Writers Festival delivers diverse lineup of authors
Once again the Vancouver Writers Festival (VWF) is proving to be an event that goes a long way to satisfy a lot of tastes and interests.
On stages on and around Granville Island Oct. 21-17, the 32nd annual festival will be hosting 80plus events with more than 100 writers this year.
“When we talk about diversity we are talking about age. We’re talking about regions within Canada. We’re talking about international genres, ethnicity, sexual orientation. There’s so many different pieces we are trying to balance when we invite authors,” said Leslie Hurtig, VWF’s artistic director.
Of course the festival brings in some top literary guns. Names like Emma Donoghue, Adam Gopnik, Elif Batuman, Naomi Klein, Charlotte Gray, Michael Crummy and many others are on this year’s roster. A recent addition to the list is a big one. Joining the party is Chigozie Obioma. Obioma’s new book, An Orchestra of Minorities, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. This nod makes it two-fortwo for Obioma as his first novel, The Fishermen, also made that venerable list.
Obioma will be in conversation with Indian Summer Festival’s Sirish Rao on Oct. 21.
This year’s guest curator is Seven Fallen Feathers writer and Toronto Star journalist Tanya Talaga. She has designed five events for the festival.
“They are quite varied in what she is offering,” said Hurtig. “For instance, she is offering a couple of events for adults on themes of belonging.”
But while reconciliation and our future as a country are big, important topics tackled here, Hurtig said Talaga also has some lighter fare planned.
“Tanya didn’t want all of her events to be these heavy, heavy things, so she also programmed a really fun event (Oct. 24), which is a tribute to one of her favourite writers, Stephen King,” said Hurtig. “We’ve got a huge number of our festival writers coming in and they are going to riff for about five minutes a piece on why Stephen King has been so important to their writing careers and how he has influenced them.
“It’s not just people who write horror or science fiction but rather these are non-fiction, poet writers, they’re all sorts of different writers that have taken a lot of lead from Stephen King as a master of storytelling,” added Hurtig.
While fiction looms large, the festival is also a welcoming home to non-fiction with timely discussions set to happen at events like Whose Water is it, Anyway?
This program features a discussion with Maude Barlow, who wrote the book of the same title, Sarah Cox the author of the Site C damn book, Breaching the Peace, and University of B.C. Prof. Candis Callison.
“They are going to talk about how climate change has made the fight over this precious resource a very upcoming and urgent issue. Who owns the water we have here and how is it under threat?” said Hurtig.
Non-fiction, poet writers, they’re all sorts of different writers that have taken a lot of lead from Stephen King as a master of storytelling.
LESLIE HURTIG
Also worth noting is the festival is heading into its second year of free programming. This wonderful initiative swings open the doors for all Oct. 26 events. Check online as some events have pre-registration tickets available.
The free-or-by-donation day is packed with big names like Naomi Klein, the author of the bestsellers The Shock Doctrine, No Logo and This Changes Everything; Gopnik; and CBC’s Quirks and Quarks host and author Bob McDonald. A free shuttle will run from the Main Street-Science World SkyTrain Station to Granville Island that day.
“We want to make the festival as accessible as possible,” said Hurtig.
Check out the website at writersfest.bc.ca.