In Vancouver, $600 a month gets you half a bachelor suite. On Mayne Island, it gets you a three-bedroom house overlooking the waters of Active Pass, with varied wildlife and lush trees as neighbours. With that in mind, Grant Buday trades in the high-powered city life in Vancouver for the small town eccentricities of Mayne Island. The scenery, however impressive, is not the only change. A college English instructor for six years, Buday now finds himself working wherever a hand is needed. Some of his more adventurous jobs included stealing a boat with one of the locals, who in exchange asked Buday for a word of the day; sheep herding on a deer farm with no deer; and his current part-time gig, helping out at the Mayne Island Recycling Depot. Living on Mayne has also presented Buday with endless opportunities for learning, whether it's firewood-picking lessons from his tree-felling Mennonite neighbour Jake, or chainsaw lingo lessons from the local dealer in Sidney. In Stranger on a Strange Island, Buday explores the layered nature of small-town life, the rich history of Mayne Island and the reasons that compelled him to trade in city life for the island life. Stranger on a Strange Island is number 19 in the Transmontanus series.

Grant Buday is the author of four novels: Rootbound, White Lung (Anvil Press), Under Glass, The Venetian, and A Sack of Teeth. White Lung was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Prize, as was his last collection of stories, Monday Night Man (Anvil Press). The Green Gold Rush, a screenplay based on the marijuana industry in BC, was a co-winner of the Praxis Centre for Screenwriters spring 1998 screenplay development workshop.

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