family, and how he has learned to put one foot in front of the other as well as to get back up when he stumbles.

Don’t miss David’s event at the festival on August 16 at 2:30pm. Tickets and festival passes are still available on our website at the link in our bio.

07/02/2025

Caroline Adderson is a five-time novelist; her newest book, A Way to Be Happy, is a collection of short stories that considers what it means to find happiness—and how we so often seem to understand it through our encounters with the lives, and the stories, of others.

Her award nominations include the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes, the Governor General’s Literary Award, and more.

Caroline will be speaking at the festival on August 15 at 2:30pm. You can buy tickets now on our website, at the link in bio.

07/01/2025

We're thrilled to be one of the sponsors of Twelfth Night, opening this Friday, July 4 in our Festival Pavilion in Sechelt! You won't want to miss this community production of one of Shakespeare's favourite comedies, featuring mistaken identities, practical jokes and a love triangle, as well as music and song from Shakespeare’s era. Proceeds will benefit the Bev Shaw Literacy Fund, held at the Sunshine Coast Foundation.

Tickets at www.coastshakespeare.ca 🎭🎟

Presented by the Sunshine Coast Community Shakespeare Project and Driftwood Players Present.

Shakespeare's delightful romantic comedy of mistaken identities and practical jokes comes to the Coast in July! 💫🌹

Driftwood Players Present: 𝐓𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐟𝐭𝐡 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭, 𝐎𝐫, 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥 – a Sunshine Coast Community Shakespeare Project.

📚❤️ Proceeds will benefit the 𝐁𝐞𝐯 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐰 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐲 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝.

Tickets & more information at www.coastshakespeare.ca

06/30/2025

Coast Writes will feature two authors from the qathet region!. National Magazine Award-winner andrea bennett, Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize-winner Charlotte Gill will come together with writer and BC Book Prizes Interim Executive Director Megan Cole for an insightful conversation on books and writing.

More about the authors:
andrea bennett is a National Magazine Award–winning writer and a senior editor at The Tyee. Their writing has been published by The Walrus, Chatelaine, The Atlantic, the Globe and Mail and many other outlets. Their newest book is Heart: On Cooking, Eating, and Growing Food for Pleasure and Subsistence

Charlotte Gill is an award-winning author whose fiction and narrative nonfiction have appeared in Vogue, The Guardian, Oprah Daily, Lit Hub, The Walrus and many other newspapers and magazines. Her latest book, Almost Brown, is a mixed-race family memoir that reckons with diversity, race, and identity.

This year’s event starts at 10:30am on August 16. Tickets and festival passes are available now on our website at the link in our bio.

06/27/2025

Holly Hogan is a writer and wildlife biologist with a focus on seabirds. During her more than thirty years as a scientist, she has spent about a thousand days at sea conducting avian and marine mammal surveys and providing educational programming with expedition teams. Her work has taken her to the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans, and every latitude in between.

Her newest book, Message in a Bottle, brings to life the wonder and diversity of marine creatures and warns of a central threat to its survival— ocean plastic. Message in a Bottle was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction in 2023 and winner of the 2023 BMO Winterset Award.

She’ll be participating in this year’s festival on August 15 at 1pm. Tickets are available now on our website, at the link in bio.

06/25/2025

Timothy Caulfield is a Professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health, and Research Director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta. His newest book, The Certainty Illusion: What You Don’t Know and Why It Matters, lifts the curtain on the forces contributing to our information chaos and unpacks why it’s so difficult—sometimes even for experts—to escape the fake.

Timothy will be speaking at the festival on August 17, at 4:00pm. Tickets are available now at the link in bio.

06/23/2025

Eddy Boudel Tan was named a Rising Star by the Writers’ Trust of Canada in 2021. His newest book, The Tiger and the Cosmonaut, is a noirish page-turner about a mysterious disappearance and a moving portrait of a Chinese Canadian family navigating insecurities, expectations and simmering anger in their small BC town.

Eddy will be at the festival on August 17 at 9:00 am. You can buy tickets on our website at the link in our bio.

06/20/2025

Celebrated poet and novelist Michael Crummey has written seven books of poetry and a collection of short stories including his masterful bestselling novel, The Adversary, and the winner of the 2025 Dublin Literary Award.

See Michael at the 43rd Sunshine Coast Festival of Written Arts, August 16 at 7:00pm. Tickets are available on our website, at our link in bio.

06/18/2025

Jane Urquhart is one of Canada’s most beloved authors and she is the author of eight internationally acclaimed novels. Her newest book, In Winter I Get Up at Night, charts an unforgettable life while also exploring some of the grandest themes of the twentieth century—colonial expansion, scientific progress, and the sinister forces that seek to divide societies along racial and cultural lines.

She’ll be discussing her book at the festival on August 14 at 8:00pm. Tickets are available on our website, at the link in our bio.