Vancouver Writers Fest

2024 Digital Festival
2024-12-16 - 2025-01-31 | Digital (YouTube)
Presented in partnership with Libro.fm and Peliplat, and with the generous support of Hotfusion Communications Inc.

Our flagship Festival filled our stages and our minds with brilliant conversation, countless moments of connection and inspiration, and the exceptional works of authors from across Canada and the world. Now, experience it again—or for the very first time—with the Digital Festival: a curated selection of 26 events representing some of the most outstanding offerings from our 2024 Festival, each professionally-recorded. Watch on-demand from December 16 through January 31.

Give the gift of literature! Enjoyable over the winter holidays and beyond, the Digital Festival makes a truly exceptional gift for your favourite book lover. Print this festive gift certificate if you’d like to give your recipient something that can be slipped in a card or stocking.

Buy a pass, get a free audiobook! You’ll receive a free audiobook credit from our friends at Libro.fm when you purchase a Digital Festival pass at the full-access price ($100). Your credit can be used for an audiobook of your choice from their catalog of 500,000+ audiobooks. Credits will be e-mailed once the Digital Festival ends.
Purchase the level of access you plan to enjoy. As the Digital Festival features 26 events (with in-person tickets averaging $27), we value the Digital Festival’s full-access pass at $100. We invite you to consider how much you’ll watch, as well as your ability to support this investment in accessible programming, when selecting a payment option. If the options provided present a barrier to you, please reach out to us at info@writersfest.bc.ca.
26 fully-captioned, full-length events from the 2024 Festival are included in this all-access pass:

(Click on an event title to read the full description from our October Festival program.)
01. Elizabeth Renzetti in Conversation with Charmaine de Silva
02. Rachel Kushner in Conversation with Alix Ohlin
03. Dionne Brand in Conversation with Kimberly Bain
04. The Mystery QueensFeaturing Ann Cleeves, Beverley McLachlin, & Nita Prose with moderator Alison Broddle
05. Jane Urquhart in Conversation with Marsha Lederman
06. Ecosystems for ChangeFeaturing Diana Beresford-Kroeger, & Dr. Jennifer Grenz, with moderator Sarah Cox
07. What I’ve Done For WritingFeaturing Heather O’Neill, Brandon Taylor, & Jenny Heijun Wills with moderator Kim Thúy
08. The Poetry BashFeaturing Stephen Collis, Jess Housty, Evelyn Lau, Michael Turner, shō yamagushiku, Daniel Zomparelli, & Zehra Naqvi, with host Aislinn Hunter
09. Listening in the Age of RageFeaturing Ian Williams & Carol Off with moderator Kathryn Gretsinger
10. On TranslationFeaturing George McWhirter, Michelle Winters, & Yilin Wang with moderator Bill Richardson
11. The ConversationsFeaturing Myriam J. A. Chancy, Anne Enright, & Jón Kalman Stefánsson with moderator Aislinn Hunter
12. Science and FictionFeaturing Richard Powers & James Bradley, with moderator Claudia Casper
13. The Knowing, with Tanya TalagaModerated by Candis Callison
14. Highway to the Danger Zone: Lyrics NightFeaturing Rajinderpal S. Pal, Nick Cutter, Kate Black, Andrea Warner, Elliott Gish, Jenny Heijun Wills, Drew Hayden Taylor, Kirsten McDougall, Robert J. Wiersema, Canisia Lubrin, & Roddy Doyle, with host Elamin Abdelmahmoud and DJ Ice B
15. Anne Michaels in Conversation with Minelle Mahtani
16. Nathan Thrall in Conversation with Carol Off
17. Roddy Doyle in Conversation with Jerry Wasserman
18. Rebuilding Pillars of SocietyFeaturing Gregor Craigie & Jane Philpott, with moderator André Picard
19. On Grief and Trauma: Personal and Global Featuring Dr. Gabor Maté & Raja G. Khouri, with moderator Elamin Abdelmahmoud
20. The Literary CabaretFeaturing Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright, Richard Powers, Jón Kalman Stefánsson, Brandon Taylor, & Ayelet Tsabari, with music by Benjamin Millman and the Oxymorons
21. Drawing Out Family HistoriesFeaturing Tessa Hulls, Teresa Wong, & Sarah Leavitt with moderator Emily Chou
22. Fright NightFeaturing Nick Cutter & Marcus Kliewer, with moderator Robert J. Wiersema
23. On MatriarchsFeaturing Sadiya Ansari, Tessa Hulls & Minelle Mahtani, with moderator Anna Ling Kaye
24. Chiller ThrillersFeaturing Emiko Jean, Roz Nay, & Drew Hayden Taylor, with moderator Robert J. Wiersema
25. Art Speaks: Dana Claxton and Dorothy GrantFeaturing Dana Claxton & Dorothy Grant, with moderator Damara Jacobs-Petersen
26. On Freedom: Timothy Snyder with The Current’s Matt Galloway

Incite: BC and Yukon Book Prizes
2024-05-29
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and BC and Yukon Book Prizes.

We’re closing out this season of Incite with one of our favourite events: an evening of celebrating the finalists of the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. Joining us on-stage are three lauded local authors, each nominated in a different category of this year’s awards:

Henry Tsang, nominated for the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award for White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver
Samantha Nock, nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize for A Family of Dreamers
Brandon Reid, nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for Beautiful Beautiful

White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver is a thought-provoking collection of essays and photographs that documents the anti-Asian riots of 1907 in the context of contemporary anti-Asian sentiment. Samantha Nock redefines where and what “home” is in her debut poetry collection. And Beautiful Beautiful is a coming-of-age story exploring indigeneity, masculinity, and cultural tradition.
The authors discuss their shortlisted titles, and the importance of place in each of their works, with Megan Cole, the Prize’s Director of Programming and Communications. Their insightful conversation is rounded out by readings and an audience Q+A.

