The Grand Finale!
Main Stage closes out the 2025 Read by the Sea literary festival on Saturday, June 21 with four of Canada’s literary greats.
Featured authors for 2025 are Toronto, Ontario poet Myna Wallin; a Canadian nomad now in Halifax Charlene Carr; Liverpool resident Vernon Oickle; and member of Norway House Cree Nation who lives in Winnipeg David A Robertson.
Watch this page for more information about this stellar line-up.
Have you read works by any of our featured authors? Recommend their poetry, prose, and creative non-fiction to other Read by the Sea enthusiasts by sending us your reader reviews. We’ll share them here as part of this year’s festival (using only your first name and your province/territory or country of residence). Submit your reviews (250-word maximum) using the Contact Us form.
Charlene Carr
Charlene Carr lives in Nova Scotia with her husband and two daughters. She has published nine novels and recently received grants from Arts Nova Scotia and the Canada Council for the Arts to write her next one.
Frontlist Title: We Rip The World Apart (2024)
• 2025 OLA Evergreen Award Nominee
• Arts Nova Scotia Grant Recipient
• Canada Council for the Arts Grant Recipient
Previous Titles: Hold My Girl (2023)
• Shortlisted for
o Darmouth Book Award (2024)
o Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award (2024)
• Amazon Editor’s Pick
• Amazon Best Books of the Month
• Publisher’s Marketplace Buzz Book
• Optioned for television by Blink49 Studios
Vernon Oickle
Vernon Oickle was born and raised in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, where he continues to reside with his wife, Nancy, and their family. Growing up in a small town in rural Nova Scotia, Vernon had always wanted to pursue a career as a newspaper reporter.
Vernon is an award-winning journalist and editor, and is the author of 47 books, many of which collect and preserve the heritage and culture of Atlantic Canada. His best-selling books include Ghost Stories of the Maritimes, Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia, More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia, the Nova Scotia Outstanding Outhouse Reader, South Shore Facts and Folklore, Strange Nova Scotia, The Bluenosers’ Book of Slang, Red Sky at Night, Forerunners: Harbingers of Death in Nova Scotia and Grandma’s Home Remedies.
He also writes fiction in the popular “Crow” series based on the old Maritime poem One Crow Sorrow. In 2024, the seventh book in the series, Seven Crows for a Secret Yet to be Told, won an International Impact Book Award, taking first place in the Historical Mystery/Thriller category. The ninth book, Nine Crows for a Kiss, has just been released.
In addition to his long list of newspaper awards, in 2012 Vernon received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, recognizing his contributions to his community, province and country, and in April 2015 he received a Distinguished Alumni Award (Community Leader) from Lethbridge College. He was inducted into the Atlantic Journalism Awards Hall of Fame in the spring of 2020.
As a testimony to his outstanding career, in 2014 the South Queens Middle School in his hometown, Liverpool, announced the creation of the Vernon Oickle Writer’s Award to be given annually to a student who excels in the art of writing, either fiction or non-fiction.
Karl Subban
Karl Subban has been a coach, a teacher, a principal and a parent for more than thirty years. Hailing from Jamaica, Subban didn't play hockey until he moved to Canada as a child. He raised three NHL players, P.K., Malcolm and Jordan. Karl Subban is the author of the instant national bestseller How We Did It: The Subban Plan for Success in Hockey, School and Life, a must-read account of one of the sport's most fascinating families.
Robert J. Sawyer
Robert J. Sawyer — “the dean of Canadian science fiction,” according to both the CBC and The Ottawa Citizen — is the only Canadian to have won all three of the world’s top awards for best science-fiction novel the year: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He has also won more Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards (“Auroras”) than anyone else in history, and he was a guest of honour at the 2023 World Science Fiction Convention (the Worldcon). A member of both the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario, Rob’s 25 bestselling novels include Quantum Night (long-listed for Canada Reads), FlashForward (basis for the ABC TV series), and his latest, The Downloaded. Website: sfwriter.com.
“No book event has been more gratifying- than Read By The Sea, in River John in that little country in Nova Scotia where I was born.
Consider the setting. An appreciative, attentive, and inquisitive audience in lawn chairs, summer hats, and picnic baskets finding their own summer sanctuary under the warm sun, or welcome shade beneath the big leafy hardwoods, the gentle cooling breeze and salt air off the Northumberland Strait.
More than “read” by the Sea, it was live, learn, understand, marvel, rejoice, discover and celebrate by the Sea, like wind and waves upon the shore washing away so much of what sets us apart as Canadians and helping us see and hear that which brings us together.
For those of us who like to read words we’ve written, events like Read by the Sea are our greatest rewards.
We read so others can listen,. What struck me the first time I walked onto the River John grounds, several summers ago to hear a dear friend- Giller Prize winner Liz Hay, who I worked with in Yellowknife years ago- was the sound – the crystal-clear sound.
What joy to have been able to attend then. What a joy to have returned to read my own words last summer and what an even greater joy it is to know I was heard.
Thanks to all of you, especially — Ron McNutt the sound man.”
Whit Fraser
Author of True North Rising
To learn more, order now or book a reading, visit: https://whitfraser.ca
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