Animal: Lisa Taddeo in Conversation with Tara McGuire
2021-10-24 15:30 (America/Vancouver) | Cinema (The Nest) and At-Home Viewing
Of her international bestseller Three Women, Lisa Taddeo has told the press, “I thought I was writing a quiet little book.” But her debut was one of the most celebrated books of 2019, named on 30 “best of” lists and hailed with praise such as “a dazzling achievement” and “an astonishing masterpiece.” But if Three Women was a silent classic, Animal roars. It shares the world of Joan, who—after enduring a lifetime of cruelty from men—begins to transform from prey into predator. “Honestly, sometimes I think it’s the only recourse. Killing men in times like these,” she explains. Raw, scorching, and dazzling, Animal is an exhilarating read. Taddeo shares more about her writing process, working through misogyny on the page, and what inspired the evolution of Joan.

This event is Pay What You Can! Book a ticket to this event to receive a link to watch the livestream wherever you are. After the Festival, you’ll also receive access to a recording of the event, which will be available to rewatch for one week.
This event is included in a Digital Pass. The $100 pass includes access to the whole digital lineup in one convenient package. If you choose a pass, there’s no need to book tickets individually or keep track of multiple emails. Click here if you’d like to purchase a Digital Pass instead of ordering a ticket to this event.
This event is also simulcast at our in-person cinema, The Nest. Many of our digital events are also streaming onsite at The Nest. Please note that seating at this venue is first-come-first-served by donation at the door. Read more about The Nest Cinema. *You may watch cinema events in The Nest, or stream comfortably from home.
Check out our Festival FAQ for Festival & box office information.
View our full lineup or just our digital events

Yusef Salaam in Conversation with Matt Galloway
2021-10-24 17:00 | Cinema (The Nest) and At-Home Viewing
Dr. Yusef Salaam was fifteen years old when his life was upended. Wrongly convicted with four other boys in the “Central Park Jogger case,” he spent years behind bars. In 2002, their sentences were overturned, and they became known as the “Exonerated Five” across the globe. Now, Dr. Salaam—a poet, inspirational speaker, and prison reform activist—shares his story as a call to action for a more just system of law, and an example of how frustration and anger can be channeled into action. The recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from President Barack Obama speaks with CBC The Current’s Matt Galloway about his vision for future justice. This promises to be a riveting, inspiring event—and one that offers a deeply important perspective on how we can all contribute to equity.

This event is Pay What You Can! Book a ticket to this event to receive a link to watch the livestream wherever you are. After the Festival, you’ll also receive access to a recording of the event, which will be available to rewatch for one week.
This event is included in a Digital Pass. The $100 pass includes access to the whole digital lineup in one convenient package. If you choose a pass, there’s no need to book tickets individually or keep track of multiple emails. Click here if you’d like to purchase a Digital Pass instead of ordering a ticket to this event.
This event is also simulcast at our in-person cinema, The Nest. Many of our digital events are also streaming onsite at The Nest. Please note that seating at this venue is first-come-first-served by donation at the door. Read more about The Nest Cinema. *You may watch cinema events in The Nest, or stream comfortably from home.
Check out our Festival FAQ for Festival & box office information.
View our full lineup or just our digital events

Danny Ramadan Presents: A Night of Storytelling
2021-10-24 19:00 | Revue Stage
The Night of Storytelling returns in its seventh year with a new home at the Vancouver Writers Fest. Join Syrian-Canadian author Danny Ramadan as he brings Queer, Trans, and Two-Spirit authors to the Revue Stage for a night of readings, stories, and joy under the theme “Evil Exes.” Each of the four authors will read from their work, before talking candidly about what constitutes an evil ex, and the tipping point between lovers and foes (they might even spill the tea on an ex or two).
Danny Ramadan will be joined by Amber Dawn, Jaz Papadopoulos, David Ly, and Brandi Bird.

Presented thanks to the support of UBC Creative Writing.

The Human Connection: With Hiromi Goto and Will McPhail
2021-11-10 18:00 | Digital (YouTube)
Update: We’re pleased to announce that this event has been rescheduled for Wednesday, November 10, at 6 pm PT. The event will be prerecorded and released on YouTube, where it will be available to watch on demand for 1 week!
If you’ve already purchased a ticket to this event, you don’t need to do anything else! Just sit back and you’ll receive the link in your email. If you don’t have your ticket yet, they are Pay What You Can and available for purchase now.

It’s an understatement to say that we have each explored and understood isolation in different ways over the past 18 months. Unexpectedly, suddenly, and universally we were alone. As we slowly emerge from such seclusion, two exceptional graphic novelists talk about the need for human connection, and how that manifests in various forms. Hiromi Goto shares an empowering tribute to older women in Shadow Life, sharing the story of Kumiko: a 76-year-old bisexual widow up for anything… including a smack-down with Death. The New Yorker cartoonist, Will McPhail, offers an equally exquisite work about the other end of the age spectrum, as a millennial attempts to evolve from performative actions in life to truly connecting with people with In. Each author has built a career exploring the absurdities and complexities of being human. In this warm, relatable conversation they discuss why connection is essential for our nature, too.

Moderated by Taylor Brown-Evans.

