Is it fact, fiction, or a malleable third category, somewhere in between? Three authors join us with standout works of autofiction, offering a kernel of truth, a dash of myth, and a profusion of luminous writing. Shani Mootoo offers her most intimate work yet in Starry Starry Night, following a young girl and her family as they navigate life in 1960s Trinidad during its movement for independence. In Ten Clear Days, Eric Beck Rubin shares the extraordinary story of his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, who requests medical assistance in dying in her final days. Damien Wilkins joins us from New Zealand with his award-winning novel Delirious, in which an aging couple faces questions about how to care for others and our many past and present selves. Moderated by Shaena Lambert.
Participation of Eric Beck Rubin made possible thanks to the generous support of Sam Znaimer in memory of award-winning novelist Nancy Richler.
Damien Wilkins’ attendance generously supported by Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa.
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Event Participants:
SHAENA LAMBERT is the author of four works of fiction: Petra, Oh, My Darling, Radiance and The Falling Woman. Her essay on her writing apprenticeship, “Monkey Business,” was recently featured in Off the Record (Bibliosasis): six Canadian women writers exploring how they became fiction writers. Petra won the 2021 Ethel Wilson Award from the BC and Yukon Book Prize and was a CBC best book of the year. Her stories have been anthologized four times in Best Canadian Stories, as well as in the Journey Prize Anthology, and published in The Walrus, Zoetrope All Story, Ploughshares, Toronto Life and other magazines. She’s at work on a new novel.
SHANI MOOTOO is the multiple award-winning author of six novels, three poetry books, and one short story collection. Her latest novel is Starry Starry Night. Mootoo was born in Ireland, raised in Trinidad, and lives in Southern Ontario.
ERIC BECK RUBIN is a Novelist, Cultural Historian and Lecturer. He has taught internationally, including at the University of Toronto and Bergen Arkitektskole, and consulted for institutions such as the Art Gallery of Ontario and Facing History. His debut novel School of Velocity was named one of the Guardian’s Best Books of the Year, and his second novel Ten Clear Days was published in April 2026.
DAMIEN WILKINS is the author of fourteen books, including Delirious, which won the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. He is Director of the International Institute of Modern Letters Te Pūtahi Tui Auaha o Te Ao at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.