Incite: Unforgettable Short Stories
2024-05-15
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.

Short stories pack infinite ideas, questions, character explorations, and worlds into deceptively slim packages. Discover some of the season’s best in new short fiction at this Incite event featuring three intriguing releases. Our award-winning guests speak with VWF Artistic Director Leslie Hurtig.
Vincent Anioke’s stunning debut story collection offers a nuanced exploration of masculinity, religion, marginalization, repressed (queer) desires, and self-expression through the lens of (un)conditional love. Set largely in Nigeria, the stories in Perfect Little Angels capture the shocking violence and confrontational drama in the power dynamics—between headmasters and students, brothers and sisters, mothers and sons—that shape our lives.
Floods and wildfires, toxic culture, billionaires in outer space, or a purse-related disaster while on mushrooms—in today’s hellscape world, there’s no shortage of things to worry about. Last Woman, the new collection of short fiction by Carleigh Baker, wants you to know that you’re not alone. With sharp wit, these stories delve into fear for the future, intergenerational misunderstandings, and the complexities of belonging.
Death by a Thousand Cuts from Shashi Bhat is a breathtaking, sharply funny collection about the everyday trials and impossible expectations that come with being a woman. A writer discovers that her ex has published a novel about their breakup. An immunocompromised woman falls in love, only to have her body betray her. And when a woman begins to lose her hair, she embarks on an increasingly nightmarish search for answers.

Incite: A Reading with Michael Ondaatje – A Year of Last Things
2024-04-24
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.

With A Year of Last Things, acclaimed novelist Michael Ondaatje returns to poetry, where he began his career over fifty years ago. It also marks his first return to the Vancouver Writers Fest since 2018. We are thrilled to connect the Booker Prize-winning author with Vancouver readers at this free Incite event.
Born in Sri Lanka during the Second World War, Ondaatje was sent as a child to school in London, and later moved to Canada. These poems reflect the life of a writer, traveller and watcher of the world—describing himself as a “mongrel,” someone born out of diverse cultures. Here, rediscovering the influence of every border crossed, he moves back and forth in time, looking back on a life of displacement and discovery, love and loss.
A Year of Last Things has already been named “Ondaatje’s finest.” (Quill & Quire) Hear mesmerizing readings from this new work, and a contemplative conversation between the celebrated Canadian author and his dear friend Jenny Penberthy, a renowned scholar in the field of modern poetry and poetics.

Incite: All About Love
2024-04-17
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.

This Incite event is all about love—romantic, familial, tender, fierce, gut-wrenching, and wondrous love. Three LGBTQ+ authors join us on-stage to discuss their highly anticipated novels, which boldly explore love in all its expressions.
In Christina Cooke’s searing debut novel, Broughtupsy, Akúa returns home to Jamaica for the first time in ten years and is forced to confront the difficult reality of being gay in a deeply religious family, and of what it means to feel at home.
Anne Fleming’s Curiosities is a genre- and gender-bending historical novel with a modern twist. We follow a present-day amateur historian, Anne, as she pieces together seventeenth-century manuscripts that tell conflicting stories about two lovers, living in a time when there were no labels for who they might truly be.
What if you had the chance to rewrite the course of your relationship, again and again, in the hopes that it would work out? Myriam Lacroix’s How It Works Out explores just this, as a queer love story plays out in many alternate realities to paint a darkly comic portrait of love’s many promises and perils.
Join us for a vivacious conversation, as the authors sit down to discuss their books with author Candie Tanaka.

Incite: Cozy Mystery with Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti
2024-03-20
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.

Looking for a murder mystery to spark that warm, fuzzy feeling inside? Featuring amateur detectives, fascinating supporting casts, and a focus on solving clues over violence and gloom, cozy mysteries have taken the publishing world by storm. Hear from some of the best in the genre at this Incite event with Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti, authors of Bury the Lead.
Bury the Lead follows Cat Conway, a big-city journalist who’s recently fled her high-profile career to join the staff of a paper in cottage country. One of her first assignments is to interview legendary actor Eliot Fraser. When Eliot ends up dead onstage on the theatre’s opening night, the curtain rises on the sleepy town’s secrets. Can Cat solve the mystery before she loses her job or becomes the next victim of a killer with a theatrical bent for vengeance?
For fans of Louise Penny, Agatha Christie, and Only Murders in the Building, this intimate event is not to be missed. Both bestselling and acclaimed authors for their previous works, Hilton and Renzetti speak with Globe and Mail journalist and author André Picard.

Incite: Divine Debut Fiction
2024-03-06
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.

Debut novelists Lily Wang and Scott Alexander Howard unveil moving works of literary fiction that will enchant readers with exquisite prose, and a touch of the otherworldly. Explore threads of memory, longing, loss, and the surreal at this Incite event.
Lily Wang’s Silver Repetition tenderly illuminates the fullness of identity despite fractures in language, culture, and relationships. Having left China for Canada with her parents as a child, Yuè Yuè yearns to discover who she is as she nears the end of her degree and starts a new relationship. In urgent poetic fragments, she seeks common ground with her Canadian-born younger sister and grieves the cousin she lost touch with back home.
For fans of Emily St. John Mandel, David Mitchell, and Kazuo Ishiguro, The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard is a literary speculative novel set in an unnamed valley, where bereaved residents can petition to cross a forbidden border to see their lost loved ones again. This masterful modern fable has been called “unforgettable” (Kevin Chong) and “astonishingly brilliant” (Liz Nugent).
Our guests speak with Tara McGuire, author of the moving memoir Holden After & Before.

Incite: Sheila Heti in Conversation
2024-02-21
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.

Literary innovator Sheila Heti—known for experimental and philosophical books such as Motherhood, Pure Colour, and How Should a Person Be?—returns to Incite with what might be her most intimate work yet. Discover ten years of her diaries, curiously rearranged in Alphabetical Diaries.
The New York Times called reading Alphabetical Diaries “a profound experience.” Experience it for yourself at this insightful conversation between Heti and author Molly Cross-Blanchard.

