Those with a passion for the written word will want to mark down the return of the Golden Ears Writers and Readers Festival to Maple Ridge.
The third-annual festival will see workshops led by writers John Mavin, Eileen Cook and local Cathy Ace.
“We want to bring writers together, we want to give readers a perspective of the extreme talents that exist within our community, not just with published writers, but with those who are unpublished or who are published in less traditional means,” said Ronda Payne, co-founder of the festival.
The free event will take place at The ACT Art Gallery (11944 Haney Pl.) on Jan. 18 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
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Writers and readers can sign-up for workshops at the event while also visiting the vendor booths and taking advantage of the festival’s blue pencil opportunities.
“A blue-pencil session is when someone brings a small amount of their work, say three pages or less, and has another writer look at that work and provide potential edits, areas of improvements [and] help them work through challenging areas and give them a boost on what they’re working on,” Payne explained.
Mavin will kick off a series of workshops at 10:30 a.m. with his presentation, Extraordinary People: The Craft of Character Creation.
The workshop is designed for writers of any skill level.
At noon, Ace will discuss crime, detective and mystery books to match a reader’s TV viewing tastes.
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“I’m thrilled to be taking part in it. As a crime writer, who lives in Maple Ridge, I find it really good fun to be able to speak to other people who enjoy stories about crime fiction,” she said. “So I’m going to do a really fun session on recommending reading for people who think that they prefer to watch television and movies.”
Ace will be available to sign copies of her books and also discuss festival goers’ particular reading preferences.
“I’m going to start with television and movie adaptation of books and then go on to speak about other books that are like that,” she said.
Ace is currently working on the ninth installment in her Cait Morgan Mysteries series, The Corpse with the Crystal Skull.
“It’s a classic whodunit murder mystery set in Jamaica,” she said.
Finally, at 1:30 p.m. Eileen Cook will take the stage to discuss The Power of Story: How Stories Can Change your Life – or at least your Brain.
The festival will also have draws for prizes, including a membership with the BC Federation of Writers.
“We anticipate even more visitors to come this year than last year,” Payne concluded.
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