Description
Join us on Thursday, June 5 at 6:30 p.m. to celebrate the finalists of the 2025 BC and Yukon Book Prizes! We’ll hear readings from shortlisted authors Shashi Bhat, Leanne Dunic and Minelle Mahtani, and toast the wonderful writerly talent this region has to offer.
The BC and Yukon Book Prizes, established in 1985, celebrate the achievements of British Columbia and Yukon writers, illustrators and publishers. Find the full 2025 shortlist here. The winners will be announced at a gala in September later this year.
Tickets are free, but please RSVP here for your space, as capacity is limited. Thank you for supporting our local authors!
About Upstart & Crow:
Located on Granville Island, Upstart & Crow is a not-for-profit literary arts studio for curious readers and creative storytellers alike. We are international in our outlook, and local in our sensibilities. We create opportunities to surface new talent and champion bold ideas through events, workshops, literary launches, unique partnerships — and yes, we also sell books!
Accessibility:
The main studio of our shop is accessible for folks with mobility aids. There is a washroom on the main floor available for attendees.
Questions: hello[at]upstartand
Death by a Thousand Cuts
A writer discovers that her ex has published a novel about their breakup. An immunocompromised woman falls in love, only to have her body betray her. After her boyfriend makes an insensitive comment, a college student finds an experimental procedure that promises to turn her brown eyes blue. A Reddit post about a man’s habit of grabbing his girlfriend’s breasts prompts a shocking confession. An unsettling second date leads to the testing of boundaries. And when a woman begins to lose her hair, she embarks on an increasingly nightmarish search for answers.
With honesty, tenderness, and a skewering wit, these stories boldly wrestle with rage, longing, illness, and bodily autonomy, and their inescapable impacts on a woman’s relationships with others and with herself.
Wet
A transient Chinese American model working in Singapore thirsts for the unattainable: fair labour rights, the extinguishing of nearby forest fires, breathable air, healthy habitats for animals, human connection. She navigates place and placelessness while observing other migrant workers toiling outdoors despite the hazardous conditions. In photographs and language shot through with empathy and desire, Wet unravels complexities of social stratification, sexual privation, and environmental catastrophe.
May It Have A Happy Ending
Minelle Mahtani had taken a leap of faith. A new mother in a new life, she’d moved across the country for love, and soon found herself facing the exciting and terrifying prospect of hosting her own radio show. But as she began to find her place in the majority white newsroom, she was handed devastating news: her Iranian mother had been diagnosed with tongue cancer.
Just as Minelle was finding her voice, her mother was losing hers.
What does it mean to amplify the voices of others while the stories of your ancestors are being buried in your mother’s mouth? Why do we cling to superstition and luck when we’ve lost all faith in healing those we love? And how do we juggle bearing the burden of looking after an ill parent when we are trying to parent our own children?
In exquisitely lyrical and inventive prose, Mahtani recounts the experience so many of us recognize: a life calibrated through calculating when to speak and when to be silent in a world that feels like it forces us to be broken.
