Beyond the Page in the Comox Valley

 In this episode of Beyond the Page we meet BC writer and adventurer, Bill Arnott - best selling author of The Perfect Day Walks, The Season memoirs, and The Gone Viking travel memoirs. Recipient of fellowships at Britain's Royal Geographical Society, and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society for his expeditions, Bill is a travel ambassador for Canadian Geographic and Adventure Canada, and a frequent contributor to magazines, TV, radio, and literary events. When not trekking with a small pack and a journal, he can be found on Canada's west coast, where he lives on Coast Salish land.  In this episode, Bill Arnott is in conversation with Sharon McInnes in a studio in Comox, BC. 

Our guest for this episode is Claire Mulligan, the current writer-in-residence at Haig-Brown House in Campbell River. Claire Mulligan is a prolific and successful writer in many genres. Her historical novels, The Reckoning of Boston Jim and The Dark have been nominated for the Giller Prize, the BC Book prize and the Canadian Author's award, and her short stories have won over a dozen awards.Claire has adapted several of her own short stories and those of others into short screenplays. Her first adaptation to be produced—The Still Life of Annika Myers—was shot in 2019 and won audience favourite awards and awards for best acting. Her second short film script, Obscura, won the 2024 Leo award for screenwriting and best short film and the Director's Guild of Canada funding award amongst others.Claire lives in Victoria and teaches at UVic Continuing Education. She has an MFA in screenwriting and as I mentioned earlier, writes in many other genres as well. Claire has over fifteen years' experience as a story consultant, creative writing teacher, and editor for screen and prose and currently teaches online classes on the short story, historical fiction, and the Greek Classics.Beyond the Page interviewer, Sharon McInnes sat down for a conversation with author Claire Mulligan at the Haig-Brown House in Campbell River on the weekend of the Words on the Water writers' festival in March, 2026.

Welcome to Beyond the Page in the Comox Valley. This episode is a conversation between Beyond the Page host, Sharon McInnes and two librarians from the Vancouver Island Regional Library system — Zane Weller, Adult Services librarian for Courtenay and Comox, and Jessie Burgess, Children's librarian in Courtenay. Today, Zane and Jessie share their personal stories about being librarians, and talk about their visions for the library as a community hub. If you're a writer, you probably already rely heavily on the library—since writers are almost always avid readers—but do you know how to get your published book onto the stacks? Or how to set up a book launch in a library? Or how to book a librarian to help you with your research? Listen in and find out!

Susan Juby's latest book, "Contemplation of a Crime," published in 2025, is the third in a cozy-murder mystery series. The first book in that series, "Mindful of Murder," debuted at number one on the independent bookstores' bestseller chart and was a finalist for the Leacock Medal for Humor. The second book in the series, "A Meditation on Murder," was a Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and Vancouver Sun bestseller.  Juby is also the author of "Getting the Girl," "Another Kind of Cowboy," "The Woefield Poultry Collective," and "Republic of Dirt," which won the Leacock Medal. She also wrote the best-selling Alice series, which became a TV series on the Comedy Network in 2006. On January16th, Susan Juby will be the keynote speaker at the 2026 North Island Writers Conference taking place at the North Island College campus in Courtenay. And on the 17th at that same conference, she'll teach a day-long workshop on creating memorable characters. Juby currently teaches creative writing at Vancouver Island University in the Nanaimo and Sharon McInnes met up with her there on Wednesday, December 17, 2025 to record this interview.

Today's Beyond the Page episode features a conversation with Timothy Taylor. Taylor is a Vancouver-based author, journalist, and creative writing professor. His novels include Stanley Park, The Blue Light Project, The Rule of Stevens, Storyhouse, and The Rise and Fall of Magic Wolf. He has also published a collection of short fiction called Silent Cruise, a nonfiction book called Foodville, and is widely published in magazines. Taylor has won the Journey Prize and was a finalist or runner up for six other major national fiction prizes in Canada. Timothy Taylor's debut novel, Stanley Park, which came out in 2001, was nominated for the Giller and Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize, as well as the Vancouver and BC Book Awards, and later chosen for One Book, One Vancouver in 2004. And then in 2007, Stanley Park was selected for the annual Canada Reads Competition, where it was championed by Blue Rodeo Singer, Songwriter, Jim Cuddy. We met up with Timothy Taylor on July 18th at the 2025 Denman Island Readers and Writers Festival. Our thanks to the volunteers at the Dora Drinkwater Community Library for letting us use their space in the island's community hall for our recording session.

