The Writing Life
Cherie Dimaline, Sabrina Mahfouz, Eden Robinson, Vivek Shraya
Moderator: Waubgeshig Rice
Event Number: 57
Tickets: $20.00
The Writing Life
Cherie Dimaline, Sabrina Mahfouz, Eden Robinson, Vivek Shraya
Friday, October 19
6:00pm - 7:15pm
Waterfront Theatre
1412 Cartwright St, Vancouver
For passionate readers, the minds behind our favourite works are often just as intriguing as the books themselves. Yet, despite celebrating the finished books, less so do we praise the courage and fortitude required to create them, especially when they bloom from difficult subjects or personal experiences. Guest Curator of this event, Cherie Dimaline (The Marrow Thieves), will take to the stage alongside UK poet Sabrina Mahfouz (How You Might Know Me), Eden Robinson (Trickster Drift) and Vivek Shraya (I’m Afraid of Men), as moderated by Waubgeshig Rice (Moon of the Crusted Snow). Together, these transparent, fascinating authors share conversation about every facet of the writing process—and the life that accompanies it.
Presented by PublishDrive.

Event Participants:
Ontario
The Vancouver Writers Fest is pleased to announce Cherie Dimaline as our first annual Guest Curator, programming four events throughout festival week. A Métis writer, editor and coordinator of the annual Indigenous Writers’ Gathering, Dimaline’s fiction has been anthologized internationally. Her latest YA novel, The Marrow Thieves, won a 2017 Governor General’s Award, the American Kirkus Prize, and was shortlisted for numerous other awards. It was also a selection for CBC’s 2018 Canada Reads.
@cherie_dimaline
United Kingdom
Sabrina Mahfouz is a British Egyptian playwright, poet and screenwriter. Her collection, How You Might Know Me, was a 2017 Guardian Best Summer Read. She is also the editor of The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write, a 2017 Guardian Book of the Year and currently nominated for The People’s Book Prize. Mahfouz was recently elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and is the recipient of the 2018 King’s Alumni Arts & Culture Award for inspiring change in the industry.
sabrinamahfouz.com, @SabrinaMahfouz
Sabrina Mahfouz is presented in partnership with British Council & Festival America.


British Columbia
Eden Robinson is a Haisla/Heiltsuk author who grew up in Haisla, British Columbia. Monkey Beach, her first novel, was shortlisted for both the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction in 2000 and won the BC Book Prize’s Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Her novel, Son of a Trickster, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her latest work is Trickster Drift.
Ontario
Vivek Shraya is an artist whose body of work includes several albums, films and books. Her first book of poetry, even this page is white, won a 2017 Publisher Triangle Award and was longlisted for CBC’s Canada Reads. A four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, she has received honours from the Toronto Arts Foundation and The Writers’ Trust of Canada. She is the founder of the publishing imprint VS. Books and an Assistant Professor at University of Calgary.
vivekshraya.com, @vivekshraya