A new, monthly event for readers and writers is starting up in Port Alberni.
Set for the third Friday of each month, Electric Mermaid: Live Reads at Port Alberni’s historic hostel, Char’s Landing, will welcome regional and national features. The name for the new series comes from the illuminated sculpture of a mermaid that is suspended mid-air in the former United Methodist church.
The event will be hosted by Derek Hanebury and moderated by Karl Korven, from its online home base at Char’s Landing.
“The Electric Mermaid venue will welcome writers from all over to read at our sign-up mic,” said artistic director Jacqueline Carmichael.
The virtual event is set to debut on Friday, Nov. 20. Bruce Hornidge will open the evening with a reading about his visit to the historic site of the Dieppe raid in France.
Hornidge is an Alberni Valley writer working on two novels – one a murder mystery and one set in wartime. He is also working on a memoir about his lengthy logging career, from the Kennedy Lake Division in Ucluelet through to his time as a faller. He has vivid memories of the Clayoquot Sound protests of 1993, and eventually lost his job due to the costs of logging in 1998.
Janet Miller will be the other featured reader on Friday. Her children’s book, Cross My Heart, was published in 2002.
Her award winning stories have been published in Canadian magazines, newspapers and anthologies and she wins the occasional writing contest. She has attended the Victoria School of Writing, the Denman Island Writing Intensive, and the Sage Hill Writing Experience.
She is a long-time member of the Comox Valley Writers Society, the Federation of British Columbia Writers and The Writers Union of Canada.
Anyone who would like to read their own work can sign up at ElectricMermaidReads@gmail.com for a five-minute spot. Visit www.charslanding.com for a Zoom link.