Yes, that’s Jim Cuddy from Blue Rodeo without the helmet, and yes, that’s me trying to make the save (for the record, Cuddy didn’t score). This photo was taken at the 2018 Juno Cup charity hockey game by none other than Canadian Olympic gold medal champion rower Kevin Light. The craziness of those last few sentences pretty much sum up my 2018 so far. It’s been busy, and a bit of blur. You can read more about my Juno experience here.

Book news: I’m honoured to announce that Dirty Windshields: the best and the worst of the Smugglers tour diaries has been nominated for a BC Book Prize! The award show gala is on Friday May 4 in Vancouver.

Radio news: I’ve had an amazing time telling the life story of “Cougar” Nancy Crowther, the Cougar Queen of Okeover Inlet, in weekly segments on CBC Radio 1 in BC this year in a series called The Cougar Lady Chronicles. If you’ve read my first book, Adventures in Solitude, you may remember Nancy as the first person in the Desolation Sound area that my family ever met. Most people extended a hand. She extended a gun. If you missed the series, it’s available on podcast by searching ‘Cougar Lady Chronicles’ or you can listen to all 15 episodes here.

Live show news: We’ve been having a blast with our new touring show Grant Lawrence and Friends: an Evening of Stories and Songs. The event is exactly that: I read stories from my books and songs are performed by friends between stories. It has so far featured my wife Jill Barber, my pal and hockey teammate Dustin Bentall, and the Smugglers acoustic at each show (co-founding members Adam Woodall and Nick Thomas), as well as special guests like Craig Northey (the Odds) and Lauren Mann (CBC Searchlight winner). So far we’ve hosted sold-out BC shows on Bowen Island, Pender Island, and in Brackendale and Deep Cove. We’ll do a few more this summer. Please see dates below.

Writing news: After three years of scribing Vancouver Shakedown, a weekly column in the WestEnder, the paper suddenly ceased to exist at the end of 2017 after about 80 years of publication. Then, after about a month or so of actually enjoying not filing a column every week, I had the honour of being asked to continue Vancouver Shakedown as a joint-column, appearing in both the weekly Vancouver Courier and on VancouverIsAwesome.com. Here’s a recent one on Vancouver band Slow.

Upcoming shows and appearances:

Friday April 20, North Shore Writers Festival, West Vancouver Public Library
Friday May 4, BC Book Prizes, Pinnacle Harbour Front Hotel, Vancouver
Friday May 11 – Sunday May 13, Word on the Lake Writers Festival, Salmon Arm BC
Saturday July 14, Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Jericho Beach Park, Vancouver BC*
Sunday August 19, Gabriola Island Arts Festival, Gabriola Island, BC*
Thu Oct 11 – Sun Oct 14, Whistler Writers Festival, Whistler BC

More details and tickets here.

*Grant Lawrence and Friends: Stories and Songs event

Questions? Comments? grant.lawrence@cbc.ca

We’re thrilled to announce another “Stories and Songs” event, this time at the gorgeous Pender Island Community Hall on Pender Island BC. Come spend your Easter Saturday with us! Tickets can be purchased here.

Thank you to all those who sold out the Stories and Songs events in Brackendale and Deep Cove. All the performers had a great time at those show and if you were in attendance, I hope you did too.

Expect more upcoming events like these around BC. Thanks for your support.

Yep, still going. And I have lots to explain. Back in October, we tested out this new event on Bowen Island called Grant Lawrence and Friends: An Evening of Stories and Songs. It went really well. People bought tickets. People showed up. We all had a great time.

That’s given us the confidence to try out the show in a couple of other places in 2018, namely Brackendale (just north of Squamish) and Deep Cove, in North Vancouver.

Saturday Feb 3 in Deep Cove is SOLD OUT. Second show added for Friday Feb 2. Tickets on sale soon.

Hope you can make it. It’s a fun / funny show (I hope) that is basically a tribute to The Vinyl Cafe… stories and songs, eh?

I read some of my favourite stories from my books, and some incredible local musicians share some amazing songs. I sing too! That’s who I mean when I say “we.” Regular cast members include my lovely wife Jill Barber, my good pals Nick Thomas and Adam Woodall (two of the original founding members of the Smugglers), and my hockey teammate and buddy Dustin Bentall.

And if that wasn’t all, in Deep Cove, we’ll be joined by none other than Craig Northey from the Odds!

You can find out all the details and ticket information here.

Lots of other plans aboot for 2018 as well, including getting a Dirty Windshields podcast off the ground. The general idea is that in each episode, I will read a chapter and then chat with someone who was actually involved in that chapter. Or something. Coming soon!

Thanks, and may the rock gods reign the chords of thunder-glory upon you always,

GL