Northwords Writers Festival

Vicky Delaney and John Mutford. Yellowknife. June 1, 2013

John Mutford and Douglas Coupland. Yellowknife. June 1, 2013

Today, the Northwords Writers Festival wraps up here in Yellowknife. And while I wasn't able to/ chose not to take in many events, if the Twitter buzz is any indication, the festival was a resounding success. They certainly had a great selection of authors, but if you wanted to hear just one author read, you had to sit through a bunch of the others for at least an hour or more. Which is fine and understandable given the small population of Yellowknife— unless you were pressed for time and/or weren't a particular fan of the others. I would like to have had a separate book signing event, where I could have just popped in for a brief chat with certain authors, but I managed to score a couple of encounters in any case, and with the 2 authors who I was most interested in meeting.

One event I did take in was a luncheon with Douglas Coupland (he was the headliner and certainly well known enough to fill a room all on his own!) He didn't talk about writing much, focusing most of his talk on his visual art, but he and his art are so fascinating and creative that it hardly seemed to matter.

Also during the festival it was announced that Jamie Bastedo's Nighthawk! won the 2013 Northwords Prize. A big congratulations to him!

To those who were instrumental in organizing and running this year's festival, great job! I know it was a team effort and you ALL deserve a round of applause.