23. Masterclass with Canisia Lubrin and Jillian Christmas

This Masterclass is an extraordinary double-bill, featuring two icons of contemporary Canadian poetry. Canisia Lubrin is the author of the multi-award-winning Code Noir and The World After Rain, a poetry collection epic in its vision and intimate in its exploration of grief and loss. Jillian Christmas is a spoken word poet, author of The Gospel of Breaking, and a passionate organizer and activist in our local arts community. Both authors are deeply knowledgeable about the wider literary scene, and their insight and curation has helped shape this year’s Festival. This unmissable session will give students the chance to generate new poems together and alone, learn reading and recitation techniques, and listen to a short craft talk, followed by a Q+A. Grades 10–12.

Presented thanks to the generous support of The Pitfield Family in memory of Ebie Pitfield.

Themes: Creative writing, BIPOC, poetry, spoken word, storytelling, technique
Curriculum Connections: Creative Writing 10-12

More information about the Festival:
Box Office | Accessibility | Venue Map

Event Participants:

Jillian Christmas

JILLIAN CHRISTMAS is an artist, creative facilitator, curator, consultant, and arts advocate. 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, The Magic Shell, and My Sweet Baby Book.

Canisia Lubrin

CANISIA LUBRIN, author of Voodoo Hypothesis and The Dyzgraphxst, has won the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Windham-Campbell Prize. She coordinates the Creative Writing MFA at the University of Guelph and is the poetry editor at McClelland & Stewart. Her debut fiction, Code Noir: Metamorphoses, won the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. She is the 2025 Vancouver Writers Fest Guest Curator.