Three authors who have captivated people of all ages with their art and storytelling will offer a truly mesmerizing morning for little ones. Andrea Fritz is a Coast Salish artist and storyteller who tells the tale of a salmon and a sea otter who learn it’s okay to say “I don’t know” and ask for help in Otter Doesn’t Know. Canada Reads finalist Catherine Hernandez reveals how we can show love to difficult feelings we have in Where Do Your Feelings Live? And two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize-winner Esi Edugyan debuts her first picture book with Garden of Lost Socks: a whimsical story about friendship, curiosity, and the magic of a vibrant community. Grades 1–3.

Event Participants:

Esi Edugyan

ESI EDUGYAN is the author of Half-Blood Blues, Dreaming of Elsewhere, and Washington Black, which was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Man Booker Prize and won the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

Andrea Fritz

ANDREA FRITZ is a Coast Salish artist and storyteller from the Lyackson First Nation of the Hul’q'umi’num'-speaking Peoples on the West Coast of Canada. She studied West Coast Native art with Victor Newman, a Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw master artist. Andrea strives to express her People’s history and all our futures using her art. She focuses on animals and places of the West Coast and our intricate relationships with them. Andrea works in the mediums of acrylic on canvas and wood, serigraph, vector art and multimedia. She has had numerous gallery shows and participates in community-based art pieces. Andrea lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

Emerging Authors presented thanks to the support of RBC

Catherine Hernandez

CATHERINE HERNANDEZ (she/her) is a queer woman of Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and Indian descent who married into the Navajo Nation. Her first novel, Scarborough, was a finalist for Canada Reads 2022, and the film adaptation, for which she wrote the screenplay, won eight Canadian Screen Awards. Her second novel, Crosshairs, was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award.