Coast Lines Book Club

Coast Lines Book Club encourages Memorial University alumni, faculty, staff, students and friends to connect through a common love of reading and of literature from Newfoundland and Labrador.

Coast Lines’ highlights both the importance of lifelong learning for the Memorial University community, and the role of our hugely successful creative writing program based in the Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. The program has played and continues to play a key role in the development and in the careers of Newfoundland and Labrador writers, most of whom have either graduated from the program or taken individual classes.

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Coast Lines and Coffee - March 2024

Join us for Coast Lines and Coffee, featuring Perry Chafe (Closer by Sea, BA’92) and our special July/August selection author in conversation with Angela Antle (BA’91). We look forward to welcoming you to our latest event in our series celebrating the Newfoundland and Labrador literary landscape. The Memorial University Bookstore will be onsite with various Coast Lines titles for sale and our guests of honour will be happy to sign copies of their books following the panel discussion.


May/June Selection

Closer by Sea
By Perry Chafe

Perry Chafe (BA'92) is a television showrunner, writer, producer, novelist and songwriter.

Perry was the co-creator and co-showrunner for the TV series Republic of Doyle, which ran for 6 seasons on the CBC.  He was also an executive producer and writer for the Netflix/Discovery series Frontier starringJason Momoa.  In addition, Perry was an executive producer and writer for Caught, a CBC limited series based on Lisa Moore’s award-winning novel of the same name.  Perry is currently a writer and producer on the hit CBC series Son of a Critch, based on the best-selling memoir from Mark Critch.

Perry has also co-written a number of songs with partner Maureen Ennis of the JUNO award-winning music group The Ennis Sisters, including Shine Your Light which was part of a campaign to promote mental wellness for the Canadian Mental Health Association of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Perry released his debut novel Closer By Sea on May 23rd, 2023. Published by Simon and Schuster Canada, it became an Instant National Bestseller.

Perry was born in Petty Harbour, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Previous Selections:

March/April Selection

Rage the Night
By Donna Morrissey


Donna Morrissey (BSW’92) is the author of the nationally bestselling memoir Pluck, which was a finalist for the Atlantic Book Awards' Non-Fiction Award, and of six acclaimed and bestselling novels. Her latest novel, Rage the Night, is a riveting account of the 1914 Newfoundland sealing disaster. Among her honours are the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Fiction for The Fortunate Brother; Sylvanus Now was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize; and The Deception of Livvy Higgs was a One Read pick for Nova Scotia in 2017. Her fiction has also won awards in the US and the UK, and has been translated into several languages. Born and raised in Newfoundland and a graduate of Memorial University, she lives in Halifax.

January/February Selection

Soft Serve
By Allison Graves

Allison Graves’ (MA'17) edgy debut collection of short fiction scrutinizes unconventional and confused attachments between people and the reasons they last. The extraordinary becomes the ordinary as people navigate the weird, the quirky, and the sad aspects of everyday life.

Allison Graves received her BA in English literature from Dalhousie University and her MA in creative writing from Memorial University, where she wrote this collection of short stories. Her fiction has won Room magazine’s annual fiction contest and the Newfoundland Arts and Letters Award. She is the current fiction editor of Riddle Fence. She is doing a PhD at Memorial and likes to play drums and climb Signal Hill.

Purchase your copy from Memorial University bookstore and receive a Coast Lines discount.

Recordings of Past Live Events: