Vancouver Writers Festival returns for 38th year

Granville Island and the Granville Street Bridge are seen from the air in spring 2019. (Pete Cline / CTV News Vancouver)

The Vancouver Writers Festival is set to return for its 38th year, bringing a number of notable names to Granville Island later this month, as well as notable stand-alone events later this year.

The lineup will see 130 authors take part in 85 events from Oct. 20 - 26. On the billing are names that all readers will likely recognize, like best-selling author Miriam Toews, alongside debut authors from across the country.

The overriding theme for this year’s event is taking cues from the current state of the world, says the festival’s artistic director Leslie Hurtig.

“There’s a lot of concern around what’s been happening lately south of the border,” says Hurtig.

“Some of those threats are to our sovereignty, to our culture, and so we are tackling that head on. We’ve got multiple events that talk about what Canada is, what are the things in this country that are worth preserving, and what it means to be an artist here compared to in the United States.”

The VWF’s opening event, Oh, Canada!, will host a conversation for authors Bob Joseph, Kate Beaton, Linden MacIntyre, Emma Donoghue, Canisia Lubrin, David Moscrop, Brent Butt, and Jack Wang about what it means to be Canadian in the current, rapidly shifting, geopolitical landscape.

Organizers of the Vancouver Writer’s Festival are also very aware that many people read because they have a desire to escape what’s going on in the news, and so for those looking for some quiet respite from the constant turmoil - there’s plenty of opportunity for that, too, says Hurtig.

“We have lots of events for people who are just avid readers, who are buying books and going to the library because they want to forget about some of the more difficult subjects,” she says.

Over the course of the week there will be panels hosting discussions on everything from romance to true crime. There’s a smattering of wholly unique events, like The Literary Cabaret, which involves a full band playing music to authors reading on stages, and The Afternoon Tea, which sees a full traditional afternoon tea dished out as writers read to guests and discuss their own works.

Hurtig says she wants the events to make people feel invigorated and as though they are part of the local literary community.

“We hope that after you attend an event on our stages, perhaps you’ll think about a topic in a new way. Perhaps the festival might motivate people to write themselves if they’re interested in writing, or to go out and help make change in areas that we need to see societal change,” she says.

At the very least, Hurtig hopes the event will result in people in book clubs passing on great new recommendations to one another.

“Perhaps debut authors, emerging writers that they hadn’t heard of before, coming to the festival that they’ll suddenly be able to tell all of their friends and book clubs about,” she said.

After the festival is over, two special events put together by the organizers will close out the year.

On Nov. 15, astronaut and author Chris Hadfield will discuss his “interstellar thriller” Final Orbit. And on Dec. 9, literary icon Margaret Atwood will discuss her long-awaited memoir Book of Lives.