The Care We Dream Of with Zena Sharman, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, jaye simpson, and Joshua Wales
2021-11-24 18:00 | Digital (Zoom)
Join us on November 24 for the ONLINE launch of The Care We Dream Of: Liberatory and Transformative Approaches to LGBTQ+ Health. CART (real-time captioning) and ASL interpretation are provided.
Featuring editor/author Zena Sharman in conversation with contributors Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, jaye simpson, and Joshua Wales.
Zena Sharman, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, jaye simpson and Joshua Wales come together to celebrate the launch of The Care We Dream Of. Join us for an evening of discussing what health and healing might look like if every aspect of our health care were rooted in a commitment to the flourishing and liberation of all LGBTQ+ people. LGBTQ+ health care doesn’t look like this today, but it could. This is the care we dream of.
About the book:
The Care We Dream Of is not quite an essay collection, and not quite an anthology. Instead, it’s a hybrid kind of book that weaves together essays on topics like queering health and healing, transforming the health system, kinship, aging, and death, alongside stories, poetry and non-fiction pieces. The book also includes interviews with activists, health care workers and researchers whose work offers insights into what liberatory and transformative approaches to LGBTQ+ health can look like in practice.
This online event is Pay What You Can (starting at $0)! Book a ticket to this event to receive a link to watch the livestream wherever you are. Can’t make the scheduled time? Ticket holders will receive access to a recording of the event, including ASL and captioning, which will be available to rewatch for one month.
This event is offered in partnership with Arsenal Pulp Press in celebration of Arsenal Pulp Press’s 50th anniversary!
Iron Dog Books is the local (Vancouver) bookselling partner for this event. If you’re near Vancouver, please support Iron Dog by buying a copy of The Care We Dream Of in-store. If you’re far, please order your copy through your near-to-you local indie #shoplocal.

INCITE: Damon Galgut in Conversation with John Freeman
2022-01-26 19:00 | Digital (YouTube)
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
The new year has come, and with it, a dazzling new season of Incite! Kick off the 2022 season with Damon Galgut, in celebration of his 2021 Booker Prize win for his novel, The Promise, in conversation with beloved Festival moderator and editor, John Freeman.
In an exclusive pre-recorded event streamed from dual locations in South Africa and the UK, Galgut will share insights from both the process and pages of his recent tour de force, set in the town of his birth. Raved about in media, including The Guardian, Harper’s Magazine and The New York Times (Editor’s Choice), The Promise is an incisory, kaleidoscopic look at grief and guilt during a white family’s decline amidst South Africa’s transition out of apartheid—and the deterred promise the family has failed to keep for one of their servants.
This won’t be an event to miss! RSVP early.
From the publisher: Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life’s unfulfilled potential; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt.
Reunited by four funerals over three decades, the dwindling family reflects the atmosphere of its country—one of resentment, renewal, and, ultimately, hope. The Promise is an epic drama that unfurls against the unrelenting march of national history, sure to please current fans and attract many new ones.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up The Promise at your favourite independent bookseller, or use our Festival Bookstore partner, kidsbooks.
This is an online, pre-recorded event.

People Change: Vivek Shraya in Conversation with Marsha Lederman
2022-02-01 21:00 | Performance Works
In partnership with PuSh Festival.
Directly following the Tuesday, February 1 one-woman performance of How to Fail as a Popstar at PuSh Festival, acclaimed musician and author Vivek Shraya will join Vancouver Writers Fest for a one-to-one conversation with Marsha Lederman on her new work, People Change, a meditation on change, from its varied manifestations to its inevitability in our lives.
From the publisher: We change our haircuts and our outfits and our minds. We change names, titles, labels. We attempt to blend in or to stand out. We outgrow relationships, we abandon dreams for new ones, we start fresh. We seize control of our stories. We make resolutions.
In fact, nobody knows this better than Vivek Shraya, who’s made a career of wearing many hats: artist, performer, musician, writer, model, teacher. In People Change, she reflects on the origins of this impulse, tracing it to childhood influences from Hinduism to Madonna. What emerges is a meditation on change itself: why we fear it, why we’re drawn to it, what motivates us to change, and what traps us in place.
At a time when we’re especially contemplating who we want to be, this slim and stylish handbook is an essential companion—a guide to embracing our many selves and the inspiration to discover who we’ll become next.
This incredible dialogue will take place in Performance Works from 9:00pm, and will last for approximately 45 minutes, followed by book sales of People Change, as well as How to Fail as a Popstar.
In accordance with public health orders, the venue will be seated at 50% capacity, masks must be worn at all times, and proof of vaccination will be required for entry. Book early—tickets will sell quickly!

In Conversation with Michael Schur, Author, How to Be Perfect
2022-02-03 19:00 | Digital (VIFF Connect), Canada
In partnership with VIFF and Simon & Schuster Canada.
From VIFF: From Michael Schur, creator of The Good Place and co-creator of Parks and Recreation, comes How to Be Perfect – an equally hilarious and thought-provoking guide to ethical living. The fascinating, funny book combines humour and philosophy (two of Schur’s specialties) to “deal with the large and small ethical challenges we all face every day.” One of our generation’s best writers and most adept comedic minds explores the ethical morass through very relatable dilemmas (“Should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?”, “Can I still enjoy great art if it was created by terrible people?”). Just as Chidi used humour and philosophy to transform Eleanor into a less selfish person in The Good Place, Schur “takes readers on a journey through the 2,500-year discussion of ethics, explaining and poking fun at these grand ideas, and sketching a road map for how we ought to act.” VIFF is thrilled to host Schur as he takes a deep dive into how moral philosophy and ethics can make us better people.
This is an online livestream event. Can’t make it? A recording of the event will be available to watch on VIFF Connect.
Click here to learn more and book tickets on the VIFF website.

Winter Book Club: Heather O’Neill in Conversation with Claire Cameron
2022-02-06 17:00 | Digital (Zoom)
Join us for our Winter Book Club event, featuring Canada Reads winner and the bestselling author of The Lonely Hearts Hotel, Heather O’Neill, for the release of her much-anticipated new work, When We Lost Our Heads (HarperCollins). Tune in for this virtual, live event on February 6 at 5pm PT, moderated by Claire Cameron, author of the #1 national bestselling novel, The Bear.
Ticket buyers to our Winter Book Club will receive a hardcover of When We Lost Our Heads as part of their purchase.
Called a “dazzling, delicious dream” by Mona Awad and “a lovely, uncanny take on the historical novel, told with O’Neill’s trademark wit and empathy for human foibles” by Scotiabank Giller Prize-winner Esi Edugyan, O’Neill’s latest work is a masterpiece of beautiful, alarming wonder.
When We Lost Our Heads is a spellbinding story about two young women whose friendship is so intense it not only threatens to destroy them, it changes the course of history. United by their passion and intensity, Marie and Sadie attract and repel each other in ways that set them both on fire. Marie, with her bubbly charm, sees all the pleasure of the world, whereas Sadie’s obsession with darkness is all-consuming. Soon, their childlike games take on the thrill of danger and become deadly.
Join us for this exceptional dialogue on gender and power, sex and desire, class and status, and the terrifying strength of the human heart when it can’t let someone go.
A copy of When We Lost Our Heads (a value of $32.99 + tax) is included in your ticket price. Book delivery and pickup is fulfilled by kidsbooks. Books will be available for shipping or pickup around January 19, but may ship later due to supply chain delays (official on-sale February 1). See your purchase confirmation email for full details.

