The Kootenay Literary Competition — presented by the Kootenay Literary Competition Committee — is now open to any residents of the Kootenay region.

Kootenay Literary Competition 2010 theme: isolation. Contestants should explore this theme in their original work.

British Columbia’s National Award for Canadian Non-fiction is open to writers across the country and comes with a $40,000 prize.

A jury has determined a short list of 10 books, after considering 151 Canadian non-fiction titles.

The Pacific Salmon Conservation Stamp is required to be affixed to Fisheries and Oceans Canada issued saltwater angling licenses in order to retain sport-caught Pacific salmon. Since 1989, a portion of funds raised from the purchase of the stamp has directly contributed $5.8 million toward the $8.5 million granted by the Pacific Salmon Foundation to more than 1,100 salmon conservation and restoration projects in B.C. and the Yukon.

It was announced Monday that Vaccaro will compete against Vancouver acts Said the Whale and Kyprios for the $100,500 top prize. The second-place competitor will receive $75,000 and third place will be awarded $50,000. The three finalists will perform Nov. 18 in Vancouver at the Commodore Ballroom, when the final order of winners will be announced on stage.

Twenty-five artists will take part in the four hours of creative madness, turning plain metal umbrella stands, provided by the event sponsor, Granville Island Ferries (www.granvilleislandferries.bc.ca), into works of art.

In previous years the artworks have been created out of metal garbage cans, but sensing that they had perhaps saturated the market for these large decorated cans, and wanting to provide something that would be suitable for more of today’s smaller urban homes, organizers this year have chosen to switch to a smaller metal umbrella stand.

The grant would boost the Place des Arts endowment fund, which funds scholarships and bursaries for young artists in music, dance, drama and art.

All they need is for people to follow the link http://pep.si/cDzqFR to see Place des Arts’ application and to add their vote every day until Oct. 3. The top three organizations in the $10,000 category will be awarded the grant.

Crane, a graphic designer working at Vernon’s Sunshine Autographics, put in an entry to Kokanee’s Crank the Can contest last year.

“It took me about an hour,” said Crane of designing a can that features a mountain biker flying over a crowd of people.

“I actually designed 12, but I was only allowed to enter three of them.”

The contest commemomorates Crankworx Mountainfest, a Kokanee-sponsored mountain biking festival held at Whistler every August.

People are asked to submit their designs on Facebook, and after the top six are chosen by Kokanee, people can then vote for their favourite. Three winners are chosen to have their design featured on a limited edition Kokanee can for the following year.

The show, with performances scheduled for Feb. 18 to 19, 2011, offers $5,000 in cash awards. It attracts about 100 entries from artists throughout Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere. The entries will be shown by models in the two February performances in the Galleria at city hall and will be on display at the Port Moody Arts Centre March 3 to April 10, 2011.

The show will feature three categories: Open, Headdress and Brassiere. Additional awards are given for Second Life, Best in Show, Student, Use of Technology, Ethnic Expression, Material of the Year (paper) and People’s Choice.

The B.C.-centric songwriting competition will award $20,000 in development funds to its winner, which will be announced at the end of July. The winner will also receive feature play at the Burnaby Root & Blues Festival and other Shore events this summer.

“We had a great cross-section of different kinds of artists, so we were pretty happy,” said Patrick Zulinov, the Shore’s program and music director. “We had some pretty good judges with a wide range of opinions, but it was all pretty much centred on those 10.”

The judging panel narrowing the finalists from 20 to 10 included Wide Mouth Mason’s Shaun Verreault, Matthew Good, Don McLeod and a variety of media and industry types.

“It’s going to be an amazing event,” said Barb Sunday-Bitner, vice president of the Campbell River Shoreline Arts Society. “There are going to be close to 30 carvers and they’re coming from across Canada – from Ontario, Alberta and Manitoba as well as B.C.”

The contest takes place in Frank James Park in Willow Point. Registration is at 5 p.m. Tuesday and the competition begins Wednesday. The event wraps up Sunday, July 4 at 2 p.m. with the awards ceremony.

The carvers use chainsaws, mauls, grinders and chisels to create works of art in five short days. Their creations are then displayed throughout the community. Sunday-Bitner said the popular ‘Quick Carve’ competition is back this year from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, July 4. Carvers get an hour to create a carving, which will be auctioned off at 3 p.m. that day.

The singer/songwriter contest was a big success last year. There were many contestants who submitted high quality musical compositions that showcased the wealth of local talent. It was great to see and hear these songsmiths come forward and share their songs with fellow islanders.

Now is the time to sign up for this years competition. Let your song be heard! Contestants can sign up with one original song, to be sung and accompanied by one guitar or piano.

This beautiful new facility is 30 minutes from downtown Vancouver by Skytrain, one block south of the Gateway Skytrain station, at 13458 – 107A Avenue, corner of 107A Avenue and University Drive. (This is the correct address — google maps has wrong information lately, due to recent street name changes in Surrey).

Vanessa Richards of SFU will reprise her role at last year’s Summit and host the two-day event. The keynote speaker will be Arlene Goldbard, author of New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development. Numerous addresses, workshops and panel discussions are now being finalized by Summit coordinator Lydia Marston-Blaauw and will include a Civic Leaders Panel facilitated by Max Wyman, and Judith Marcuse will raise our spirits with a special lunchtime address on Thursday.

More programming and activity updates will be coming your way in the days and weeks ahead.

Find further details here or go directly to the registration form to reserve your seat now.

Consider singer-songwriter Adaline, who last year finished in fourth place, just shy of snagging one of the music contest’s three top prizes.

This year, along with fellow 2009 Top 20 finalists Kuba Oms and Bodhi Jones, Adaline will give radio station 100.5 The Peak FM’s gigantic music competition another shot.