This returning event is a perennial favourite of writers aspiring, emerging, and established! Night Class is an interactive workshop offering writing tips and prompts across various genres, from instructors at UBC’s renowned School of Creative Writing. Learn key writing skills in five minutes or less from Sarah Leavitt, A.E. Osworth, Zac Hug, Frances Koncan, and Nalo Hopkinson, as each instructor guides participants through a different concept and writing exercise. Night Class explores a wide array of styles and genres, from stage to screen, comics to fiction, and more. This workshop is suitable for writers of every experience level. Hosted by Taylor Brown-Evans.
Presented in collaboration with UBC School of Creative Writing.
More information about the Festival:
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Event Participants:
TAYLOR BROWN–EVANS is a writer, illustrator and cartoonist living in Vancouver. His work has appeared in Geist, Matrix, Poetry is Dead, The Feathertale Review, Ricepaper Magazine as well as alternative press zines, chapbooks. His most recent project, Songs for a Lost Pod, is a comic book collaboration with local songwriter Leah Abramson.
NALO HOPKINSON is the award-winning author of numerous novels and short stories for adults. Nalo grew up in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Guyana before moving to Canada when she was sixteen. She writes science fiction and fantasy, exploring their potential for centering non-normative voices and experiences. She is now based in Vancouver, Canada.
ZAC HUG is a screen and television writer, including Drop Dead Diva (Lifetime), Shadowhunters (Freeform), Twelve Dates Til Christmas (Hallmark), and over 20 movies for Hallmark, including Road to Christmas, Matching Hearts, and the Christmas in Evergreen series. His plays have been produced by the New York Fringe Festival and the Williamstown Theatre Festival Workshop. Directing work and various awards include the short Just Between Us, and web series These People. Zac holds a BFA in Acting from NYU, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, where he is a Lecturer in TV and Screenwriting.
FRANCES KONCAN (she/they) is an Anishinaabe and Slovene playwright from Couchiching First Nation in Treaty 3 territory. Their plays have been presented at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, the National Arts Centre, the Stratford Festival, and more. They are an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. Select plays include Women of the Fur Trade, zahgidiwin/love, and Space Girl.
SARAH LEAVITT is the author of Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love; the graphic memoir Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother, and Me; and the award-winning historical fiction comic Agnes, Murderess. She is an assistant professor in the School of Creative Writing at UBC in Vancouver, BC, where she has developed and taught undergraduate and graduate comics classes since 2012.
A.E. OSWORTH is a transgender novelist. Their debut, WE ARE WATCHING ELIZA BRIGHT, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and was long-listed for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, and The Tournament of Books. Their latest book, AWAKENED, was a USA Today Bestseller, received starred reviews from Library Journal and Kirkus, and was a 2026 Stonewall Honor Book. They are a lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s School of Creative Writing where they teach fiction, interactive fiction, and new media.