Incite: CBC’s Canada Reads – Téa Mutonji and Kudakwashe Rutendo
2024-02-07
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and CBC’s Canada Reads.

Canada Reads is back! The annual battle of the books is a lively debate between five champions, who each defend one book as the title the whole country should read this year. Celebrate this year’s contenders at Incite, where finalist Téa Mutonji sat down with her champion, actor and TIFF Rising Star Kudakwashe Rutendo.
In Shut Up You’re Pretty, Mutonji’s disarming debut story collection, a woman contemplates her Congolese traditions during a family wedding; a teenage girl looks for happiness inside a pack of cigarettes; a mother reconnects with her daughter through their shared interest in fish; and a young woman decides to shave her head in the waiting room of an abortion clinic. On CBC Radio’s Commotion, Rutendo commented: “At once feminist, unapologetic and potent, Shut Up You’re Pretty presents the opportunity to reconcile what we’ve been carrying at a time when it couldn’t be more needed.”

Incite: Deb Perelman in Conversation
2024-01-31
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
Get inspired in the kitchen with Deb Perelman, a self-taught home cook and the force behind SmittenKitchen.com. An international sensation among home cooks, Perelman has authored three New York Times bestselling cookbooks, most recently Smitten Kitchen Keepers, and has amassed over 2.7 million followers worldwide for her comforting, accessible recipes. For our very first Incite of the season, Perelman shares ‘seasoned’ insights from the kitchen and her career. We know you’ll be smitten. In conversation with Bronwen Tate.

2023 Digital Festival Release
2023-12-15 - 2024-01-31
The deadline to purchase a Digital Festival Pass is midnight on Wednesday, January 24.
Presented in partnership with SFU Continuing Studies.
Our flagship Festival this October brought together award-winning and emerging writers, along with record numbers of audience members, for an exhilarating week of celebrating books through conversations that were entertaining, thought-provoking, and galvanizing. We’re excited to now share a curated selection of 25 recorded events in this Digital Festival Release. Featuring a wide range of genres and formats, these events represent some of the most outstanding offerings from our 2023 Festival. Watch and rewatch them from wherever you are, from December 15 through January 31.
We hope these events, many of which were previously sold out prior to Festival Week, will reach people far and wide. We’ve allocated significant resources toward recording high quality videos of our events as part of our ongoing commitment to accessibility for our community. For those unable to attend in person (or who couldn’t be in two places at once!), we’re proud to provide this online offering.
The Digital Festival pass is available as pay-what-you-can. Featuring 25 events (the average cost to attend each in-person being $25), we value the Digital Festival pass at $100. We invite you to consider how much you’ll watch, as well as your ability to support our investment in accessibility efforts, when selecting a payment option. If the options provided present a barrier to you, please reach out to us at info@writersfest.bc.ca.

25 fully-captioned, full-length events from the 2023 Festival are included in this all-access pass:

(Click on an event title to read the full description from our October Festival program.)
#01. The Alma Lee Opening Night Event: Page-Turning Thrills featuring Louise Candlish, Shari Lapena, Liz Nugent, with moderator André Picard
#02. Roaming featuring Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki, with moderator Sarah Leavitt
#03. Inheriting Truth featuring Janika Oza, katherena vermette, Ada Zhang, with moderator Elamin Abdelmahmoud
#04. Word! featuring fanny kearse, Em Nimetz, D Fretter, with host Jillian Christmas
#05. Bestselling Teen Fiction for a Reasonfeaturing Cherie Dimaline and Jen Ferguson, with moderator Molly Cross-Blanchard
#06. The Company We Keep featuring Patrick DeWitt, Catherine Hernandez, Sean Michaels, with moderator Robert J. Wiersema
#07. She’s A Scream featuring Ashley Audrain, Mona Awad, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, with moderator Jael Richardson
#08. Blackness as a Portal, Blackness as the Frame featuring Suzette Mayr, Christina Sharpe, Aisha Harris, with moderator Jasmine Sealy
#09. Anne Berest in Conversation with Marsha Lederman
#10. Season of the Witch featuring Cherie Dimaline, Anna Maxymiw, Zalika Reid-Benta, with moderator Elamin Abdelmahmoud
#11. Celeste Ng in Conversation with Jael Richardson
#12. Smells Like… 90s Lyrics Night featuring Omar El Akkad, Chelsea Wakelyn, John Freeman, Jen Sookfong Lee, Kevin Chong, Mona Awad, Aisha Harris, Emma Healey, Sean Michaels, Michael V. Smith, Claudia Dey, Sam Shelstad, William Ping, with host Elamin Abdelmahmoud
#13. The Best of History featuring Emma Donoghue, Paul Harding, Janika Oza, Kai Thomas, with moderator Aislinn Hunter
#14. Book Banning in a Precarious Age featuring Aden Polydoros, Jen Ferguson, and Casey Plett, with moderator Marsha Lederman
#15. Lauren Groff in Conversation with Alix Ohlin
#16. Landbridge in tribute to Y-Dang Troeung — featuring Dionne Brand, David Chariandy, Madeleine Thien, Christopher B. Patterson, with moderator Doretta Lau
#17. Rebecca Solnit in Conversation with Kathryn Gretsinger
#18. Chinatown: Past and Future featuring Daniel Innes, Christina Wong, Fae Myenne Ng, Henry Tsang, with moderator Kevin Chong
#19. Novel Ideas featuring Michael Crummey, Emma Donoghue, Elizabeth Hay, with moderator Marsha Lederman
#20. Michelle Good in Conversation with Carleigh Baker
#21. Poets on Family and Time featuring Lorna Crozier and Susan Musgrave, with moderator Hal Wake
#22. The Literary Cabaret featuring Patrick deWitt, Jenny Erpenbeck, Elaine Feeney, Paul Harding, Kai Thomas, Tania James, with musical accompaniment by Benjamin Millman and the Oxymorons
#23. The Conversations: Jenny Erpenbeck, Elaine Feeney with moderator Marsha Lederman
#24. Pictures on the Wall: The Power of Art featuring Jeannie Marshall, Max Wyman, Michael Audain, with moderator Sirish Rao
#25. Not Too Late: The Climate Conversation featuring Rebecca Solnit, Chris Turner, John Vaillant, with moderator Matt Galloway