This is an online event.
Presented in partnership with SFU Continuing Studies.

INCITE: Hot Bestsellers with Nita Prose and Jessamine Chan
2022-02-09 19:00 | Digital (YouTube)
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
Get ready for some of the most talked about books of the season! Our second Incite event features two new instant bestsellers: Nita Prose delivers a Clue-like, locked-room mystery in her debut novel The Maid, and Jessamine Chan’s The School for Good Mothers follows a young mother who lands in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance. They’ll speak with Ashley Audrain, internationally bestselling author of The Push, in a livestream event on February 9 at 7pm PT.
The Maid follows twenty-five-year-old Molly Gray, who struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others, but delights in her work as a hotel maid. Molly’s orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find him dead in his bed. Molly’s unusual demeanour has the police targeting her as their lead suspect, while friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black. But will they be able to find the real killer before it’s too late?
Named one of the most anticipated books of the year by Glamour, W magazine, PopSugar, The Rumpus, Book Riot, The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, and Canadian Living, The Maid is a heartwarming debut, which reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.
The School for Good Mothers is a taut and explosive page-turner that has been called “horrifyingly unbelievable and eerily prescient all at once” (Vogue) and “impossible to put down and impossible to forget” (Library Journal).
Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.
Until Frida has a very bad day. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Jessamine Chan’s debut is a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love.
This conversation is sure to be just as riveting as the authors’ page-turning novels. RSVP now!
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to purchase the books at your favourite independent bookseller, or use our Festival Bookstore partner, kidsbooks.
This is an online, live event.

Incite: Marlon James in Conversation with Cherie Jones
2022-02-23 19:00 | Digital (YouTube)
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
Marlon James’ Black Leopard, Red Wolf was a show-stopping tour de force of literary fantasy, an instant bestseller, and the first book in what has now become a highly-anticipated series, the Dark Star Trilogy. James returns to shelves—and the Vancouver Writers Fest’s virtual stages—with Moon Witch, Spider King, heralded by writers such as Neil Gaiman and Salman Rushdie, and praised by Buzzfeed as “even more brilliant than the first” and “the literary equivalent of a Marvel Comics universe” by The New York Times. This is sure to be one of the most anticipated events of the season. As the Washington Post reports: “Stand aside, Beowulf.”
Joined by Cherie Jones, 2021 Festival guest and the acclaimed, award-winning author of How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House, this spectacular Incite event will explore rich narratives and powerful reimaginings, emotive writing and more, from two of the industry’s most respected visionaries. Submit your questions in advance!
From the publisher: In Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Sogolon the Moon Witch proved a worthy adversary to Tracker as they clashed across a mythical African landscape in search of a mysterious boy who disappeared. In Moon Witch, Spider King, Sogolon takes center stage and gives her own account of what happened to the boy, and how she plotted and fought, triumphed and failed as she looked for him. It’s also the story of a century-long feud—seen through the eyes of a 177-year-old witch—that Sogolon had with the Aesi, chancellor to the king. It is said that Aesi works so closely with the king that together they are like the eight limbs of one spider. Aesi’s power is considerable—and deadly. It takes brains and courage to challenge him, which Sogolon does for reasons of her own.
Both a brilliant narrative device—seeing the story told in Black Leopard, Red Wolf from the perspective of an adversary and a woman—as well as a fascinating battle between different versions of empire, Moon Witch, Spider King delves into Sogolon’s world as she fights to tell her own story. Part adventure tale, part chronicle of an indomitable woman who bows to no man, it is a fascinating novel that explores power, personality, and the places where they overlap.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up Moon Witch, Spider King at your favourite independent bookseller.
This is an online, pre-recorded event.

Incite: Sheila Heti in Conversation with Billy-Ray Belcourt
2022-03-09 19:00 | Digital (YouTube)
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
Sheila Heti, internationally acclaimed author of the novel Motherhood, a New York Times Best Book of the Year, joins our next Incite event with her tenth book, Pure Colour. This latest work is a contemporary bible, an atlas of feeling, and a shape-shifting epic; Esquire called it one of the Best Books of 2022 to “Provoke, Persuade and Perturb You.” A philosopher of modern experience, Heti has reimagined what a book can hold. On March 9, she’ll share the secrets of Pure Colour with Griffin Poetry Prize-winning author Billy-Ray Belcourt.
Pure Colour is a galaxy of a novel: explosive, celestially bright, huge, and streaked with beauty. The Guardian called it a “mystical, wildly original study of grief and love”, and “a book that says something new for our difficult times.” As Kirkus Reviews put it, this is “that rarest of novels—as alien as a moon rock and every bit as wondrous.” Join us at this live, virtual event to be put under the spell of Heti’s luminous creation myth, which has been included in lists of the most anticipated new books by The Globe and Mail, CBC Books, Publishers Weekly, The A.V. Club, Vulture, and more.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up Pure Colour at your favourite independent bookseller.
This is an online, live event.

