Salon Scopes Out the Literary Side of Vancouver

Vancouver Metblogs links to a Salon.com article about the literary nature of Vancouver in The Literary Guide to the World, Destination: Vancouver.

Some great writers have come out of Vancouver (obvious to anyone who attended the Vancouver Writers Festival) and I am very passionate about reading and finding new local authors. We've got the pillars of Van Lit - Douglas Coupland and William Gibson - which the article mentions along with Alice Munro and Malcolm Lowry, but what about Joy Kogawa, Wayson Choy and Evelyn Lau? What about Michael Turner? What about Ivan Coyote?

What about a literature scene? Do we even have one? Not much of one, in my opinion. The article (and the metblog commentary) seems to be more about the vibe of the city and how it relates to local literature, and in that case the description that we are part way between a Canadian L.A. and "the world's best backwater" appears to be true. After Word on the Street and the Writers Festival are over, book launches and readings are sparsely attended except for the really big names. And who can blame us? For all the indy coffee shops and open mike nights there are, there are very few powerful local bookshops and publishers left.