Incite: Fire Weather – John Vaillant
2023-05-31
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
The 2023 Incite season finale is sure to be one of our most riveting, incandescent events yet. John Vaillant, author of the nationally bestselling non-fiction titles The Golden Spruce and The Tiger, joins us with his latest work—a stunning account of a colossal wildfire, and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind. He’ll speak with award-winning journalist Laura Lynch, host of CBC’s What On Earth.
Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast takes us on a riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America’s oil industry and the birth of climate science. In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s petroleum industry and America’s biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.
Join us for an urgent and necessary conversation about our new century of fire, which has only just begun.

Incite: Love, Lives – An Evening with Casey Plett and Hazel Jane Plante
2023-05-17
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
Join us at Incite for a lively celebration of the re-issue of A Safe Girl to Love by Casey Plett, and the release of Any Other City by Hazel Jane Plante. The two Lambda Literary Award-winning authors will be in conversation with C.A. Tanaka, author of Baby Drag Queen.
Multi-award-winning author Casey Plett made her literary debut with the short story collection A Safe Girl to Love. After a long absence, this beloved collection of stories about the lives of young trans women is back in print. Plett, whose books have recurring characters and themes, has come to view A Safe Girl to Love as the first book in a loose trilogy along with her novel Little Fish and her story collection A Dream of a Woman.
Any Other City is the much-anticipated novel from Hazel Jane Plante, whose debut novel Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) won a Lambda Literary Award in 2019. The novel is written as the fictionalized memoir of trans indie musician Tracy St. Cyr and “sparkles with heart and sex, art and life”—Michelle Tea. This is a love letter to trans femmes and to art itself.
Discover two of the most sought-after young writers in Canada, at the Vancouver stop of their popular North American tour.

Incite: BC and Yukon Book Prizes
2023-05-03
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and BC and Yukon Book Prizes.
We partnered with the BC and Yukon Book Prizes for an evening of celebrating our dazzling local literary talent. This free Incite event honours three of the shortlisted authors of the 2023 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, awarded to the best work of literary fiction by a BC writer.
The event features:

Billy-Ray Belcourt, Griffin Poetry Prize-winning author from the Driftpile Cree Nation, nominated for A Minor Chorus
Marion Ehrenberg, psychologist, professor, and writer, nominated for The Language of Dreams
Danny Ramadan, Syrian-Canadian author and advocate for LGBTQ+ refugees, nominated for The Foghorn Echoes

The authors discuss their shortlisted titles, then have a rousing conversation about the writing process with Vancouver Writers Fest Artistic Director Leslie Hurtig.
Other nominees for this year’s award, who were unfortunately unable to join us this evening, are Tsering Yangzom Lama and Janice Lynn Mather.
Books will be for sale before and after the event courtesy of Book Warehouse, a division of Black Bond Books.
Join us for Incite all season, in-person or online! This readings series offers conversations with celebrated authors and emerging talents every two weeks from January to June. Incite is free and open to all.

Incite: Poetry for This World
2023-04-05
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
Though T.S. Eliot called April the “cruelest month”, at least we have the indomitable power of poetry to carry us through. Celebrate National Poetry Month with readings and musings from poets whose new collections will provoke, console, and reveal other ways of seeing.
Trinity Street is the much-anticipated fifth collection from poet Jen Currin, winner of the Audre Lorde Award and a Lambda finalist. Weaving together the meditative and the disruptive, the queer and quotidian, and the worlds of the dead and the living, Currin’s poems vibrate with unexpected shifts and precise, startling imagery.
Métis Ukrainian, ReLit Award-winning writer Conor Kerr’s sharp and incisive poems move restlessly across landscapes and time. Old Gods defies colonialism on the Prairies, situating readers in the Métis mindset: the old gods of the land are alive within the rivers, the birds, the hills and the prairies that surround us, and they’ll always be here.
Sheryda Warrener is the author of two previous collections, and a recipient of The Puritan‘s Thomas Morton Memorial Prize for poetry. The poems in Test Piece began from her impulse to see herself more clearly, and grew into more expansive meditations on seeing and vision. These poems are informed by collage—with their echoes and reverberations, a greater complexity is revealed.
They’re joined by host Bronwen Tate—author of the poetry collection The Silk the Moths Ignore, and professor and Undergraduate Chair at the School of Creative Writing at UBC—for a thoughtful conversation about the power of poetry to challenge and help explain the world we live in.
Join us for Incite all season, in-person or online! This readings series offers conversations with celebrated authors and emerging talents every two weeks from January to June. Incite is free and open to all. Books will be for sale before and after the event courtesy of Book Warehouse, a division of Black Bond Books.

