The next Electric Mermaid Live Reading event at Char’s Landing in Port Alberni will feature two very different writers. The event will take place Wednesday, April 24.
Gibson’s Kathleen Vance has published both fiction and non-fiction, most recently winning first prize in non-fiction in the North Shore Writers’ Association’s 28th annual writing contest in April 2024.
Inspired by the wonderful readers and writers at Electric Mermaid, Vance has written a yet-to-be-published novel about the adventures of three time-travelling kids, a dog, and the three real-life characters Charles Steinmetz, Agnes Pockels and Sofie Herzog.
David Kipling, meanwhile, was born and raised on a farm in the English Midlands. A motor enthusiast from childhood, he founded the stock-car history website www.oldstox.com and published “Stock-Car Racing: Another Kind of Motor Sport” in the British national weekly magazine, Autocar, in 1965.
Kipling has worked as a librarian and college teacher as well as “every kind of other job” from carpet cleaning in Canada to laying electrical cable in France. He spent years translating the French novel Rigadoon and after 30 years of successful college teaching, at the advanced age of 61, he finally earned a Bachelor of Education from the University of Alberta.
His short story “Now is the Time” was published in the online magazine Entropy and he has had a short story published locally in Alberniology: The Alberni Anthology.
With host and emcee Derek Hanebury’s literary guidance, and a host of authors through the open mic, this evening promises to keep poetry and prose fans engaged. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the open mic runs from 6-8 p.m. Admission is $10.
Visit www.charslanding.com/events to pre-register for the readers’ list and to select the optional Zoom link.