Well That’s Cool Book Club
UPDATE: Book Club has been extended into 2021! Scroll to the bottom as I had some new guests through the first few months of 2021!
The Well That’s Cool Book Club is happy to feature monthly live-recording conversations with authors, editors, writers, publishers and more.
Join the live “studio” audience to hear the interview and ask your own questions, then stick around for an informal chat about what you’re reading or interested in these days. The club meetings are open to anyone and completely free.
See the lineup of special guests below and register to attend the Zoom call, or visit the event page on Facebook.
Miss a live event? Click the link to the podcast episode or visit the main Well That’s Cool page to catch up on all past episodes.
Please note, guests and schedules may change depending on availability.
2020-2021 Book Club Guests
Rachel Bell-Irving - Author
October 22 - 8:00 p.m. MDT
Rachael Bell-Irving is a Vancouver-based young adult fantasy author who released her first book, Demons at the Doorstep in January of this year. Click here to learn more about Rachael and her writing.
In our conversation, Rachael describes the process of writing her first novel, learning about the publishing industry, and what’s next for Jessica, the lead character of her urban fantasy series.
Alyssa Polinsky - Freelance Communications Consultant
November 12 - 8:00 p.m. MST
Alyssa Polinsky is a freelance communications consultant who is passionate about literacy and reading. She joins the Book Club to talk about her role on the Board of the Story Studio Writing Society, a charity that inspires, educates and empowers youth through storytelling and that received B.C.’s 2020 Council of the Federation Literacy Award (COFLA). Alyssa is also the President of the Victoria Book Prizes and is currently Acting Director of Communications for the Greater Victoria Public Library.
Mark Zuehlke - Historian, Author
December 10 - 6:30 p.m. MST
Mark Zuehlke is an award-winning author generally considered to be Canada’s foremost popular military historian. His Canadian Battle Series is the most exhaustive recounting of the battles and campaigns fought by any nation during World War II to have been written by a single author. In recognition of his contribution to popularizing Canadian history, Mark was awarded the 2014 Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media: The Pierre Berton Award.
Mark is also an award-winning mystery writer, whose popular Elias McCann series is set in the storm-swept and very un-murder-like west Vancouver Island village of Tofino.
C.J. Lavigne - Author, Communications Scholar
January 21, 2021 - 8:00 p.m. MST
C. J. Lavigne is a Canadian speculative fiction writer. She is also a professional communications scholar with a varied professional history ranging from journalism to tech support.
C.J.’s debut novel, In Veritas, was published in May 2020 by NeWest Press. The novel explores the nature of truth and the complexities of human communication, all within a rich and imaginative fantasy version of Ottawa.
Image credit: Berni Scott.
Jenna Butler - Poet, Essayist, Professor, Farmer
February 18, 2021 - 8:00 p.m. MST
Jenna Butler is the author of the poetry collections Seldom Seen Road, Wells, and Aphelion; a collection of ecological essays, A Profession of Hope: Farming on the Edge of the Grizzly Trail; and the travelogue Magnetic North: Sea Voyage to Svalbard. Revery: A Year of Bees, essays about beekeeping, climate grief, and trauma recovery, is now out from Wolsak and Wynn. Butler is a professor at Red Deer College and farms off the grid in Alberta.