Incite: On the Ravine: Vincent Lam
2023-03-22
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
Giller Prize-winning author Dr. Vincent Lam joins our distinguished 2023 Incite lineup with a novel that casts an insightful, urgent, and intimate eye upon the devastating experience of addiction.
In his practice as an emergency physician and addictions physician, as well as the medical director of Coderix Medical Clinic, an addictions medicine clinic based in downtown Toronto, Dr. Lam is a first-hand witness to the staggering impact of opioid addictions—an epidemic that claimed the lives of over 11,500 Canadians between January 2016 and December 2018[1]. On the Ravine combines the depth of his experience with his literary talent to create a gripping novel of profound emotional force, electric in its precision and radiant in its detail, where the paths of a doctor and patient intersect in complex, life-altering ways.
Hear Lam in conversation with physician Daniel Kalla, the internationally bestselling author of novels such as The Darkness in the Light, Lost Immunity, and the forthcoming book Fit to Die.
Join us for Incite all season, in-person or online! This readings series offers conversations with celebrated authors and emerging talents every two weeks from January to June. Incite is free and open to all. Books will be for sale before and after the event courtesy of Book Warehouse, a division of Black Bond Books.

Incite: Women Forging Trails
2023-03-08
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
On International Women’s Day, March 8, we shared the gritty, inspiring stories of two women who blazed their own paths in two very different industries, both traditionally dominated by men.
As a whitewater guide navigating some of the most challenging and remote rafting rivers in North America, Tamar Glouberman takes us on a thrilling, vulnerable journey in her memoir, Chasing Rivers: A Whitewater Life. Traversing the highs and lows of the rapids, this is a story that “expertly tackles themes of sexism, mental health, and what it means to trust in yourself in a world that rocks that boat.” (Kelly S. Thompson, author of Girls Need Not Apply)
Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister In The Brotherhood is a deep dive into the secret language and hidden culture of one of the most esoteric heavy construction trades—Boilermaking—from Hilary Peach, who worked for over two decades as one of the only women in the Boilermakers Union. By turns tender and hilarious, Peach’s style shines “as brightly as a welder’s torch, seaming disparate pieces of the universe together.” (The British Columbia Review)
They’re joined on-stage by Charmaine de Silva, News Director of CityNews Vancouver and Calgary. A three-time National RTDNA award-winner and one of Vanmag’s 50 most powerful people in Vancouver in 2023, she brings her own perspective as the leader of an innovative and diverse newsroom.
Join us for Incite all season, in-person or online! This readings series offers conversations with celebrated authors and emerging talents every two weeks from January to June. Incite is free and open to all. Books will be for sale before and after the event courtesy of Book Warehouse, a division of Black Bond Books.

Incite: VenCo: Cherie Dimaline
2023-02-22
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and Massy Books.
Our third Incite event features Festival favourite Cherie Dimaline, whose book The Marrow Thieves has garnered multiple awards and maintained an astonishingly frequent presence on the Canadian bestseller’s list for the past five years. Her latest novel for adults invites readers on an enchanting, treacherous road trip adventure that will “bring magic back into your life” (Eden Robinson).
VenCo is a wickedly subversive, deliciously imaginative, deeply feminist novel of contemporary witches on the rise. When Métis millennial Lucky St. James finds a spoon in her basement inscribed with the letters S-A-L-E-M, she joins a network of extraordinary women across North America who are searching desperately for the final spoon—and the unknown witch who holds it. The Kirkus Prize and Governor General’s Literary Award winning author joins author and academic Billy-Ray Belcourt (A History of My Brief Body, A Minor Chorus) to discuss her spellbinding new book, and her prolific and varied writing life. Books for sale by Massy Books.
Join us for Incite all season, in-person or online! This readings series offers conversations with celebrated authors and emerging talents every two weeks from January to June. Incite is free and open to all.

Incite: Superfan: Jen Sookfong Lee
2023-02-08
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
Music. Movies. Celebrity crushes. Pop culture permeates all levels of our lives, from the entertainment we consume (or abhor) to the memes we make and share with friends. Jen Sookfong Lee has been at the centre of this commentary for years, as author, lifestyle commentator, podcaster, and now memoirist of Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart, a searing, revelatory, and intimate collection exploring the ways in which pop culture has shaped—and unshaped—Lee throughout her life.
Joined by longtime Festival friend and Globe and Mail columnist Marsha Lederman, this special Incite event celebrates Lee’s debut memoir-in-pieces, and explore all the ways in which pop culture intersects with the reality of so many, how our collective obsessions make and break us, and why our fascinations persist in spite of it all.
Join us for Incite all season, in-person or online! This readings series offers conversations with celebrated authors and emerging talents every two weeks from January to June. Incite is free and open to all. Books will be for sale courtesy of Book Warehouse (a division of Black Bond Books).

Incite: Dazzling Debuts
2023-01-25
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
The 2023 Incite season premieres with a powerful duo of debut novelists already making review headlines. Journey Prize-winner Jessica Johns’ Bad Cree has made waves among critics and contemporaries alike, with Eden Robinson calling the work and its characters “wry, moody, and subversive” and Cherie Dimaline noting that once the story starts, “there’s no backing out, no pause, no stall.” Some Hellish, by Nicholas Herring, is the winner of the 2022 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, noted for Herring’s “passion for the language of work, […] droll and philosophical, ribald and poetic.” Both join esteemed Festival friend and Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize-finalist Carleigh Baker for an evening of literary magic with two acclaimed, propulsive debuts.
Join us for Incite all season, in-person or online! This readings series offers conversations with celebrated authors and emerging talents every two weeks from January to June. Incite is free and open to all. Books will be for sale courtesy of Book Warehouse (a division of Black Bond Books).