Incite: Short Stories, Big Ideas
2022-03-23 19:00 | Digital (YouTube)
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
Much like sunny days in Vancouver, short stories never go out of fashion. Come join us for a thrilling night of buzzworthy tales from authors dominating the genre at our next Incite!
Sharing themes of restlessness and fragmented lives, this trio of critically-acclaimed short story collections are beguiling explorations of unexpected bonds and people adrift. Rawi Hage (Stray Dogs, Knopf Canada), Angélique Lalonde (Glorious Frazzled Beings, Groundwood Books), and Christopher Evans (Nothing Could Be Further From The Truth, Groundwood Books) masterfully wield humour and complexity in their “tiny worlds.”
Join us for an incredible conversation with these three powerhouse authors, moderated by Festival friend and Journey Prize-shortlisted author, Anna Ling Kaye.
ABOUT THE BOOKS
Called a “superb collection” by Maclean’s, Stray Dogs is a captivating and cosmopolitan collection of stories from the award-winning author of Beirut Hellfire Society and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award winning novel, De Niro’s Game. As his publisher notes, the stories are “wise, humane, relevant and caustically funny, revealing the singular vision of Hage at his best.”
One of the most discussed books of 2021, Lalonde’s Glorious Frazzled Beings was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was named a CBC Best Book of the Year. “A haunting dream of a book” according to David Chariandy, this is a collection that sings a love song to the homes we make, keep, and break.
The characters in Nothing Could Be Further from the Truth are, as his publisher notes, “people with strays—those who fall for the allure of nostalgia, grapple with male fragility, deny family trauma, and acquiesce to authority.” John Elizabeth Stintzi lauds the collection as “fracturing the mundane to reveal a bedrock of absurdity.”
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up these collections at your favourite independent bookseller.
This is an online, live event.

Incite: Transcendent Poetry
2022-04-06 19:00 | Digital (YouTube)
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
We’re hosting three poets whose collections are just in time for National Poetry Month! Join us for a fascinating evening in conversation with writers at the cutting edge of poetry in Canada.
Internationally-acclaimed and Giller-shortlisted author Shani Mootoo shares with us an anticipated return to poetry. Cane | Fire (Book*hug Press) is deeply personal—akin to a poetic memoir—and shares evocative depictions of moves from Ireland to San Fernando and finally to Canada. We begin to understand how life can not only be shaped, but reimagined.
Each One a Furnace (Penguin Random House), from the GG-winning author Tolu Oloruntoba, trails the global mobility of birds to chronicle the struggle within and between cultures. It is a deeply powerful work that explores how those unable to be at rest in the world may take to improbable flight.
Jason Purcell is known across the country for their exceptional (co-owned) store, Glass Bookshop, in Edmonton. Their debut collection, Swollening (Arsenal Pulp Press) examines the queer, sick body as a reaction to an ill world and asks it how to move on toward hope.
They are joined in conversation by moderator, writer and poet, Shazia Hafiz Ramji.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up these collections at your favourite independent bookseller.
This is an online, live event.

Incite: Creativity and Motherhood
2022-04-20 19:00 | Digital (YouTube)
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
At a time when the challenges of parenthood have only increased, and “work/life” balance feels increasingly complex in the midst of the pandemic, we’re delving into the often-underexplored topic of creativity and parenthood.
Join author and co-editor Jen Sookfong Lee, along with co-editor Stacey May Fowles and contributors Jónína Kirton and Kellee Ngan from Good Mom on Paper: Writers on Creativity (Book*hug Press) in an event that promises solace, celebration and humour.
With further contributions by Heather O’Neill, Lee Maracle, Jael Richardson, Jennifer Whiteford, Rachel Giese and Teresa Wong—amongst others—this anthology goes beyond the clichés to share the often-invisible challenges of a literary life with little ones and to celebrate the systems that nurture writers who are mothers.
Let’s talk about two of the fundamental joys, and challenges, of life.
From the publisher: Good Mom on Paper is a collection of twenty essays that explore the fraught, beautiful, and complicated relationship between motherhood and creativity. These texts disclose the often-invisible challenges of a literary life with little ones: the manuscript written with a baby sleeping in a carrier, missing a book launch for a bedtime, crafting a promotional tour around child care. But they also celebrate the systems that nurture writers who are mothers; the successes; the intricate, interconnected joys of these roles. Honest and intimate, critical and hopeful, this collection offers solace and joy to creative mothers and asks how we can better support their work.
Mothers have long been telling each other these vital stories in private. Good Mom on Paper makes them available to everyone who needs them.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up the book at your favourite independent bookseller.
This is an online, live event.

Incite: Kiss the Red Stairs with Marsha Lederman
2022-05-04 | Digital (YouTube)
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
In a powerful and intimate Incite event, long-time Festival friend, moderator, and award-winning journalist Marsha Lederman returns to our in-person stages for the launch of her stunning memoir on intergenerational trauma, monumental change, and survival. Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust, Once Removed explores the impact of a generation’s anguish on her family, beginning when Lederman was only five years old, and asked her mother why she didn’t have any grandparents.
In conversation with Kathryn Gretsinger, another beloved moderator of the Festival, this heart-to-heart explores the rippling effect of Lederman’s family history throughout her own life, including being a mother to a young son, experiencing a difficult divorce, and an ever-present need to explore and understand the stories and experiences of those that have gone before.

Incite: Kiss the Red Stairs with Marsha Lederman
2022-05-04 19:00 | Vancouver Public Library – Central Library
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
In a powerful and intimate Incite event, long-time Festival friend, moderator, and award-winning journalist Marsha Lederman returns to our in-person stages for the launch of her stunning memoir on intergenerational trauma, monumental change, and survival. Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust, Once Removed explores the impact of a generation’s anguish on her family, beginning when Lederman was only five years old, and asked her mother why she didn’t have any grandparents.
In conversation with Kathryn Gretsinger, another beloved moderator of the Festival, this heart-to-heart will explore the rippling effect of Lederman’s family history throughout her own life, including being a mother to a young son, experiencing a difficult divorce, and an ever-present need to explore and understand the stories and experiences of those that have gone before.
RSVP to join us for the first in-person Incite events in two years—a momentous occasion made even more special for the friends we’ll have together on stage. If you would prefer to join us online, register to receive the livestream link!
From the publisher
For readers of All Things Consoled by Elizabeth Hay and They Left Us Everything by Plum Johnson, Kiss the Red Stairs is a compelling memoir by award-winning journalist Marsha Lederman. Marsha was five when a simple question led to a horrifying answer. Sitting in her kitchen, she asked her mother why she didn’t have any grandparents. Her mother told her the truth: the Holocaust.
Decades later, her parents dead and herself a mother to a young son, Marsha begins to wonder how much history has shaped her own life. Reeling in the wake of a divorce, she craves her parents’ help. But in their absence, she is gripped by a need to understand the trauma they suffered, and she begins her own journey into the past to tell her family’s stories of loss and resilience. Kiss the Red Stairs is a compelling memoir of Holocaust survival, intergenerational trauma, divorce, and discovery that will guide readers through several lifetimes of monumental change.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up the book at your favourite independent bookseller.
This event can be attended in-person or online. At checkout, we will ask you if you plan to join us online or in-person.
The Vancouver Writers Fest encourages patrons to wear face masks at its events. While not currently mandated by the BC health authority, face masks continue to offer assurance and safety for many of the communities the VWF serves. We thank you for your understanding and consideration.

