Like all great adventures, this one starts with someone trying to get a girl. After all, King Meneleaus didn't go to Troy for the baklava. Playwright, journalist, comedian and best-selling author Mark Leiren-Young recalls his teenage escapades in his hilarious new memoir and coming of age story, Free Magic Secrets Revealed. A geeky bully-magnet, Mark was seventeen and wanted to be a playwright, but even more than that, he wanted to impress Sarah, who he'd pined for since elementary school. It's 1979 and, thanks to Doug Henning, magic is hip so Mark hooks up with Randy, a stoner magician, and Kyle, an ambitious young actor, to chase fame -- and the women of their dreams. The three teenagers team up to put on a small-time magic show, attracting the attention of a big-time promoter who convinces them they have a shot at a world tour ...except they need bigger illusions, an original soundtrack and a better supporting cast. Seeing a chance at having all their dreams come true, they sacrifice their grades, their money and eventually their dream girls to create a show they hope will be like Star Wars on stage. But they're not that good. Mark's script makes no sense because it's part one of a trilogy. Randy promises to build magic tricks he can't actually make. And Kyle will do anything for the show -- except wear the helmet that's critical to the plot and half the illusions. And is it worth getting your head cut off to get a date? The show goes on and the guys embrace their fate -- determined to show the world what they can do.

Winner of the 2009 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour "The cops wanted to shoot me, my bosses thought I was a Bolshevik, and a local lawyer warned me that some people I was writing about might try to test the strength of my skull with a steel pipe. What more could any young reporter hope for from his first real job?" The night Mark Leiren-Young drove into Williams Lake, British Columbia, in 1985 to work as a reporter for the venerable "Williams Lake Tribune," he arrived on the scene of an armed robbery. And that was before things got weird. For a 22-year-old from Vancouver, a stint in the legendary Cariboo town was a trip to another world and another era. From the explosive opening, where Mark finds himself in a courtroom just a few feet away from a defendant with a bomb strapped to his chest, to the case of a plane that crashed without its pilot on board, "Never Shoot a Stampede Queen" is an unforgettable comic memoir of a city boy learning about--and learning to love--life in a cowboy town.

"Shylock" is an award-winning play about a Jewish actor who finds himself condemned by his own community for his portrayal of Shakespeare's notorious Jew.

The fascinating and heartbreaking account of the first publicly exhibited captive killer whale — a story that forever changed the way we see orcas and sparked the movement to save them Killer whales had always been seen as bloodthirsty sea monsters. That all changed when a young killer whale was captured off the west coast of North America and displayed to the public in 1964. Moby Doll — as the whale became known — was an instant celebrity, drawing 20,000 visitors on the one and only day he was exhibited. He died within a few months, but his famous gentleness sparked a worldwide crusade that transformed how people understood and appreciated orcas. Because of Moby Doll, we stopped fearing “killersâ€� and grew to love and respect “orcas.â€