Digital Festival Release
2022-12-06 - 2023-01-20
For the first time ever, gain access to a mastercut of the Vancouver Writers Fest’s October Festival!
New extended dates: Access the Digital Festival from December 6 to January 20!
The deadline to purchase a Digital Festival Pass is midnight on Friday, January 13.
This October, we gathered on Granville Island for the 35th Anniversary Festival. We were overwhelmed by the response to our first fully in-person Festival after three years. The warmth of the audiences and the powerful conversations that took place on our stages were captured on camera so that we could share the magic of this week with as many people as possible. The result is this Digital Festival Release: 30 specially curated events, many previously sold out, representing some of the most intriguing, edifying, and fun offerings from our 2022 Festival, available online from December 6 through January 20.
We hope these events will reach people far and wide—and also solve the eternal problem of not being able to be in two places at once during Festival Week.
Please enjoy these exceptional books, ideas, and dialogue!
Pay-What-You-Can for this all-access pass: $0 – $20 – $100 [recommended] – $250
We offer Pay-What-You-Can options for the Digital Festival so that these exceptional conversations can be available to everyone. If you don’t see the amount you’d like to pay listed as an option, please consider adding a donation at checkout, to help us continue to make our programming accessible.
While the deadline has passed to purchase a Digital Festival Gift Pass that comes with a festive gift certificate, you can still purchase a regular Digital Festival Pass as a gift, and send your recipient the access code that you receive in your purchase receipt email.

The Digital Festival is presented thanks to the generous support of the Y.P. Heung Foundation.

30 fully-captioned events from the 2022 Festival are included in this all-access, pay-what-you-can pass:
#01: Educating with the Witness Blanket (High School)
featuring Carey Newman and Kirstie Hudson
#02: Sisters in Resistance
Tilar J. Mazzeo in Conversation with Marsha Lederman
#03: What Home Means
featuring Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Omar El Akkad, Dimitri Nasrallah, and Debra Thompson
#04: Ali Hassan in Conversation with Brent Butt
#05: Friendship and Fitting In (Grades 4–7)
featuring Johnnie Christmas, Faith Erin Hicks, and Jonathan Hill
#06: An Evening with Wayne Johnston
hosted by Rob Wiersema
#07: Freeman’s Spotlight
featuring Tess Gunty and John Freeman
#08: Fabulous Historical Fantasy
featuring Guy Gavriel Kay, J.M. Miro (Steven Price), and Rob Wiersema
#09: An Evening with Billy-Ray Belcourt
hosted by Mercedes Eng
#10: Short Story Masters
featuring Caroline Adderson, Jonathan Escoffery, Kim Fu, and Alexander MacLeod
#11: The Power of Story: Live Recording for CBC’s The Next Chapter
featuring Brian Thomas Isaac, Marsha Lederman, David A. Robertson, and Shelagh Rogers
#12: Fiction from Reality
featuring Violaine Huisman, Aislinn Hunter, Gabriel Krauze, and Douglas Stuart
#13: Don’t You Want Me, Baby?: Authors Do 80s Lyrics
featuring Heather O’Neill, Omar El Akkad, João Reis, Brendan McLeod, Kevin Sylvester, Marsha Lederman, Iain Reid, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Kern Carter, David A. Robertson, and Tess Gunty; hosted by Elamin Abdelmahmoud
#14: A Gallant Day: The Great Coincidence of August 11
featuring Aamina Ahmad, Ivan Coyote, Veda Hille, Bill Richardson, and Marcus Youssef
#15: The Truth Ain’t What It Used To Be: Journalism in the 21st Century
featuring Kamal Al-Solaylee, Omar El Akkad, Brandi Morin, Elizabeth Renzetti, and Andrea Woo
#16: Generational Fiction: Stories of Lineage, History and Things Passed Down
featuring Aamina Ahmad, Tsering Yangzom Lama, Marsha Lederman, and Jasmine Sealy
#17: Douglas Stuart in Conversation with Eddy Boudel Tan
#18: Poems for the Twelfth Hour
featuring Otoniya Okot Bitek, John Freeman, Aislinn Hunter, Gillian Jerome, Brendan McLeod, and Cecily Nicholson
#19: An Evening with Heather O’Neill
hosted by Jen Sookfong Lee
#20: Queer Little Nightmares
featuring jaye simpson, Amber Dawn, Eddy Boudel Tan, Tin Lorica, Ben Rawluk, Jane Shi, Cicely Belle Blain, and beni xiao, with a drag performance by Persephone. Hosted by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli.
#21: Bestseller to Blockbuster
featuring Marsha Lederman, Tom Perrotta, and Iain Reid
#22: Wildness: Stories for an Unraveling World
featuring Madhur Anand, Omar El Akkad, Kim Fu, and John Elizabeth Stintzi
#23: Building Suspense
featuring Linwood Barclay, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Jerry Wasserman, and Sandra SG Wong
#24: The State of Women
featuring Eliza Reid and Elizabeth Renzetti
#25: American Debuts: Emerging Authors, Exceptional Tales
featuring Aamina Ahmad, Jonathan Escoffery, Shaena Lambert, and Soon Wiley
#26: An Evening with Elif Batuman
hosted by Anakana Schofield
#27: The Literary Cabaret
featuring Graeme Macrae Burnet, Pierre Jarawan, Gabriel Krauze, Nadifa Mohamed, and Heather O’Neill; music accompaniment by Sally Zori and the Allegories
#28: The Crime [Writing] of the Century:
Linwood Barclay and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir in Conversation, hosted by Rob Wiersema
#29: The Future is Now, with Bob McDonald
#30: Dr. Gabor Maté in Conversation
hosted by Andrea Woo

Incite: Kiss the Red Stairs with Marsha Lederman
2022-05-04
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
In a powerful and intimate Incite event, long-time Festival friend, moderator, and award-winning journalist Marsha Lederman returns to our in-person stages for the launch of her stunning memoir on intergenerational trauma, monumental change, and survival. Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust, Once Removed explores the impact of a generation’s anguish on her family, beginning when Lederman was only five years old, and asked her mother why she didn’t have any grandparents.
In conversation with Kathryn Gretsinger, another beloved moderator of the Festival, this heart-to-heart explores the rippling effect of Lederman’s family history throughout her own life, including being a mother to a young son, experiencing a difficult divorce, and an ever-present need to explore and understand the stories and experiences of those that have gone before.

