This event is SOLD OUT in person. Tickets can still be purchased to view the livestream!

All 2022 Festival Youth events can be attended in-person or viewed online. Please ensure that you select the correct ticket option during checkout.

Our Spoken Word event series, curated and hosted by award-winning poet and spoken word artist Jillian Christmas, is an effervescent, powerful highlight of our youth programming every year. This Word! features three uplifting performers, some of whom are already student favourites. Brendan McLeod is an award-winning spoken word artist and Juno-nominated musician whose first printed collection, Friends Without Bodies, explores our mental health experiences during the pandemic. Lucia Misch has been captivating audiences for more than a decade. The Problem with Solitaire asks: when we play against ourselves, who wins? And 2022 ReLit Award winner Charlie Petch shares a decades-long trans/personal coming of age in Why I Was Late. Tickets go quickly. There’s good reason why. Grades 8–12 and adults.

Event Participants:

Jillian Christmas

JILLIAN CHRISTMAS is an artist, creative facilitator, curator, consultant, and advocate in the arts community. She is the long-time spoken word curator of the Vancouver Writers Fest, and former artistic director of Verses Festival of Words. She is the author of The Gospel of Breaking (Arsenal Pulp Press 2020) and the children’s book, The Magic Shell (Flamingo Rampant Press 2021).

Brendan McLeod

BRANDON MCLEOD is the author of Friends Without Bodies and The Convictions of Leonard McKinley. His music group The Fugitives have been nominated for the Canadian Folk Music Awards, as well as a Juno. He was the Poet of Honour at the 2012 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. (ONTARIO)

Lucia Misch

LUCIA MISCH has brought her writing to events ranging from literary festivals to labour union conventions. The Problem with Solitaire is her debut collection. She facilitates spoken word workshops with WordPlay: Poetry In Schools, and as an ArtStarts Poet in Residence. (BRITISH COLUMBIA)

Charlie Petch

CHARLIE PETCH is a disabled/queer/transmasculine musician and writer. Petch was the 2017 Poet of Honour for Spoken Word Canada, and winner of the Golden Beret lifetime achievement in spoken word with The League of Canadian Poets. Why I Was Late won the 2022 ReLit Award for Poetry. (ONTARIO)