Vancouver Writers Fest artistic director Leslie Hurtig reflects on change
Amid so much pandemic-induced uncertainty, reading remains a way to build empathy
Vancouver Writers Fest artistic director Leslie Hurtig.
WHEN THE TEAM at Vancouver Writers Fest began planning its 2021 programming early on this year, there were high hopes that the world would be in a different place—not one rid of COVID-19, of course, but one in which the festival would be able to largely resemble its pre-pandemic format, with big gatherings and an influx of international authors. If pivot has become a pandemic key word, so has hybrid, with the festival responding to so much uncertainty with a mix of live, online, and livestreaming events. Some of this year’s offerings will be a blend of those approaches, with one or two authors on-stage in front of a reduced-capacity crowd while another beams in on-screen in real time.
Organizers have rolled with B.C.’s evolving public health orders, putting an asterisk on program events denoting what could well be another pandemic catchphrase: subject to change.
“As the year progressed, we began saying that the theme is subject to change,” Vancouver Writers Fest artistic director Leslie Hurtig says in a phone interview with Stir. “It’s such an interesting play on words, because so much of our world is constantly changing as a result of COVID. We’ve had to look at things in a different way, and that’s how books play a role in our lives.”
They do that and more, and it’s no wonder that bookstores, libraries, and publishing houses have been very busy ever since novel coronavirus became a common term.
“There’s the simple pleasure of entertainment; many of us read to pass the time, for enjoyment, to enter new worlds, to be taken away—a good book will certainly do that,” she says. “There are books that will put us in the shoes of another human being. The greatest gift that books provide us is a piece of empathy. I truly believe the only way to fix the world’s ills is to understand the experience of others. There’s education; reading a good book helps to understand any given topic. And then there’s sharing with other people. That’s what I love about festivals—when you read together as community then engage in conversations that may continue after an event is over.”
Lawrence Hill. Photo by Lisa Sakulensky
There will be plenty to talk about via the fest’s 70-plus events featuring works by more than 115 authors.
Guest curator Lawrence Hill (author of The Book of Negroes and The Illegal, among many others) hosts events highlighting Black and Indigenous authors; moderates a discussion about Caribbean literature with Cherie Jones and Myriam Chancy; and interviews award-winning poet Chantal Gibson.
One of the many highlights of Hill’s programming is Defying Stereotypes in Memoir With Ben Philippe and Ian Williams, moderated by Danny Ramadan. Philippe is a New York-based writer whose new adult-nonfiction book is Sure I’ll Be Your Black Friend: Notes From the Other Side of the Fist Bump, which begins: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good white person of liberal leanings must be in want of a Black friend…” Williams is an award-winning poet, Giller-prize winning novelist (Reproduction), and associate professor at the University of Toronto. His new set of essays, Disorientation: On Being Black in the World, begins with the line “My resolution this year is to learn how to swim” and explores the impact of social encounters that focus on racial identity.
Other notable guests include Indigenous author and playwright Tomson Highway (Permanent Astonishment), New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean, and two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Esi Edugyan, to name just a few.
“Every single one is handpicked because we’re big fans,” Hurtig says.
Among the many events Hurtig is especially looking forward to is Matrix: Lauren Groff in Conversation with John Freeman. Freeman, whose work has been translated into more than 20 languages, is the editor of Freeman’s, a literary annual of new writing; the theme of the latest issue just so happens to be change. Executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf, he is the author of How to Read a Novelist; Dictionary of the Undoing; Tales of Two Americas (an anthology about income inequality in America); and Tales of Two Planets, an anthology of new writing about inequality and the climate crisis. He is also the author of two poetry collections, Maps and The Park. Groff is the best-selling author of Fates and Furies and Florida whose latest work, Matrix, explores life in a 12th-century convent as told by 17-year-old Marie de France. Groff is also a two-time finalist for the National Book Award, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Prize, and Winner of the American Booksellers’ Association Award.
Change reappears as a theme in Freeman’s With Lauren Groff and Joshua Bennett. A poet, performer, and professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College, Bennett is the author of Owed as well as two collections of poetry and a book of criticism, Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man. He’s a 2021 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Whiting Award in Poetry and Nonfiction.
Ring: André Alexis in Conversation with Mark Medley is another event Hurtig is excited about. Born in Trinidad and raised in Canada, Alexis is a two-time winner of the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for Days by Moonlight and Fifteen Dogs, which also won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His other books include Pastoral, The Hidden Keys, Asylum, and The Night Piece: Collected Short Fiction. His newest title, Ring, is about a woman who is gifted a ring that will allow her to change three things about her partner.
Podcast: Jordan Abel in Conversation with Tanya Talaga is a highly anticipated happening. Abel is a Nisga’a writer and author of The Place of Scraps (winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize), Un/inhabited, and Injun (winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize) whose visual poetry has been exhibited at the Polygon Gallery and the Oslo Pilot Project Room. His latest, Nishga, is a deeply personal autobiographical meditation that addresses contemporary Indigenous existence and the devastating legacies of Canada’s residential school system. Talaga is best-selling author of Seven Fallen Feathers, who has dedicated her career to documenting and pushing for justice for Indigenous peoples across Canada.
A fan of graphic novels, Hurtig points to the Power of Comics with Aminder Dhaliwal, Hiromi Goto, and Gord Hill as a must-see. Dhaliwal is the author of Cyclopedia Exotica; Goto is the author of Shadow List; and Hill is the author of a series of seminal illustrated histories of Indigenous struggles in the Americas, including The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book.
Jillian Christmas.
In a festival first, Word!, its spoken word series, which is a highlight of its youth programming, is being offered to adults. Long-time Vancouver Writers Fest spoken-word curator Jillian Christmas (The Gospel of Breaking and the forthcoming The Magic Shell) hosts a performance featuring playwright, poet, actor, and community organizer Lili Robinson; jaye simpson, an Oji-Cree Saulteaux Indigiqueer writer from Sapotaweyak Cree Nation; and Brandon Wint (Divine Animal), a poet, spoken-word artist, and educator.
Then there’s the Poetry Bash, a perennial audience favourite. Hosted by poet Aislinn Hunter, this year’s event features Bertrand Bickersteth (The Response of Weeds): Métis writer and Room Magazine editor Molly Cross-Blanchard (Exhibitionist); poet and Kwantlen First Nations member Joseph Dandurand (Sh:lam); artist, poet, and writer Chantal Gibson (with/holding); writer, poet, and producer Billeh Nickerson (Duct-Taped Roses); and poet and critic Rob Taylor (Strangers).
“We’re doing our best to think of everything people want to hear about, given all we’ve been living through the past 18 months,” Hurtig says. Like the fest and the world itself, we’re all subject to change.
For more information, see Vancouver Writers Fest.
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