Faculty of Art
The Vancouver Writer’s Fest is presenting 5 events between October 18th – 25th, which may be of interest to the ACAM community. Tickets can be purchased from the Writers Fest links provided and details can be found on the attached poster.
10. Searching for the Source – Tuesday, October 18 at 6pm. Featuring Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Ashley Little, Francesca Melandri. writersfest.bc.ca/2016/events/10-searching-source
Happy people are generally not the focus for novelists. Meet three authors whose characters grapple with abandonment, secret pasts, loneliness, shameful national history and reconciliation. Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s debut novel is heralded as “cause for celebration.” Ashley Little has followed up Anatomy of a Girl Gang with the story of an 11-year-old’s epic search for his father. And fans of Elena Ferrante will be delighted by Italy’s Francesca Melandri, whose bestselling novel, Eva Sleeps, follows a woman searching for truth about her origins.
46. New Face of Fiction – Thursday, October 20 at 6pm. Featuring Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Lynne Kutsukake, Yann Martel. writersfest.bc.ca/2016/events/46-new-face-fiction
Since its inception 20 years ago, the New Face of Fiction program has brought sensational first-time fiction authors to Canadians. This celebratory event will welcome two authors whose debut novels were part of the series—Yann Martel and Gail Anderson-Dargatz—alongside “new face” Lynne Kutsukake. The authors talk about learning their craft, what it means when editors and publishers show that degree of faith in their work and the astounding effect that such a program has had on so many.
67. Out of Place – Friday, October 21 at 8:30pm. Featuring Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Michael Koryta, Olive Senior and Xue Yiwei. writersfest.bc.ca/2016/events/67-out-place
Though some fiction can take place in a nameless “anywhere,” in others, the setting becomes a character unto itself. Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s The Spawning Grounds are inspired by the Thompson-Shuswap region where she grew up. Michael Koryta’s landscapes are as ominous as his plots, from Montana’s windy peaks to Florida’s eerie swamps. Olive Senior’s writing is infused with the light, smells, class, history and hopes of Jamaica. And Xue Yiwei’s Shenzheners is being hailed as a Chinese Dubliners.
77. The Interviews – Saturday, October 22 at 5pm. Featuring David Bergen, Anosh Irani, Soraya Peerbaye. writersfest.bc.ca/2016/events/77-interviews
The Globe and Mail’s Marsha Lederman has a knack for getting to the stories behind books. She talks with Scotiabank Giller Prize winner David Bergen about his novel, Stranger. What compelled him to tell the story of a Guatemalan woman working at a fertility clinic who has an affair with an American doctor? Playwright and bestselling author Anosh Irani talks about The Parcel, which features a “hijra,” or person of the third sex. And Soraya Peerbaye shares her journey of writing Tell: poems for a girlhood, linked poems about the murder of Reena Virk.
86. Scree: Fred Wah in conversation with Colin Browne – Sunday, October 23 at 1:30pm. writersfest.bc.ca/…/86-scree-fred-wah-conversation-colin-br…
Fred Wah has been a fixture in Canada’s literary scene since the 1960s when, as a UBC student, he helped found the avant-garde poetry magazine Tish. Since then, Wah has published 17 books of poetry, received a Governor General’s Award, the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2012. This year Talonbooks released Scree, collected poems from the 1970s to 1990s. Join Wah as he casts his poetic eye over his evolution as an artist.
