54. Storytelling from the Edge of Reality

Update: Michelle Porter, who was scheduled to appear in this event, is unfortunately no longer able to join us at the Festival.

Taking place in the liminal spaces between reality, fantasy, and dreams, these mesmerizing novels will root themselves in your psyche, and linger for a long time to come. An unraveling couple are sucked into a maze of duplicate selves when they stumble on a porn film based on the ancient Greek myth of Ariadne, in Angélique Lalonde’s eclectic Variations on a Dream. And multiple narratives come together across time and space in Portia Elan’s Homebound, united by the very things that make us human, and one unfinished video game saved to a floppy disk. Take a trip to the thresholds of reality. Moderated by Michelle Cyca.

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, mythology, science fiction, family, Indigenous
Curriculum Connections: Literary Studies 10-12, Creative Writing 10-12

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

Event Participants:

Michelle Cyca

MICHELLE CYCA is bureau chief for The Narwhal and a contributing writer to The Walrus. Her literary criticism and books coverage appears in Quill & Quire, The Globe & Mail, The Tyee and the Vancouver Sun. Michelle is a board member for Upstart & Crow, a non-profit society and literary incubator based on Granville Island, and the chair of tâpwêwin media, an independent, Indigenous-led publishing non-profit. She is a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Treaty 6, and she lives and works in Vancouver on unceded Musqueam territory.

Portia Elan

PORTIA ELAN studied history at Stanford University and earned an MFA from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, before returning to California, where she has worked as a teacher and public librarian. A former Lambda Literary Fellow, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her wife and an abundance of cats. Homebound is her first novel.

Angélique Lalonde

ANGÉLIQUE LALONDE’s work has been featured in PRISM International, The Journey Prize Stories, Room, and The Malahat Review, among other publications. She received the 2019 Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. She lives on Gitxsan Territory in Northern B.C. Her short story collection Glorious Frazzled Beings was shortlisted for the Giller Prize.