Incite: Creativity and Motherhood
2022-04-20 19:00 (America/Vancouver)
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
At a time when the challenges of parenthood have only increased, and “work/life” balance feels increasingly complex in the midst of the pandemic, we’re delving into the often-underexplored topic of creativity and parenthood.
Join author and co-editor Jen Sookfong Lee, along with co-editor Stacey May Fowles and contributors Jónína Kirton and Kellee Ngan from Good Mom on Paper: Writers on Creativity (Book*hug Press) in an event that promises solace, celebration and humour.
With further contributions by Heather O’Neill, Lee Maracle, Jael Richardson, Jennifer Whiteford, Rachel Giese and Teresa Wong—amongst others—this anthology goes beyond the clichés to share the often-invisible challenges of a literary life with little ones and to celebrate the systems that nurture writers who are mothers.
Let’s talk about two of the fundamental joys, and challenges, of life.
From the publisher: Good Mom on Paper is a collection of twenty essays that explore the fraught, beautiful, and complicated relationship between motherhood and creativity. These texts disclose the often-invisible challenges of a literary life with little ones: the manuscript written with a baby sleeping in a carrier, missing a book launch for a bedtime, crafting a promotional tour around child care. But they also celebrate the systems that nurture writers who are mothers; the successes; the intricate, interconnected joys of these roles. Honest and intimate, critical and hopeful, this collection offers solace and joy to creative mothers and asks how we can better support their work.
Mothers have long been telling each other these vital stories in private. Good Mom on Paper makes them available to everyone who needs them.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up the book at your favourite independent bookseller.
This is an online, live event.

Incite: Transcendent Poetry
2022-04-06 19:00
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
We’re hosting three poets whose collections are just in time for National Poetry Month! Join us for a fascinating evening in conversation with writers at the cutting edge of poetry in Canada.
Internationally-acclaimed and Giller-shortlisted author Shani Mootoo shares with us an anticipated return to poetry. Cane | Fire (Book*hug Press) is deeply personal—akin to a poetic memoir—and shares evocative depictions of moves from Ireland to San Fernando and finally to Canada. We begin to understand how life can not only be shaped, but reimagined.
Each One a Furnace (Penguin Random House), from the GG-winning author Tolu Oloruntoba, trails the global mobility of birds to chronicle the struggle within and between cultures. It is a deeply powerful work that explores how those unable to be at rest in the world may take to improbable flight.
Jason Purcell is known across the country for their exceptional (co-owned) store, Glass Bookshop, in Edmonton. Their debut collection, Swollening (Arsenal Pulp Press) examines the queer, sick body as a reaction to an ill world and asks it how to move on toward hope.
They are joined in conversation by moderator, writer and poet, Shazia Hafiz Ramji.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up these collections at your favourite independent bookseller.
This is an online, live event.

Incite: Short Stories, Big Ideas
2022-03-23 19:00
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
Much like sunny days in Vancouver, short stories never go out of fashion. Come join us for a thrilling night of buzzworthy tales from authors dominating the genre at our next Incite!
Sharing themes of restlessness and fragmented lives, this trio of critically-acclaimed short story collections are beguiling explorations of unexpected bonds and people adrift. Rawi Hage (Stray Dogs, Knopf Canada), Angélique Lalonde (Glorious Frazzled Beings, Groundwood Books), and Christopher Evans (Nothing Could Be Further From The Truth, Groundwood Books) masterfully wield humour and complexity in their “tiny worlds.”
Join us for an incredible conversation with these three powerhouse authors, moderated by Festival friend and Journey Prize-shortlisted author, Anna Ling Kaye.
ABOUT THE BOOKS
Called a “superb collection” by Maclean’s, Stray Dogs is a captivating and cosmopolitan collection of stories from the award-winning author of Beirut Hellfire Society and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award winning novel, De Niro’s Game. As his publisher notes, the stories are “wise, humane, relevant and caustically funny, revealing the singular vision of Hage at his best.”
One of the most discussed books of 2021, Lalonde’s Glorious Frazzled Beings was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was named a CBC Best Book of the Year. “A haunting dream of a book” according to David Chariandy, this is a collection that sings a love song to the homes we make, keep, and break.
The characters in Nothing Could Be Further from the Truth are, as his publisher notes, “people with strays—those who fall for the allure of nostalgia, grapple with male fragility, deny family trauma, and acquiesce to authority.” John Elizabeth Stintzi lauds the collection as “fracturing the mundane to reveal a bedrock of absurdity.”
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up these collections at your favourite independent bookseller.
This is an online, live event.

Incite: Sheila Heti in Conversation with Billy-Ray Belcourt
2022-03-09 19:00
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
Sheila Heti, internationally acclaimed author of the novel Motherhood, a New York Times Best Book of the Year, joins our next Incite event with her tenth book, Pure Colour. This latest work is a contemporary bible, an atlas of feeling, and a shape-shifting epic; Esquire called it one of the Best Books of 2022 to “Provoke, Persuade and Perturb You.” A philosopher of modern experience, Heti has reimagined what a book can hold. On March 9, she’ll share the secrets of Pure Colour with Griffin Poetry Prize-winning author Billy-Ray Belcourt.
Pure Colour is a galaxy of a novel: explosive, celestially bright, huge, and streaked with beauty. The Guardian called it a “mystical, wildly original study of grief and love”, and “a book that says something new for our difficult times.” As Kirkus Reviews put it, this is “that rarest of novels—as alien as a moon rock and every bit as wondrous.” Join us at this live, virtual event to be put under the spell of Heti’s luminous creation myth, which has been included in lists of the most anticipated new books by The Globe and Mail, CBC Books, Publishers Weekly, The A.V. Club, Vulture, and more.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up Pure Colour at your favourite independent bookseller.
This is an online, live event.

