As our world clashes and collapses around us, it’s no surprise we’re feeling an acute effect on our mental health. Psychiatrist, UBC Faculty of Medicine professor, and mental health speaker Dr. Joanna Cheek joins us on Granville Island to offer a survival guide of personal and collective mental health tools for our disordered world, in conversation with world renowned physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté, who wrote the book’s foreword.
In her new release, It’s Not You, It’s the World, Dr. Cheek argues that we’re not broken or doing it wrong when we’re stressed or struggling. As our systems are pushed to the brink of collapse, self-improvement alone neglects the source of our suffering. Instead, to care for ourselves, we must heal the imbalances in our wider systems that keep making us all sick. With practical action to empower, connect, and instill hope in the reader, It’s Not You, It’s the World is the go-to guide for anyone feeling depressed, anxious, enraged, numb, or sick from adapting to a world on fire.
Join us for an evening of recovery in community, as Cheek speaks with Maté on-stage, followed by an audience Q+A. Books will be for sale at the event from Upstart & Crow, with a book signing after the talk.
We do our best to make our events low-barrier, accessible experiences for our community. A limited number of accessibly priced tickets are available for purchase. To discuss other ways we can make these events more accessible to you, please reach out to us at boxoffice@writersfest.bc.ca or 604-681-6330.
About Books & Ideas
Launched in January 2025, Books & Ideas is an event series from the Vancouver Writers Fest, bringing literary talent and thought-provoking conversations to Granville Island—home of the Writers Fest’s celebrated annual literary festival—from January to June. With an intimate theatre venue and a pop-up bar for socializing, attendees are invited to connect more deeply with other members of the local literary community, and meet the esteemed authors who grace the stage, in a modern space for exchanging ideas.
Participants and Speakers
Gabor Maté
GABOR MATÉ M.D., C.M., is a Canadian physician (retired), public speaker and bestselling author of five books, published internationally in 35 languages on five continents. His book on addiction, the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, is used as a text in many institutions of higher learning in Canada and the U.S. His most recent book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture, has been and continues to be a #1 Canadian bestseller and was 19 weeks a New York Times bestseller. He is in constant demand as a speaker internationally and has addressed judicial bodies in Canada, the U.S. and Australia on the links between trauma, addictions, and dysfunctional behaviors.
Joanna Cheek
JOANNA CHEEK, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist, psychotherapist trained in dozens of modalities, researcher, meditation teacher, journalist, and clinical professor at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Medicine. She co-created the national-award-winning MindSpace Collective, which offers workshops that have taught effective mental health strategies to tens of thousands of community members and physicians who, like everyone else, experience the mental health symptoms that arise from living in a disordered world.