Denman Islanders will have another chance to get a signed copy of Not The Same Road Out: Trans Canada Stories in August.
Denman Island author, Bill Engleson, one of thirteen authors in the recently released Anthology, Not The Same Road Out : Trans Canada Stories, (Tidewater Press), will again be signing copies of this all-Canadian collection of tales and 鈥� if pressed as he was in the first launch 鈥� definitely will be reading a short selection from his contribution, Roadside Reunion.
The event will be from 1:00 to 3:00 pm, Thursday, August 14, 2025, at Denman Island鈥檚 independent bookstore and bistro, Abraxas Books.
鈥淭achi Barker, the Abraxas Maestro Extraordinaire and I had such fun the first time we launched Not The Same Road Out in late June that we agreed to have a relaunch of this fine Canadian anthology deeper into the summer,鈥� said. Engleson. 鈥淎braxas Books has been a long-time supporter of Denman authors and a relaunch will only enhance that vibrant collaboration.鈥�
Engleson added that other launches across the country are going on, including one that occurred on July 31 at Block Shop Books in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
Authors Tricia Snell from Nova Scotia and Bev Vincent from New Brunswick read from their respective stories, So Late in the Season and Adrift.
The Trans Canada Trail is the longest multi-use trail in the world. In this fiction anthology, it is the setting for journeys that range from the physical to the emotional and metaphorical.
Thirteen stories by acclaimed writers from across the country, one from each province and territory, share tales of estrangement and engagement, mystery and melodrama, quiet horror and loud disasters.
CBC Books selected Not the Same Road Out : Trans Canada Stories as one of 18 books Canadians should be reading in June.
Engleson adds that reading the anthology any month you might encounter it is also quite acceptable.
Engleson is a retired social worker, pickleball aficionado, novelist, poet, humourist, essayist, and flash fictionista. He was raised in Nanaimo, B.C., lived for decades in New Westminster, and retired to Denman Island in 2003. He is the author of two novels, Like a Child to Home (which received an Honourable Mention at the inaugural 2016 Whistler Independent Book Awards) and 2023鈥檚 The Life of Gronsky. In 2016, Silver Bow Publishing released his second book, a collection of humorous literary essays entitled Confessions of an Inadvertently Gentrifying Soul.
Deep into COVID鈥檚 first and second wave, his poetry appeared in several anthologies including, VIRL鈥檚 Alone but Not Alone - Poetry in Isolation; Drift, Poems and Poets from the Comox Valley; Planet Earth鈥檚 The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling! and the first and at least one subsequent edition of the Van Isle Poetry Collective. In the past few years, his fiction/creative non-fiction has appeared in Island Writer Magazine and Geist as well as 2024鈥檚 Small Seasons.