Incite: Fiction as a Tempest
2022-05-18 19:00 | Vancouver Public Library – Central Library
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
This spring brings rare talents and heart-rending prose in the form of Janice Lynn Mather’s explosive short story collection Uncertain Kin (Doubleday Canada) and Tsering Yangzom Lama’s impassioned debut novel, We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies (McClelland & Stewart). Joined by moderator Eddy Boudel Tan, author of The Rebellious Tide (Dundurn Press), our final May Incite will feature an absorbing conversation on relationships, displacement and longing, as well as all of the minute and miraculous ways we find ourselves in the world.
About the Books
We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama
A haunting first novel that recounts a Tibetan family’s fifty-year journey through exile and their struggles to forge new lives of dignity, love, and hope. Named one of Publisher Weekly‘s Writers to Watch, and a most anticipated book of the year by The Millions and Ms.
In the wake of China’s invasion of Tibet throughout the 1950s, Lhamo and her sister, Tenkyi, arrive at a refugee camp on the border of Nepal. As Lhamo tries to rebuild a life amid a shattered community, hope arrives in the form of a young man named Samphel and his uncle.
Breathtaking in scope and powerfully intimate, We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies is a gorgeously written meditation on colonization, displacement, and the lengths we’ll go to remain connected to our families and ancestral lands. Told through the lives of four people over fifty years, this beautifully lyrical debut novel provides a nuanced portrait of the world of Tibetan exiles.
Uncertain Kin by Janice Lynn Mather
From Governor General’s Literary Award finalist Janice Lynn Mather comes a mesmerizing collection of linked stories that explores the beauty and brutality of being alive.
Set against the vivid backdrop of The Bahamas, eighteen luminous and haunting stories introduce women and girls searching for certainty and belonging as they navigate profound upheaval. The characters are bold and big-hearted, complex and intimately familiar. They grapple with the bonds of kinship and the responsibilities of parenthood, with grief, longing, betrayal, coming of age and what it means to be a woman.
Tinged with folklore and the surreal, Uncertain Kin is grounded by its emotional richness and breathtaking insight into our relationships with others—and ourselves. This extraordinary collection signals the debut of an important new voice in literature.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up the book at your favourite independent bookseller.
This event can be attended in-person or online. At checkout, we will ask you if you plan to join us online or in-person.
The Vancouver Writers Fest encourages patrons to wear face masks at its events. While not currently mandated by the BC health authority, face masks continue to offer assurance and safety for many of the communities the VWF serves. We thank you for your understanding and consideration.

Incite: BC and Yukon Book Prizes
2022-06-01 19:00 | Vancouver Public Library – Central Library
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
It’s award season in BC! Join us for a celebratory night with six of the 2022 BC and Yukon Book Prize finalists from five prestigious award categories. Moderated by Megan Cole, the Prize’s Director of Programming and Communications, this much-anticipated panel will feature:

Iona Whishaw, nominated for the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award for A Lethal Lesson: A Lane Winslow Mystery (TouchWood Editions)
Henry Doyle, nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize for No Shelter (Anvil Press)
Cedar Bowers, nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for Astra (McClelland & Stewart | Penguin Random House Canada)
Nicola I. Campbell, nominated for the Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes for Spíləx̣m: A Weaving of Recovery, Resilience, and Resurgence (Highwater Press)
Karen Duffek and kwəskwestən, nominated for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize for Where the Power Is (Figure 1 Publishing)

This event will feature the finalists reading from their books, as well as an audience Q&A. The finalists will be announced at a gala in Vancouver on September 24.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. Books will be on sale at the event from our official bookseller, Black Bond Books/Book Warehouse.
This event can be attended in-person or online. At checkout, we will ask you if you plan to join us online or in-person.
The Vancouver Writers Fest encourages patrons to wear face masks at its events. While not currently mandated by the BC health authority, face masks continue to offer assurance and safety for many of the communities the VWF serves. We thank you for your understanding and consideration.

Virtual Summer Book Club: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Robyn Maynard in Conversation with Jónína Kirton
2022-06-25 13:00 | Digital (Zoom)
A must-experience event. Three of the most revered authors and contemporary thinkers in Canada discuss essential questions of the 21st century.
When the world entered pandemic lockdown in spring 2020, Robyn Maynard, influential author of Policing Black Lives, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, renowned artist, musician, and author of Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, began writing each other letters—a gesture sparked by a desire for kinship and connection in a world shattering under the intersecting crises of pandemic, police killings, and climate catastrophe. These letters soon grew into a powerful exchange about where we go from here, and into one of the most anticipated books of the year, Rehearsals for Living.
In this special event to celebrate the launch of their collaboration, the writers join beloved Red River Métis/Icelandic poet, author, and facilitator, Jónína Kirton. They’ll share their razor-sharp perspectives on histories of slavery and colonization and their ongoing legacies, and explore what a different way forward looks like. More than simply an engaging discussion, this event offers a new possibility for how we order our world — and an invitation to both demand and create it for our shared futures.

