Event update: This event has moved to Waterfront Theatre.

Of her work, Anne Michaels once said, “…the heart of my writing life has been the exploration of ‘what love makes us capable of, and incapable of.’” Her writing, meanwhile, shows us what writers can be capable of: luminous, compelling, even life-changing prose. In this intimate conversation, the much-decorated writer (winner of the Orange Prize, Guardian Fiction Prize, shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize, and Giller Prize, to name a few), speaks to her latest work, Held, which Margaret Atwood confirms “couldn’t be more timely.” Spanning four generations, it explores war and its aftermath; the way desire, longing, and trauma work transformations even decades later. Join us for a discussion with one of the finest minds alive today about topics enmeshed in our hearts. Moderated by Minelle Mahtani.

Presented in partnership with Penguin Random House Canada.

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Minelle Mahtani

MINELLE MAHTANI is an author, scholar and former radio host. She has won several prizes for her work, including a Digital Publishing Award for an essay in The Walrus that became the basis for May It Have a Happy Ending, her debut memoir. She lives in Vancouver.

Anne Michaels

ANNE MICHAELS’s books have been translated into more than forty-five languages and have won dozens of international awards, including the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Guardian Fiction Prize, and the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction. She has been short-listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, twice short-listed for the Giller Prize, and twice long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her novel Fugitive Pieces was adapted into a feature film. From 2015 to 2019, she was Toronto’s poet laureate. She lives in Canada.