The Afternoon Tea

Host: Bill Richardson

The Afternoon Tea

Sunday, Oct 25
3:00pm
Live on Zoom

One of the Festival’s signature events year after year, The Afternoon Tea returns in digital format! Bring your favourite scones and tea and sidle up for an afternoon steeped in words, including readings from celebrated international and Canadian authors making this year’s Must Read lists: Caroline Adderson (A Russian Sister); Francesca Ekwuyasi (Butter Honey Pig Bread); Will Ferguson (The Finder); Michelle Good (Five Little Indians) Kevin Spenst (Hearts Amok); and Jack Wang (We Two Alone). Relaxing, jovial and always an instant sell-out and book club favourite, this year’s Afternoon Tea remains an intimate, delectable affair.

Generously supported by the Faris family in memory of Yulanda Faris.

When BILL RICHARDSON isn’t writing for children or adults, he works in restaurant dish pits and stocks (not stalks) grocery shelves. Forthcoming are Hare B&B, with illustrations by Bill Pechet, from Running the Goat Books and Broadsides; and, from Groundwood, Last Week. He lives in Vancouver.

Event Participants:

Caroline Adderson

British Columbia

CAROLINE ADDERSON is the author of five novels including A History of Forgetting and The Sky Is Falling and two collections of short stories, as well as many books for young readers. Published in 11 countries, her work has received numerous award nominations including the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rogers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Francesca Ekwuyasi

Nova Scotia

FRANCESCA EKWUYASI is a writer, artist, and filmmaker born in Lagos, Nigeria. Her writing has been published in Winter Tangerine Review, Brittle Paper, Transition Magazine, The Malahat Review, Visual Art News, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and GUTS magazine. Her story “Orun is Heaven” was longlisted for the 2019 Journey Prize. Butter Honey Pig Bread is her first novel.

Presented thanks to the support of RBC.

Will Ferguson

Alberta

WILL FERGUSON is the author of four novels, including 419, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. A three-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, he has been nominated for both a Commonwealth Prize and an IMPAC Dublin Award. The Finder is his most recent novel.

Michelle Good

British Columbia

MICHELLE GOOD is is a writer of Cree ancestry and a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. She obtained her law degree after three decades of working with Indigenous communities and organizations. Her poems, short stories and essays have been published in magazines and anthologies across Canada.

Presented thanks to the support of RBC.

Kevin Spenst

British Columbia

KEVIN SPENST, a Pushcart Prize nominee, is the author of Ignite, Jabbering with Bing Bong, and over a dozen chapbooks including Pray Goodbye and Ward Notes. His work has won the Lush Triumphant Award for Poetry, been nominated for both the Alfred G. Bailey Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, and has appeared in dozens of publications including Prairie Fire, CV2, BafterC, Lemon Hound, Poetry is Dead, and the anthology Best Canadian Poetry 2014.

Jack Wang

United States / British Columbia

JACK WANG is an associate professor in the Department of Writing at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY. Stories in his debut collection, We Two Alone, have been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and longlisted for the Journey Prize, and have appeared in PRISM International, The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, The Humber Literary Review and Joyland.