—
Rehearsals for Living is a captivating and visionary work—part debate, part dialogue, part lively and detailed familial correspondence between two razor-sharp writers. By articulating to each other Black and Indigenous perspectives on our unprecedented here and now, and reiterating the long-disavowed histories of slavery and colonization that have brought us to this moment, Maynard and Simpson create something new: an urgent demand for a different way forward, and a poetic call to dream up other ways of ordering earthly life.
“What a pleasure and honor it is to read two such probing and principled minds in conversation and collaboration. Maynard and Simpson dare to confront the most wrenching challenges of our omnicidal times, while finding joy and love along the way. A beacon of a book.”
—Naomi Klein, author of No Is Not Enough
“In their inspired act of ‘writing together, walking together, witnessing these times together,’ Robyn Maynard and Leanne Simpson illuminate in essential ways the entwined lives of Black and Indigenous peoples. Rehearsals for Living honours legacies of courageous revolt against the ongoing histories of dispossession, incarceration, and violence. It is a book of relation, radical generosity, and care – a book, too, of running children, and the colour of the sky, and of ‘holding within [ourselves] that nascent shimmering of possibility.’ Above all, it is a book that poses and answers these most urgent questions: ‘how are we going to live and how are we going to live together?’”
—David Chariandy, author of Brother
Prices include all taxes and fees. A copy of Rehearsals for Living ($32 value) is included in your ticket price, and can be picked up at or shipped through Kidsbooks.
This is a virtual event.
Presented in partnership with SFU Continuing Studies.

Run Towards the Danger with Sarah Polley
2022-06-28 19:30 - 21:00 | Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W Hastings St, Vancouver
This event has been rescheduled for Tuesday, June 28 at 7:30pm.

Presented in partnership with VIFF.

Canadian writer, director, and Academy Award-nominated actor Sarah Polley joins the Vancouver Writers Fest in celebration of her evocative release, Run Towards the Danger. A complex and exquisite collection of essays, the book captures keystone moments in Polley’s life, as well as the “fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person you are now but were not then.”
Well-known for her role in the miniseries for Margaret Atwood’s novel Alias Grace (2017), her directorial debut Away from Her (2006), and her Oscar-nominated adapted screenplay for Alice Munro’s “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” Polley’s Hollywood credentials are significant and trail-blazing.
Run Towards the Danger is her dialogue between her past and present, exploring what it is to live in a body which is constantly becoming, learning, and changing. “These are the most dangerous stories of my life,” says Polley. “The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven’t told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way than they did in childhood, they became lighter and easier to carry.”
Join us for a dazzling special event on June 28 as Sarah Polley sits down with Vancouver Writers Fest Artistic Director Leslie Hurtig for an intimate, one-on-one conversation.
Prices include all taxes and fees.
Copies of Run Towards the Danger will be on sale at the event thanks to our bookseller, Book Warehouse. This event is in-person, and will be located at the Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema at Goldcorp Centre for the Arts in downtown Vancouver. Parking information is available here.
The Vancouver Writers Fest requires masks be worn indoors at all times for this event. Face masks continue to offer assurance and safety for many of the communities the VWF serves. We thank you for your understanding and consideration.

Fall Digital Book Club: Emma Donoghue in Conversation
2022-09-11 13:00 | Digital (Zoom)
Presented in partnership with SFU Continuing Studies.
Longtime Festival favourite and beloved novelist Emma Donoghue joins from Ireland to present her highly-anticipated release, Haven, for our Digital Book Club Fall selection. Called “a patient, thoughtful novel with much to say about spirituality, hope, and human failure, and about the miracle of mercy” by Esi Edugyan, Haven, set in the year 600, follows three men in a small boat as they make their way toward an island their leader has seen in a dream. A Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize-winner and nominee for both the Man Booker and Orange Prizes, Donoghue’s works regularly top international bestseller lists. Hear this fabulous storyteller in an intimate discussion speaking to craft, the moors of Ireland, and the roles of spirituality and faith in our fiction—and our lives. In conversation with bestselling author and columnist, Robert Wiersema.
Tickets for our Digital Book Club include the price of admission, as well as a hardcopy of Haven, fulfilled by Kidsbooks.
This is a virtual event.

Namwayut—We Are All One: A Pathway to Reconciliation
2022-09-14 19:30 - 21:00 | Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W Hastings St, Vancouver
Presented in partnership with Massy Books and Raincoast Books.

A Special Celebration with Chief Robert Joseph
We all share a common humanity. No matter how long or difficult the path ahead, we are all one. In Namwayut, Chief Robert Joseph, globally recognized peacebuilder and Hereditary Chief of the Gwawaenuk People, traces his journey from his childhood surviving residential school to his present-day role as a leader who inspires individual hope, collective change, and global transformation. His dedication to reconciliation has been recognized with multiple honorary degrees and awards. In this momentous event, Vancouver Writers Fest invites our community to celebrate Chief Joseph’s legacy, advocacy, and wisdom on the eve of his 83rd birthday, in conversation with his collaborator, Lisa Thomas-Tench.
Pay-What-You-Can options are available for this event. Receive 10% off the retail price of Namwayut at this event, courtesy of Massy Books, who will be providing on-site sales.

Simply Irresistible! VWF’s 80s Dance Party
2022-09-22 19:00 | Fox Cabaret, 2321 Main St, Vancouver, BC, V5T 3C9, Canada
Click here for tickets on Eventbrite!
We’re celebrating our 35th anniversary with a dance party that takes us back to our founding year… 1988! We’ve Got Our Minds Set On You joining us at the Fox Cabaret on Thursday, September 22 for an evening of fun that goes all the way to eleven.
All $35 ticket sales go to our $35,000 fundraising campaign, so come have the Time of Your Life enjoying totally awesome music, special guest appearances, some Red, Red, Wine, and help launch us into our 35th Festival! Come dressed-as-you-were (Let’s Go Crazy! Mini-skirts, stirrup pants, safety pins, sweater vests, ripped jean jackets, spiked hair, perms, and anything purple welcome)!
We’ll also be launching our 🌟2022 LUCKY STAR Festival Raffle🌟 as well as holding a 50/50 draw!
Music by Strike Sessions DJs
sean cranbury & phil david
Visit their website for a sneak peek at the playlist!
Get your tickets on Eventbrite.
Background graphics from freepik.com.

