Join us Tuesday, September 23 at 7:00 pm Pacific for a Regional Spotlight featuring the Victoria Writers’ Society (VWS) with host Meaghan Hackinen and readers S.M. Perkins Carr, Valerie Chalker, R. Paul Faubert, Britta Gundersen, Hope West, and VWS President Dana Reinhardt!
Register here (bcwriters.ca/events-for-writers) and a link will be sent to you. When it's time for the event, click on the link to join the live Zoom event. We look forward to seeing you there!
Digital Doors Open at 6:55 pm!
*This event will be recorded.
S.M. Perkins Carr is an author, poet, and music therapist. Originally from North Vancouver, she lived in England for ten years and moved back to Canada’s west coast in 2019, settling in Victoria. In 2022, she founded Melikos Publishing and self-published her debut novel, Searching for Persephone. Since then, she’s had poems and short stories published on a variety of platforms, and was recently shortlisted in the Federation of BC Writers Literary Contest, with her short story, “Mining for Moonlight.” She has a long-standing appreciation for the culture, landscapes and mythology of Greece, and the country often acts as her muse.
R. Paul Faubert lives and writes in Victoria, B.C. He has written extensively in a career with the provincial civil service, though such a career does not result in external publication. Daily writing of briefing materials, policy papers and the occasional political speech, has enabled an ability to seamlessly blend fact, fiction and fantasy. His writing, exemplified by his short story Come Home published in the Winter 2024 edition of Island Writer Magazine, focuses on viewing shared experiences from multiple perspectives.
He is currently seeking a publisher for his debut novel, A Criminal Act of Heroism, while drafting his second, Dreaming of The Walker. He has a third novel fully planned with the working title Unravelled as well as a multitude of others striving to make the leap from his head to the page.
Britta Gundersen writes non-fiction and poetry, inspired by the many places she has lived around the world. Her work has been published by the Victoria Writers’ Society, the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, the British Columbia Historical Federation and the Victoria History Society. She also has published two memoirs: Ominous – An African Journey (2023) and Island-Wise – Global Reflections (2025). She is currently working on a biography that covers life on Vancouver Island between 1920 – 1940 and a historical account of conflict in the borderlands of New France and New England in the early 18th century. Photo courtesy of J.A. Bryden
Hope West lives on Salt Spring Island. Her enchanting allegorical adventure, The Once Upon a Time of Now: mythic adventures, discoveries and meditations in the forest of consciousness, was shortlisted for the 2024 Eric Hoffer Grand Prize, won the Eric Hoffer Award for Best Spiritual Fiction, as well as The First Horizon Award for Best First Novel. In addition, her book was awarded an IPPY Gold Medal for Visionary/ New Age Fiction, a Silver Nautilus Book Award, and a Bronze Medal in the Foreword INDIES. Her poem, For a Moment of Everything, received the First Prize for poetry in the 2024 Island Writer's contest. Hope's previous publications include a children’s book, Snow Changes Everything and a book of photography and poetry, Incantations: reflections on the language of yoga.
With a lifelong involvement in Indian mythology and art history, Hope has worked closely with some of the world’s most prestigious scholars in the field of South Asian studies. Inspired by her research, as well as her many pilgrimages to the great temple complexes of Tamil Nadu, her poetry and stories playfully explore storytelling's unique access to the consideration of life's big questions.
Valerie Chalker is a 2015 graduate of The Writers Studio, SFU when she started to leave behind academic writing, where ‘one is not encouraged to make things up’ and enter the fascinating world of creative writing, where ‘freeing one’s mind to make things up’ is the main point. This process allowed her creative side, which was suppressed for most of her life, to begin to appear with the encouragement of her mentor, teachers and workshop mates.
Recently moved to Sidney, Vancouver Island, she is engaged with the Victoria Writers Society and Peninsula Newcomers Club while working on her first novel about her imagined ancestry. She has recent publications in Island Writers Magazine (Victoria Writers Society) and in Feisty Deeds: Historical Fictions of Daring Women, an anthology published by the Women’s Fiction Writers Association.
Plus Dana Reinhardt coming soon!
Meaghan Hackinen (FBCW host): is a bike-obsessed bookworm on a lifelong hunt for exceptional cycling routes, both on and off the pavement. Her cross-continental bike race memoir, Shifting Gears, was released by NeWest Press in 2023 and is available in print, ebook, and audiobook. Find her online: meaghanhackinen.com
