Celebrated mountain culture authors David Smart (CAN), Pete Whittaker (UK), Helen Mort (UK) and Lynn Martel (CAN) share insights into their new books and join local book enthusiast and reading guru Seana Strain in a lively conversation about giving mountain culture a voice.
Festival books can be bought at Pages Book Store at the Virtual Mountain Marketplace.
Program subject to change
Related People
Smart, David
David Smart has written two novels, a memoir and several climbing guidebooks. Emilio Comici: Angel of the Dolomites is his second biography. He has been climbing for forty years and is active in eastern Canada and the Canadian Rockies.
Helen Mort
Helen Mort est l’auteure de trois recueils de poèmes, d’un roman, d’un recueil de nouvelles et d’un mémoire. Son premier texte documentaire, A Line Above the Sky (Bury, 2022), une exploration de la maternité et de l’alpinisme, a remporté le prix Boardman Tasker au Royaume-Uni ainsi que le grand prix du Festival du film et du livre de montagne du Centre des arts de Banff en 2023. Helen Mort est professeure de création littéraire à l’Université métropolitaine de Manchester et boursière de la Royal Society of Literature (Royaume-Uni). Elle pratique avec enthousiasme la course de montagne (fell running) et l’escalade.
Whittaker, Pete
Drawn to climbing by the challenge and adventure it delivers, Pete (one-half of the Wide Boyz duo) seeks out pioneering first ascents and revels in pushing his personal limits. Physical and mental suffering are an absolute must on the journey to accomplish bigger projects. Pete has been climbing since age 6 and has racked up an impressive mix of climbing achievements, yet he still believes that he’s only scratched the surface of what is possible.
Martel, Lynn
Lynn Martel has written about Canada’s mountain community for 30 years. She worked on Stories of Ice (her third book) at the 2017 Banff Mountain & Wilderness Writing and 2018 Mountain Photography residencies. She presented Expedition to the Edge, 2008 book comp finalist in the Max Bell. In 2016 she was an Old Style Storytelling panelist. She wrote Ascent to Excellence: The Accomplished Life of Bernadette McDonald in 2018, her 10th Summit Series booklet. She edited the ACC Gazette for 13 years.