#1 BC bestselling book of 2017
Winner of the 2018 BC Book Prizes' Bill Duthie Booksellers Choice Award

A collection of stories chronicling the characters and dramas that capture life in small coastal communities.

In this story collection, Pat Carney follows the rhythms of day-to-day life in coastal BC. Featuring a revolving cast of characters—the newly retired couple, the church warden, the musician, the small-town girl with big city dreams—Carney’s keen observations of the personalities and dramas of coastal life are instantly recognizable to readers who are familiar with life in a small community. With her narrative of dock fights, pet shows, family feuds, logging camps and the ever-present tension between islanders and property-owning “off-islanders,” Carney’s witty and perceptive voice describes how the islanders weather the storms of coastal life.

Carney writes evocatively of the magical landscape of the British Columbia coast, where she has lived and worked for five decades. At the same time, she addresses the less-idyllic moments that can also characterize coastal life: power outages, winter storms, isolation. On Island brings the West Coast landscape—human and natural—to life, and gives islanders and mainland dwellers alike a taste of what it means to be “on island.”

Pat Carney studied economics at the University of British Columbia before becoming a business columnist for the Vancouver Sun and the Province. In 1970, she moved to Yellowknife, where she ran her own consulting firm on northern socio-economic issues. Ten years later she was elected to Parliament. She was called to the Senate in 1990. She has a master’s degree in regional planning and has, for ten years, been an adjunct professor, teaching graduate students in the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC. She holds honourary degrees from UBC and BC Open Learning University. Pat Carney has a son, John Dickson, and a daughter, Jane Reid. She lives on Saturna Island, British Columbia, with her husband Paul White and their cat Minou.

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