Jen Sookfong Lee, Mary Novik and June Hutton are the three novelists who make up the writing group SPiN. We met in a writers’ workshop in 2002 and became friends, making a commitment to stay together until we finished our novels. Seven years later, we're still supporting each other and celebrating our successes together.
2009 has started with a bang! The American paperback edition of Jen's The End of East will soon be published by Thomas Dunne books. In addition to frequently contributing to CBC Radio One's On the Coast as the Westcoast Words columnist, Jen recently came in second in the CBC's annual Canada Reads broadcast, and produced a special for Asian Heritage Month that aired on North by Northwest.
Mary's Conceit (Doubleday Canada) was the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize winner for 2008. In January, Mary toured the Atlantic provinces, in March she was in Toronto and Campbell River, and in July she'll be on Denman Island for the writers' festival. Her second novel, Muse, which is set in 14th-century Avignon, has just sold to Doubleday.
The buzz has started for June’s Underground, the story of a Vancouverite's journey from the Somme to the Spanish Civil War. Underground was released by award-winning Canadian publisher Cormorant Books in time for March 30, the anniversary of the Fall of Madrid. June has already been invited to a number of literary festivals in 2009 such as the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts, Calgary-Banff WordFest and the Vancouver International Writers Festival.
Check our News & Events page for June's schedule and other SPiN events. On September 27, you can catch all three of us on a Vancouver stage together at Word on the Street!