Incite: Marlon James in Conversation with Cherie Jones
2022-02-23 19:00
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library and TELUS.
Marlon James’ Black Leopard, Red Wolf was a show-stopping tour de force of literary fantasy, an instant bestseller, and the first book in what has now become a highly-anticipated series, the Dark Star Trilogy. James returns to shelves—and the Vancouver Writers Fest’s virtual stages—with Moon Witch, Spider King, heralded by writers such as Neil Gaiman and Salman Rushdie, and praised by Buzzfeed as “even more brilliant than the first” and “the literary equivalent of a Marvel Comics universe” by The New York Times. This is sure to be one of the most anticipated events of the season. As the Washington Post reports: “Stand aside, Beowulf.”
Joined by Cherie Jones, 2021 Festival guest and the acclaimed, award-winning author of How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House, this spectacular Incite event will explore rich narratives and powerful reimaginings, emotive writing and more, from two of the industry’s most respected visionaries. Submit your questions in advance!
From the publisher: In Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Sogolon the Moon Witch proved a worthy adversary to Tracker as they clashed across a mythical African landscape in search of a mysterious boy who disappeared. In Moon Witch, Spider King, Sogolon takes center stage and gives her own account of what happened to the boy, and how she plotted and fought, triumphed and failed as she looked for him. It’s also the story of a century-long feud—seen through the eyes of a 177-year-old witch—that Sogolon had with the Aesi, chancellor to the king. It is said that Aesi works so closely with the king that together they are like the eight limbs of one spider. Aesi’s power is considerable—and deadly. It takes brains and courage to challenge him, which Sogolon does for reasons of her own.
Both a brilliant narrative device—seeing the story told in Black Leopard, Red Wolf from the perspective of an adversary and a woman—as well as a fascinating battle between different versions of empire, Moon Witch, Spider King delves into Sogolon’s world as she fights to tell her own story. Part adventure tale, part chronicle of an indomitable woman who bows to no man, it is a fascinating novel that explores power, personality, and the places where they overlap.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up Moon Witch, Spider King at your favourite independent bookseller.
This is an online, pre-recorded event.

INCITE: Hot Bestsellers with Nita Prose and Jessamine Chan
2022-02-09 19:00
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
Get ready for some of the most talked about books of the season! Our second Incite event features two new instant bestsellers: Nita Prose delivers a Clue-like, locked-room mystery in her debut novel The Maid, and Jessamine Chan’s The School for Good Mothers follows a young mother who lands in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance. They’ll speak with Ashley Audrain, internationally bestselling author of The Push, in a livestream event on February 9 at 7pm PT.
The Maid follows twenty-five-year-old Molly Gray, who struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others, but delights in her work as a hotel maid. Molly’s orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find him dead in his bed. Molly’s unusual demeanour has the police targeting her as their lead suspect, while friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black. But will they be able to find the real killer before it’s too late?
Named one of the most anticipated books of the year by Glamour, W magazine, PopSugar, The Rumpus, Book Riot, The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, and Canadian Living, The Maid is a heartwarming debut, which reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.
The School for Good Mothers is a taut and explosive page-turner that has been called “horrifyingly unbelievable and eerily prescient all at once” (Vogue) and “impossible to put down and impossible to forget” (Library Journal).
Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.
Until Frida has a very bad day. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Jessamine Chan’s debut is a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love.
This conversation is sure to be just as riveting as the authors’ page-turning novels. RSVP now!
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to purchase the books at your favourite independent bookseller, or use our Festival Bookstore partner, kidsbooks.
This is an online, live event.

INCITE: Damon Galgut in Conversation with John Freeman
2022-01-26 19:00
Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.
The new year has come, and with it, a dazzling new season of Incite! Kick off the 2022 season with Damon Galgut, in celebration of his 2021 Booker Prize win for his novel, The Promise, in conversation with beloved Festival moderator and editor, John Freeman.
In an exclusive pre-recorded event streamed from dual locations in South Africa and the UK, Galgut will share insights from both the process and pages of his recent tour de force, set in the town of his birth. Raved about in media, including The Guardian, Harper’s Magazine and The New York Times (Editor’s Choice), The Promise is an incisory, kaleidoscopic look at grief and guilt during a white family’s decline amidst South Africa’s transition out of apartheid—and the deterred promise the family has failed to keep for one of their servants.
This won’t be an event to miss! RSVP early.
From the publisher: Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life’s unfulfilled potential; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt.
Reunited by four funerals over three decades, the dwindling family reflects the atmosphere of its country—one of resentment, renewal, and, ultimately, hope. The Promise is an epic drama that unfurls against the unrelenting march of national history, sure to please current fans and attract many new ones.
Incite events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required. We encourage you to pick up The Promise at your favourite independent bookseller, or use our Festival Bookstore partner, kidsbooks.
This is an online, pre-recorded event.

The Human Connection: With Hiromi Goto and Will McPhail
2021-11-10 18:00
Update: We’re pleased to announce that this event has been rescheduled for Wednesday, November 10, at 6 pm PT. The event will be prerecorded and released on YouTube, where it will be available to watch on demand for 1 week!
If you’ve already purchased a ticket to this event, you don’t need to do anything else! Just sit back and you’ll receive the link in your email. If you don’t have your ticket yet, they are Pay What You Can and available for purchase now.

It’s an understatement to say that we have each explored and understood isolation in different ways over the past 18 months. Unexpectedly, suddenly, and universally we were alone. As we slowly emerge from such seclusion, two exceptional graphic novelists talk about the need for human connection, and how that manifests in various forms. Hiromi Goto shares an empowering tribute to older women in Shadow Life, sharing the story of Kumiko: a 76-year-old bisexual widow up for anything… including a smack-down with Death. The New Yorker cartoonist, Will McPhail, offers an equally exquisite work about the other end of the age spectrum, as a millennial attempts to evolve from performative actions in life to truly connecting with people with In. Each author has built a career exploring the absurdities and complexities of being human. In this warm, relatable conversation they discuss why connection is essential for our nature, too.

Moderated by Taylor Brown-Evans.
