Local author Ruth Rodgers will launch Those who Return, a third installment in her Sunshine Coast series of historical fiction novels, on Friday, May 13, at the Seaside Centre in Sechelt, at 7:30 p.m. Members of the public are invited to attend.
Rodgers’s earlier novels in the series (Those who Wander and Those who Stay) followed early settlers on the Coast and explored settler–Indigenous relations.
Her latest book follows four generations of one Japanese-Canadian family, from the first immigrant in the late 1800s through the present day. Along the way, readers visit the Fraser Valley, Vancouver, Powell River, the East Lillooet internment camp, Winnipeg, and Ottawa, tracing the challenges and triumphs of Canadians of Japanese descent through two World Wars, post-war dispersal and eventual redress.
Pleasing the Palette
The recently-relocated Coastal Art Gallery — now a resident of the Sunnycrest Mall in Upper Gibsons — will be holding an open house on Saturday, May 14 to celebrate its new home.
The gallery is a co-operative enterprise, featuring local creations. The artists take turns hosting the gallery, welcoming and assisting visitors.
During its grand opening (10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.), the gallery will be offering coffee, juice, treats, artist demos, a free draw for a $100 gift certificate and a chance to meet the artists.
More information is available online at coastalart.ca.
Come in for a Landing
The Landing Artists will mount their annual spring show and sale at the Gibsons Public Market from Friday, May 20 (12 p.m. to 5 p.m.) through Sunday, May 22 (10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday).
Along with new works by established members Charmaine Bayntun, Ed Hill, Nancy Hugh, Trisha Joel, Ruth Rodgers, and Coralie Swaney, works by new members (glass artist) Susan Furze and (woodcarver) Shirley Burton will be available.
Ruth Rodgers will also have copies of her latest book, Those Who Return, for sale.
Come by and choose something to refresh your house for spring! The Landing Artists are a vibrant group of artists working in various media that offer two pop-up shows each year.
Harmonies Homeward
The Inspirito Women’s Ensemble is performing at Calvary Baptist Church in Gibsons, with performances scheduled on Saturday, May 14 at 6 p.m. and Sunday, May 15 at 3 p.m.
The concert will open with The Prayer—a piano and flute duet that was written for Ukraine. It will be followed by Harbour: a song by Anna Tabush written to welcome refugees in new communities across the world.
The ensemble will be accompanied by flutist Bernard Blary.
Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at the door. Contact vivavoce@saronamynhardt.com for more information.
Asian literature aloud
The Gibsons Public Library welcomes everyone who loves to read aloud to participate in its monthly Readers Open Mic on Wednesday, May 18.
To celebrate Asian Heritage Month, May’s theme is “Asia in the Old and New Worlds.”
Participants may read or perform their favourite passage or poem by any writer of any Asian heritage, or about any Asian culture. Teens and adults, and readers at all levels of English, are all welcome.
The event begins at 6:30 p.m. Registration for in-person attendance is required; Zoom participants are also welcome. Email LKreps@gibsons.bclibrary.ca for details.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
