In a very near future that is both familiar and troubling, three lives intersect in a time of crisis. A controversial talent show involving children is midway through taping when a man storms the television studio and takes over a hundred hostages. He’s armed with an explosive device, but expresses no motive and makes just one demand: an interview with journalist Thom Pegg. It’s a strange request, everyone agrees. A disgraced former investigative journalist, caught fabricating sources, Pegg is down on his luck and working for a lowly tabloid. Reluctant, but pressured by federal authorities, Pegg agrees to meet the hostage taker. So it is that Pegg learns why he was chosen and the horrifying truth of what the hostage taker is trying to achieve.
Crowds of people congregate near the studio, anxiously waiting along with the outside world. In the confusing perfect storm of news and rumor, two people meet and forge an immediate connection. Eve is a former Olympic gold medalist and much loved local daughter, who jogs the streets at night, running from her own past glories. Rabbit is a secretive street artist working to complete a massive street art project, which involves installations on the rooftops of hundreds of buildings throughout the city.
It’s a frightening time. Yet rising to its heart-stopping climax, The Blue Light Project surprises the city, and the reader, with the power of beauty and the unexpected sources of faith and light that may be found in even our darkest hours. For a full transcript of this program, please find here.
Biography of Author
Timothy Taylor is the author of three best-selling novels, a collection of short stories, and two nonfiction books. His most recent publication was the novel The Blue Light Project, “a breakneck literary thriller” (National Post) which won the 2011 CBC Bookie Prize. Taylor won the Journey Prize in 2001, becoming the only writer ever to have three stories included in the same edition of the Journey Prize Anthology. He has since been nominated for the Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize, as well as both the British Columbia and Vancouver Book Awards. Timothy Taylor is also one of Canada’s widest published writers of non-fiction magazine and newspaper features. His work has appeared in Harpers, Walrus, Eighteen Bridges, Cooking Light, Vancouver Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business and numerous other publications. He’s been nominated for over two dozen magazine awards, winning 12 in the past 10 years. Timothy Taylor is Assistant Professor at the UBC Creative Writing program.
Author’s Titles at UBC Library
Taylor, T. (2011). Blue Light Project. Toronto: Alfred Knopf. [Link]
Tayor, T. (2001). Stanley Park. Toronto: Alfred Knopf. [Link]
Taylor, T. (2002). Silent Cruises: Stories. Toronto: Vintage Canada. [Link]
Taylor, T. (2006). Story House. Toronto: Alfred Knopft. [Link]
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.