In this episode, three children's authors and an illustrator will talk about writing for this most delightful but demanding of audiences. Our participants today are: Marlet Ashley, author of five children's books in the series Revelry on the Estuary as well as a stand-alone book called Must Be Christmas; Kate Brown, Marlet's illustrator; Nancy Stewart, author of The Lost Dragon Egg, Rodney Rooster Has a Secret, There Is a Stepmom in My House, There Is a Stepdad in My House, Jen Hen Is Missing!, and The Duck Who Could Not Fly; and Anna McCarthy, author of Giraffe in a Scarf, Message in a Bottle and Twelve Days of Christmas on Vancouver Island. All three authors are members of the Comox Valley Writers Society.

This episode is more like a personal conversation between two people who have gone through similar, life-altering experiences, than a typical interview. In her graphic memoir, Tangles, Sarah Leavitt chronicles her journey with her mother Midge, who died at an early age with Alzheimer's disease. And in Something, Not Nothing, another graphic memoir, she tells the story of her grief journey during and after the medically-assisted death of her longtime partner, Donimo.  Our show host, Sharon McInnes, was the primary caregiver for her mother, Mary, who lived with her and her husband, Dennis, for the last 18 months of her life. Mary died at home with dementia in 2020. Then in 2023, after experiencing the ravages of Parkinson's, complicated by congestive heart failure, Dennis availed himself of a medically-assisted death. So, as Sarah and Sharon share their experiences, we invite you to listen in with care. And if you are currently caring for someone who is dying, or are grieving the loss of a loved one and begin to feel overwhelmed, please give yourself permission to hit the stop button and maybe come back to this conversation later. Or not.   

In this episode, Sharon McInnes interviews Comox Valley nomad and travel writer, Kim Letson. In this interview, Kim shares the personal and travel journeys that led her to write Pomegranates at 4800 Metres, Soul of a Nomad, and In the Footsteps of a Roman Legion: Walking the Via Egnatia. 

In this episode, Sharon McInnes and Stewart Goodings interview local nonfiction authors Ian Kennedy and Christine Dickinson. Ian was born in Donegal, Ireland and moved to Comox in 1999, following his retirement. Widely published in many magazines, his journalism includes articles about rugby, history, travel, motorcycling, cottage living, and pubs. Christine was born and educated in New Zealand and lived and worked most of her adult life in British Columbia. She has a passion for regional history and for many years has been a writer and researcher. 

After fifteen years working at CBC News, then on science and nature documentaries for National Geographic and Discovery, Larry Bambrick spent the next decade writing tv dramas and comedies, including Flashpoint, Played, Carter, Bitten, When Hope Calls, Shoot the Messenger, and Hudson and Rex. He is currently working on a feature-length film called The Lion in Winnipeg. In this episode with interviewer Sharon McInnes, Larry dives into the nuts and bolts of writing a screenplay. 

Judy LeBlanc is the co-founder of the Fat Oyster Reading Series in Fanny Bay. She has written three books: The Promise of Water, a book of short stories published in 2017 by Oolichan Books, The Broken Heart of Winter, a novel published in 2023 by Caitlin Press, and Permission to Land, a memoir in essays, published in 2024 by Caitlin Press. Judy taught creative writing at North Island College for several years. In this interview with Sharon McInnes, Judy focusses on three key elements of the craft of writing: point of view, distance, and voice.

Sylvia Bourgeois is the author of True Moxie and Here Now, two novels set partly in the Pacific Northwest. She is a member of the Comox Valley Writers Society, where she facilitates a group for authors who self-publish. In this episode, she shares some of her wisdom about the self-publishing process and especially about how to market your book with interviewer, Sharon McInnes.

Kim Bannerman is a prolific author based in Cumberland, British Columbia. She's written 17 books--mostly mysteries--and had countless short stories published. She is also co-owner of Fox and Bee Studio, which provides videography, script development, narration, and voice over services. In this episode, Sharon McInnes interviews Kim about her writing life.