Jan DeGrass was born in Ontario but moved to BC in 1975. She lives in Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast where she is the Arts and Entertainment columnist for the Coast Reporter.

She wrote the historical novel, Winter of Siege (MW Books, 2023) set in 1941 when protagonist Anna Borisovna Leonova's life in Leningrad is shattered: her mother is accused of treason and her father hastily evacuates her from the city before the German enemy surrounds it. With the help of a cheeky boy, a handsome truck driver and her own persistence, she returns over the ice road of Lake Ladoga to search for her mother in the besieged city that has no heat, no light, no food, little water and where citizens are dying of starvation. Luckily, she has a plan...

DeGrass is the author of The Co-Op Revolution: Vancouver’s Search for Food Alternatives. Halfmoon Bay, BC: Caitlin Press, 2019. 240 pages. 9781987915952 (pbk) $24.95

Libros Libertad published her first novel, Jazz with Ella, in 2012. A cookbook, Take Potluck! 101 Tasty, Simple Dishes for Your Potluck Party, was self-published in 2000. A commissioned work, a history of the Gulf & Fraser Fishermen's Credit Union, appeared in 1988.

In 2013 Jan DeGrass made three contributions to a collection of original stories and poems, Elemental: An Anthology, published by the Gibson's Landing Writers.

*

Longer author entry

A professional writer and editor with over 35 years of experience in writing over 500 articles for newspapers, magazines and trade publications, DeGrass's Jazz with Ella was set in the Soviet Union (Libros Libertad, 2012) and is based on a true story of her visit to Russia in the 1970s. Her latest non-fiction book, The Co-op Revolution, (Caitlin Press, 2019) is an account of her time in the heady, activist days of the co-op movement in Vancouver.

In 2014, DeGrass was first place winner in the food and drink category of an American travel writing contest for her article Toasting the Tuscan Kitchen. She was a national winner in the Canadian Community Newspapers Association in 2008 in the category of Best Coverage of the Arts. In 2004 she won an award from the BC Association of Travel Writers for an article about an arts retreat. In 1996 she was awarded second place in the Periodical Writers' Association of Canada's national competition. In 1988, she won first place, a national award, for a business article that contributed to Canadian co-operative literature.

In addition to the local Coast Reporter, her newspaper credits include The Globe and Mail, The Province and such magazines as Canadian Living, Chatelaine, Coast Life and Room of One's Own.

She leads a writing critique group in Gibsons and assists authors with editing manuscripts (www.edityourwords.ca). She has also judged numerous writing competitions and has taught a series of writing workshops.

Books:

Winter of Siege (MW Books, Garden Bay, 2023) $17.50 9780995277830

The Co-Op Revolution: Vancouver’s Search for Food Alternatives (Caitlin Press, 2019) $24.95 9781987915952

Jazz with Ella (Libros Libertad, 2012). Novel

Take Potluck! 101 Tasty, Simple Dishes for Your Potluck Party (self-published, 2000)

Safe Haven – 50 Years of Service – 1940-1990 at Gulf & Fraser Fishermen’s Credit Union (1988)

Anthologies:

Elemental: An Anthology (Gibson's Landing Writers, 2013). Contributed three stories

[BCBW 2024]