Ian Rankin in Conversation
2022-11-11 19:30 - 21:00 | Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W Hastings St, Vancouver
The long wait is over: John Rebus, detective inspector and the central protagonist of Edgar Award and Diamond Dagger recipient Ian Rankin’s acclaimed series, is back this fall in A Heart Full of Headstones. In this 24th book in the now televised series, Rankin brings new intrigue and suspense to the dark of Edinburgh, in what Publishers Weekly is calling “one of his best Rebus novels in years.” He’ll be joined by local detective writer and Juno-nominated comedian Charles Demers for an evening discussing the craft of sleuths, scandals, and (of course) murder.

This event is presented in partnership with SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs.

Christine Sinclair in Conversation
2022-12-05 19:00 - 20:30 | Norman Rothstein Theatre, 950 West 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC, V5Z 2N7, Canada
SOLD OUT

Known as one of the best soccer players on earth, Christine Sinclair has made headlines for over a decade as the forward and captain of Canada’s national soccer team and a multi-World Cup athlete. A gold and bronze medalist in the Olympics with 190 lifetime goals and over 300 caps, she is known across the world—in and out of soccer circles. She’s also, we’re proud to say, a local to the Lower Mainland, born and raised in Burnaby, BC.

On December 5, Sinclair will join the Vancouver Writers Fest in celebrating the release of her captivating memoir, Playing the Long Game. In an event sure to be inspiring for the whole family, the soccer superstar will speak to her exhilarating successes—and heartbreaking failures. Join us at Norman Rothstein Theatre in Vancouver for a night of insight into one of the world’s greatest athletes, a powerful role model, and one of Canada’s most-beloved figures.

Hosted by CBC sports and news reporter Karin Larsen, a BC Sports Hall of Fame inductee and former world champion and Olympian, who has reported on the local and international sports scene for over 25 years.

Books will be available for purchase before and after the event, courtesy of Book Warehouse (a division of Black Bond Books)—including in-person signings by Christine Sinclair after the event!

Standard tickets: $30
Premium tickets: $40
Youth under 30: $15
This event is also in support of The MS Society of Canada.

Digital Festival Release
2022-12-06 - 2023-01-20 | Digital (YouTube)
For the first time ever, gain access to a mastercut of the Vancouver Writers Fest’s October Festival!
New extended dates: Access the Digital Festival from December 6 to January 20!
The deadline to purchase a Digital Festival Pass is midnight on Friday, January 13.
This October, we gathered on Granville Island for the 35th Anniversary Festival. We were overwhelmed by the response to our first fully in-person Festival after three years. The warmth of the audiences and the powerful conversations that took place on our stages were captured on camera so that we could share the magic of this week with as many people as possible. The result is this Digital Festival Release: 30 specially curated events, many previously sold out, representing some of the most intriguing, edifying, and fun offerings from our 2022 Festival, available online from December 6 through January 20.
We hope these events will reach people far and wide—and also solve the eternal problem of not being able to be in two places at once during Festival Week.
Please enjoy these exceptional books, ideas, and dialogue!
Pay-What-You-Can for this all-access pass: $0 – $20 – $100 [recommended] – $250
We offer Pay-What-You-Can options for the Digital Festival so that these exceptional conversations can be available to everyone. If you don’t see the amount you’d like to pay listed as an option, please consider adding a donation at checkout, to help us continue to make our programming accessible.
While the deadline has passed to purchase a Digital Festival Gift Pass that comes with a festive gift certificate, you can still purchase a regular Digital Festival Pass as a gift, and send your recipient the access code that you receive in your purchase receipt email.

The Digital Festival is presented thanks to the generous support of the Y.P. Heung Foundation.

30 fully-captioned events from the 2022 Festival are included in this all-access, pay-what-you-can pass:
#01: Educating with the Witness Blanket (High School)
featuring Carey Newman and Kirstie Hudson
#02: Sisters in Resistance
Tilar J. Mazzeo in Conversation with Marsha Lederman
#03: What Home Means
featuring Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Omar El Akkad, Dimitri Nasrallah, and Debra Thompson
#04: Ali Hassan in Conversation with Brent Butt
#05: Friendship and Fitting In (Grades 4–7)
featuring Johnnie Christmas, Faith Erin Hicks, and Jonathan Hill
#06: An Evening with Wayne Johnston
hosted by Rob Wiersema
#07: Freeman’s Spotlight
featuring Tess Gunty and John Freeman
#08: Fabulous Historical Fantasy
featuring Guy Gavriel Kay, J.M. Miro (Steven Price), and Rob Wiersema
#09: An Evening with Billy-Ray Belcourt
hosted by Mercedes Eng
#10: Short Story Masters
featuring Caroline Adderson, Jonathan Escoffery, Kim Fu, and Alexander MacLeod
#11: The Power of Story: Live Recording for CBC’s The Next Chapter
featuring Brian Thomas Isaac, Marsha Lederman, David A. Robertson, and Shelagh Rogers
#12: Fiction from Reality
featuring Violaine Huisman, Aislinn Hunter, Gabriel Krauze, and Douglas Stuart
#13: Don’t You Want Me, Baby?: Authors Do 80s Lyrics
featuring Heather O’Neill, Omar El Akkad, João Reis, Brendan McLeod, Kevin Sylvester, Marsha Lederman, Iain Reid, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Kern Carter, David A. Robertson, and Tess Gunty; hosted by Elamin Abdelmahmoud
#14: A Gallant Day: The Great Coincidence of August 11
featuring Aamina Ahmad, Ivan Coyote, Veda Hille, Bill Richardson, and Marcus Youssef
#15: The Truth Ain’t What It Used To Be: Journalism in the 21st Century
featuring Kamal Al-Solaylee, Omar El Akkad, Brandi Morin, Elizabeth Renzetti, and Andrea Woo
#16: Generational Fiction: Stories of Lineage, History and Things Passed Down
featuring Aamina Ahmad, Tsering Yangzom Lama, Marsha Lederman, and Jasmine Sealy
#17: Douglas Stuart in Conversation with Eddy Boudel Tan
#18: Poems for the Twelfth Hour
featuring Otoniya Okot Bitek, John Freeman, Aislinn Hunter, Gillian Jerome, Brendan McLeod, and Cecily Nicholson
#19: An Evening with Heather O’Neill
hosted by Jen Sookfong Lee
#20: Queer Little Nightmares
featuring jaye simpson, Amber Dawn, Eddy Boudel Tan, Tin Lorica, Ben Rawluk, Jane Shi, Cicely Belle Blain, and beni xiao, with a drag performance by Persephone. Hosted by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli.
#21: Bestseller to Blockbuster
featuring Marsha Lederman, Tom Perrotta, and Iain Reid
#22: Wildness: Stories for an Unraveling World
featuring Madhur Anand, Omar El Akkad, Kim Fu, and John Elizabeth Stintzi
#23: Building Suspense
featuring Linwood Barclay, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Jerry Wasserman, and Sandra SG Wong
#24: The State of Women
featuring Eliza Reid and Elizabeth Renzetti
#25: American Debuts: Emerging Authors, Exceptional Tales
featuring Aamina Ahmad, Jonathan Escoffery, Shaena Lambert, and Soon Wiley
#26: An Evening with Elif Batuman
hosted by Anakana Schofield
#27: The Literary Cabaret
featuring Graeme Macrae Burnet, Pierre Jarawan, Gabriel Krauze, Nadifa Mohamed, and Heather O’Neill; music accompaniment by Sally Zori and the Allegories
#28: The Crime [Writing] of the Century:
Linwood Barclay and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir in Conversation, hosted by Rob Wiersema
#29: The Future is Now, with Bob McDonald
#30: Dr. Gabor Maté in Conversation
hosted by Andrea Woo

