This event is like witnessing a live recording of your favourite literary podcast—no headphones required. Moderator Tara McGuire conducts back-to-back interviews with the authors of some of the most anticipated novels of the season. Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way is a multi-generational drama from Irish author Elaine Feeney, whose previous novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize and included in numerous ‘best of the year’ lists. Giller Prize-winner Ian Williams shares a daring and absurdly funny dissection of a crumbling marriage in You’ve Changed. Jack Wang’s The Riveter is an exhilarating cross-cultural love story set against the backdrop of the Allied invasion of Europe in WWII. Come for the dialogue, and you’re sure to leave with all three of these must-read books in hand.
Elaine Feeney’s attendance made possible thanks to the generous support of Culture Ireland.
This event is open to everyone, and has been curated with the Pro-D day for teachers in mind. Teachers may be interested in the following information. This event is also suitable for students in grades 10–12.
Themes: Pro-D, literary fiction, historical fiction, creative writing, storytelling, identity
Curriculum Connections: Creative Writing 10–12, Literary Studies 10-12
More information about the Festival:
Box Office | Accessibility | Venue Map
Event Participants:
ELAINE FEENEY is a writer from the west of Ireland. Her 2020 debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award and won the Kate O’Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize, and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. Feeney has published three collections of poetry including The Radio Was Gospel and Rise, and her short story “Sojourn” was included in The Art of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories, edited by Sinéad Gleeson. Her work appears widely in The Moth, The Paris Review, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Feeney lectures at the University of Galway.
TARA MCGUIRE is a former broadcaster whose essays and poetry have appeared in several magazines. She is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at SFU and holds an MFA from the UBC School of Creative Writing. Her first book, Holden, After and Before, was published in 2022.
JACK WANG is the author of the story collection We Two Alone, winner of the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and longlisted for Canada Reads. Originally from Vancouver, he lives in Ithaca, New York, with his wife and their two daughters.
IAN WILLIAMS is the author of 7 acclaimed books of fiction, poetry & nonfiction. In 2024 he delivered the CBC Massey Lectures with What I Mean to Say. His book Disorientation was selected as the best book of the year by the Boston Globe. His debut, Reproduction, won the Giller Prize. He's a trustee for the Griffin Poetry Prize & professor of English & director of the Creative Writing program at University of Toronto.
