That’s THE Shebeen Club dot com, yo!

What it is: a group for practising, professional or semi-professional literati, whether or not they are making money at it: agents, editors, publishers, spoken word performers, starving students, and even writers and journalists (even the ink-stained ones)!

This is a monthly gathering perfect for those ‘word-smith types’ who are serious about what they do as well as having a damned good time while they do it. Come and join like-minded, quality oriented creators of text, those who work with text, or those who market and promote text. Share your ideas and thoughts about the industry, and feel free to disagree with others in order to broaden their views. Exchange information, business cards, opinions, money, or bodily fluids as you see fit.

We do a lot of talking, a wee bit of learning, and a great deal of boasting. Drinking has also been known to play a part in our evenings.

What it is not: a hand-holding support group featuring aromatherapy-enhanced, tearful rounds of “Kumbyah”, an open mic poetry night, a boring old lecture or night-school workshop series, or a critique group.

The Procedure: Every month on the Third Monday we have a new speaker do a brief presentation on some aspect of the literary field, the publishing industry, or technological advances in some aspect of the two. It’s been everything from licensing your characters, book launches, to a guided group reading of James Joyce set to the accompaniment of a conch shell horn. As is only right and traditional… um, right? Anyway, after the speaker stops talking (about a half-hour after they start, unless they’ve had quite a snootful) we all hang out and jabber about what we’re doing now, what we want to be doing, how little we got paid for what we DID do, etc etc. White Rock may soon get a Writer’s Festival, and the seed was planted at the Shebeen Club a couple of years ago.

We’re also posting literary events from all over the Lower Mainland here, so do email your literary events to raincoaster at gmail dot com, preferably with at least one picture, and we’ll try to get them up ASAP. Don’t be a stranger.

The Revel Room makes sure we have a yummy entree from a long list — including Wheat-Free and Vegetarian options — and one alcoholic beverage included in the admission price, which includes all taxes and gratuities and is currently a mere $25! If you want more, you can always order off the menu or the drinks list, featuring a bunch of different kinds of hooch.

You can join our Facebook page here.