Location: The Vault, 499 Wallace Street
Join Portal for a free evening of contemporary nonfiction at The Vault, 499 Wallace Street in Nanaimo. Hear from current students of VIU's Creative Writing program. After the three opening readers and intermission Sharon Butala will read from How to Breathe Water, the latest title from this award-winning Canadian author published by Freehand Books in September.
A road trip through the prairies prompts Butala to unearth the stories of the natural world around her, and revisit her own personal histories. After an isolating and demoralizing year during the COVID-19 pandemic, a friend invites Butala to join her on a road trip driving 1300 kilometres from Calgary to Winnipeg. Butala revisit locales significant to her life on the prairies, including the ranch she lived on for 33 years with her husband before his death.
Along the way, they visit landmarks of Indigenous culture and places where her ancestors struggled to eke out a living. THese prompt Butala to sift through memories of a difficult childhood, traumas deeply buried, and relationships both complicated and gratifying.
Taking stock of the people and places she has lost and left behind allows her to confront mortality with wisdom and frankness. Her most intimate work to date, How to Breathe Water is a love letter to the lands and waters of the prairies and a stirring exploration of the places and moments that mark and mold our lives.
Sharon Butala is the author of more than 20 books of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. These include: Harvest, Queen of the Headaches, Coyote's Morning Cry, Old Man on his Back, Upstream, Country of the Heart, The Gates of the Sun, Luna, The Fourth Archangel, Fever, Wild Stone Heart, The Perfection of the Morning, Garden of Eden, Real Life, Lilac Moon, The Girl in Saskatoon, Wild Rose, Where I Live Now, Zara's Dead, Season of Fury and Wonder, This Strange Visible Air, and Leaving Wisdom, which was awarded the $20,000 Glengarry Prize.
Butala is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Member of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, and has been shortlisted three times for the Governor General’s Award, nominated for the Writer''s Trust Fiction Prize, and won of the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize among many other accolades. Her works have been published in the UK, US, Israel, and Serbia and her stories and essays appear in more than 35 anthologies. She has toured festivals, given workshops, and delivered talks and lectures around the world. After 15 years in Calgary, she moved home to Saskatchewan.
About our student readers:
Bailey Bellosillo is a fifth-year Creative Writing major at VIU. She was a Poetry Editor for the Portal 2025 issue, for which she was the cover artist and a non-fiction contributor. Her work has also been published in The Navigator, where she is currently an Arts & Culture Editor. She is co-Art Director, Website Designer, and a Gustafson Feature Writer for Portal 2026, interviewing celebrated Metis poet Marilyn Dumont.
Jenaya Shaw is a multi-genre writer and artist in her fifth year as a Creative Writing and Psychology major. She is currently the Managing Editor of The Navigator and was Art Director and on the Social Media team for Portal 2024 where her review of Burning Sage and photos “Match Made” and “Wall-Crawler” appeared. She has been an Editor for GOOEY and served as Program Coordinator for the Nanaimo Arts Council’s 2024 and 2025 Artwalk as well as Islands Short Fiction Review during those years. Her memoir “In the Rear View” and poem “Little Anna Marie” appeared in Portal 2025.
Masha Zhaksybek is a third-year student majoring in English with a minor in Creative Writing. Her nonfiction work “Borrowed Time” and fiction “Don’t Fence Me In” were published in Portal 2025.
