Canadian-born author Robert Paul Weston has arrived as writer-in-residence in Powell River this week, part of the annual Vancouver Writers Fest outreach program.
Weston has been working with grades one to six at Westview and Edgehill elementary schools. He is also offering two adults’ events during the week.
This evening, Wednesday, October 29, adults are invited to meet the award-winning children’s author as he explains the process of planning, writing and publishing a novel for children or young adults. This event, So You Want to Write a Children’s Book, runs from 7 to 8:30 pm at Powell River United Church, 6932 Crofton Street.
On Thursday evening, October 30, just in time for Halloween, Weston explores the weird, wild and downright frightening world of fairytales—before they were given the Disney treatment. Weston offers up a humorous, informative (and at times stomach-churning) tour of some favourite fairytales, just as they would have been told to young and old alike in medieval Europe. This adult event runs from 7 to 8:30 pm in the Poplar Room at Powell River Recreation Complex.
Weston’s first novel, Zorgamazoo, won the Silver Birch Award, the Audie Award, the California Young Reader Medal and an EB White Read Aloud Award. Dust City was a Canadian Library Association Young Adult Honour Book and was shortlisted for the Red Maple Award and Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Young Adult Mystery. Prince Puggly of Spud was a CLA Honour Book of the Year and was nominated for the Children’s Book Council Book of the Year and a Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award. His latest books are Blues for Zoey and The Creature Department. Born in Canada, Weston now lives in London, England.
“The Powell River Public Library is very excited to partner with the Vancouver Writers Fest to host an author of Weston’s calibre,” said Katie Kinsley of the library. “It is a wonderful opportunity for our community. I hope that Weston’s unique style will resonate with youth, spur their imaginations and inspire an interest in writing. For adults I think Weston will offer a really fun and refreshing way for them to engage with literacy. I hope the adult events, since they touch on themes of writing for kids and sharing stories, ignite or rekindle adults’ interests in sharing stories both written and orally with their children and their community.”
Weston’s residency is made possible through the Vancouver Writers Fest’s Spreading the Word schools program, which offers communities that cannot attend the festival (because of geographic and/or economic limitations) an opportunity to have some of the best authors come to them. The writer-in-residence program is sponsored by Pacific Coastal Airlines and supported by the festival’s Michael R. Shaw Fund.