Incite: Dazzling Debuts
2023-01-25 | Digital (YouTube)
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
The 2023 Incite season premieres with a powerful duo of debut novelists already making review headlines. Journey Prize-winner Jessica Johns’ Bad Cree has made waves among critics and contemporaries alike, with Eden Robinson calling the work and its characters “wry, moody, and subversive” and Cherie Dimaline noting that once the story starts, “there’s no backing out, no pause, no stall.” Some Hellish, by Nicholas Herring, is the winner of the 2022 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, noted for Herring’s “passion for the language of work, […] droll and philosophical, ribald and poetic.” Both join esteemed Festival friend and Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize-finalist Carleigh Baker for an evening of literary magic with two acclaimed, propulsive debuts.
Join us for Incite all season, in-person or online! This readings series offers conversations with celebrated authors and emerging talents every two weeks from January to June. Incite is free and open to all. Books will be for sale courtesy of Book Warehouse (a division of Black Bond Books).

Incite: Superfan: Jen Sookfong Lee
2023-02-08 | Digital (YouTube)
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
Music. Movies. Celebrity crushes. Pop culture permeates all levels of our lives, from the entertainment we consume (or abhor) to the memes we make and share with friends. Jen Sookfong Lee has been at the centre of this commentary for years, as author, lifestyle commentator, podcaster, and now memoirist of Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart, a searing, revelatory, and intimate collection exploring the ways in which pop culture has shaped—and unshaped—Lee throughout her life.
Joined by longtime Festival friend and Globe and Mail columnist Marsha Lederman, this special Incite event celebrates Lee’s debut memoir-in-pieces, and explore all the ways in which pop culture intersects with the reality of so many, how our collective obsessions make and break us, and why our fascinations persist in spite of it all.
Join us for Incite all season, in-person or online! This readings series offers conversations with celebrated authors and emerging talents every two weeks from January to June. Incite is free and open to all. Books will be for sale courtesy of Book Warehouse (a division of Black Bond Books).

Incite: Superfan: Jen Sookfong Lee
2023-02-08 19:00 - 20:30 | Vancouver Public Library – Central Library
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
Music. Movies. Celebrity crushes. Pop culture permeates all levels of our lives, from the entertainment we consume (or abhor) to the memes we make and share with friends. Jen Sookfong Lee has been at the centre of this commentary for years, as author, lifestyle commentator, podcaster, and now memoirist of Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart, a searing, revelatory, and intimate collection exploring the ways in which pop culture has shaped—and unshaped—Lee throughout her life.
Joined by longtime Festival friend and Globe and Mail columnist Marsha Lederman, this special Incite event will celebrate Lee’s debut memoir-in-pieces, and explore all the ways in which pop culture intersects with the reality of so many, how our collective obsessions make and break us, and why our fascinations persist in spite of it all.

FROM THE PUBLISHER
A sharply observed and beautifully intimate memoir-in-pieces that uses one woman’s life-long love affair with pop culture as a revelatory lens to explore family, identity, belonging, grief, and the power of female rage.
For most of Jen Sookfong Lee’s life, pop culture was an escape from family tragedy and a means of fitting in with the larger culture around her. Anne of Green Gables promised her that, despite losing her father at the age of twelve, one day she might still have the loving family of her dreams. Princess Diana was proof that maybe there was more to being a good girl after all. And yet as Jen grew up, she began to recognize the ways in which pop culture was not made for someone like her—the child of Chinese immigrant parents who looked for safety in the invisibility afforded by embracing model minority myths.
Ranging from the unattainable perfection of Gwyneth Paltrow and the father-figure familiarity of Bob Ross, to the long shadow cast by The Joy Luck Club and the life lessons she has learned from Rihanna, Jen weaves together key moments in pop culture with stories of her own failings, longings, and struggles as she navigates the minefields that come with carving her own path as an Asian woman, single mother, and writer. And with great wit, bracing honesty, and a deep appreciation for the ways culture shapes us, she draws direct lines between the spectacle of the popular, the intimacy of our personal bonds, and the social foundations of our collective obsessions.
Join us for Incite all season, in-person or online! This readings series offers conversations with celebrated authors and emerging talents every two weeks from January to June. Incite is free and open to all. Books will be for sale courtesy of Book Warehouse (a division of Black Bond Books).
