Events Schedule

In collaboration with the Edmonton Poetry Festival, LitFest presents an evening of poetry performance from two major forces of leadership and innovation in Canadian performance poetry, Nisha Patel – author of COCONUT, and Jillian Christmas – author of The Gospel of Breaking.

Venue

Online

In collaboration with the Edmonton Poetry Festival, LitFest is thrilled to present an evening of poetry readings with leaders in Edmonton’s poetry community, hosted by the Edmonton Poetry Festival’s artistic producer, Shima Robinson aka Dwennimmen.

For the health and safety of our community and staff, LitFest will be following City of Edmonton bylaws and Government of Alberta COVID-19 requirements for all in-person events.

Proof of vaccination, documentation of a medical exemption, or proof of a privately-paid negative PCR or rapid test within 72 hours of the event will be required for every person (aged 12+) attending in-person LitFest events.

Attendees (aged 12+) must be fully vaccinated 14 days prior to attending an in-person event. Venue staff will accept electronic or paper records at entry points, which can include paper and electronic records from your clinic or pharmacy showing your name and date of vaccination. Records can also be printed or accessed through the MyHealth Records website or app.

Please be prepared to show proof of vaccination each time you come to an in-person LitFest event. No health record information will be scanned, stored, or shared. Thank you for your cooperation!

Please note: In the event that an in-person gathering is not possible, the event will be moved to an online format. Registrants will receive email notice and information at the earliest possible opportunity should this occur.

Venue

Latitude 53

10248 106 Street NW
Edmonton, AB T5J 0J2 Canada

Join us for: tips, techniques and strategies for how to host/facilitate great online events, including online event planning preparation , host/facilitator duties before, during and after the events, and techniques to encourage active listening and engagement.

About our author: Marty Chan loves to write. Before he became a kids’ author, he worked in theatre, radio, and television. Now his passion is inspiring the next generation of lifelong readers and writers. Using a combination of storytelling, improv, humour, and stage magic, he shares his love of words with audiences young and old. You can learn more about him at https://martychan.com.

Venue

Online

Both Cole’s activism and journalism find vibrant expression in his first book, The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power. Puncturing the bubble of Canadian smugness and naive assumptions of a post-racial nation, Cole chronicles just one year—2017—in the struggle against racism in this country. In conversation with host Jesse Lipscombe. This event is presented by STARfest.

Venue

Online

It’s Food Matters + the annual Brunch of Writers rolled into one online potluck! Host Jennifer Cockrall-King leads the way with contributors to Beyond the Food Court Luciana Erregue and Mila Bongco-Philipzig.

Venue

Online

A one-on-one conversation with author Amanda Leduc (Disfigured: On Fairy Stories, Disability, and Making Space) and poet Brandon Wint (Divine Animal).

Venue

Online

If “the poem does not start until you start to tell the truth” then a poet’s work is to be relentless in the search for that truth both on and off the page. This workshop is an excavation into the bone, into the truth, to write poems from the depth of our personal experiences. Through a series of writing exercises and discussion, the workshop will ask, “Who am I?”, “What do I want to say?”, “Why does my story matter?” and “What is my responsibility to myself and to the audience in telling my story?”

To maintain accessibility for all audiences, a limited number of free or by-donation tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis through our Community Access Ticket Program. If you have any questions about this program, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at outreach@litfestalberta.org.

In collaboration with Edmonton Poetry Festival.

Venue

Online

Whether we’re writing memoir, fiction, or reported non-fiction, our ability and willingness to confront our own bias and privilege informs the quality, richness, and intellectual rigour of our work. Editor and journalist Lauren McKeon knows that recognizing bias is a messy and often uncomfortable task. It involves talking—and, more importantly, listening—to people who have different lived experiences than we do, and being deeply honest about our own assumptions, experiences, and shortcomings. In this 90-minute workshop, McKeon discusses strategies for tackling bias in our research and writing, and how to intentionally hold space for diverse voices. The author also talks about how she learns from each project, and why recognizing privilege and bias is constant, ever-evolving, and always worthwhile work. With host Anya Zoledziowski.

Want to buy the book? Find it here.

Lauren McKeon’s critically acclaimed first book, F-Bomb: Dispatches from the War on Feminism, was a finalist for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and was selected by the Hill Times as a book of the year and by the Feminist Book Club as one of their top five feminist books ever. McKeon is the winner of several National Magazine Awards, including a Gold in the Personal Journalism category. Her writing has appeared in Hazlitt, Flare, Chatelaine, and Best Canadian Essays, on TVO.org, and in the book Whatever Gets You Through: Twelve Survivors on Life After Sexual Assault. McKeon has taught long-form writing at Humber College and holds an M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from the University of King’s College. She was the editor of This Magazine from 2011 to 2016 and the digital editor at The Walrus from 2017 to 2020, and she is currently a contributing editor at Toronto Life and the deputy editor of Reader’s Digest.

To maintain accessibility for all audiences, a limited number of free or by-donation tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis through our Community Access Ticket Program. If you have any questions about this program, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at outreach@litfestalberta.org.

Venue

Online

Are you fascinated by poetry, languages, and art? Are you curious to witness Indigenous language reclamation and revitalization through creative self-expression? Then please join us for The Polyglot’s launch of our double issue—nimitêyaniy and nitêh. These issues were curated by Naomi McIlwraith and Dorothy Thunder, and feature 36 brilliant Indigenous poets and artists. This launch showcases sixteen of our contributors read their poems or talk about their art, weaving their insights on language, culture, and Indigenous identities. The Polyglot would like to acknowledge and deeply thank the Edmonton Arts Council for their support and funding of this project. A special mahsi cho to the Edmonton Poetry Festival for supporting us with this launch. The covers of the issues feature art by Lana Whiskeyjack (nimitêyaniy) and Jade Roberts (nitêh). The words of the issues correspond to tongue and heart in nêhiyawêwin (Cree).

Venue

Online

Sh*t, Actually is a love letter and a break-up note all in one: to the films that shaped us and the ones that ruined us. More often than not, West finds, they’re one and the same. New York Times opinion writer and bestselling author Lindy West will be in conversation with Vivek Shraya.

Admission to this event includes a copy of Sh*t, Actually, with free delivery from Glass Bookshop!

To maintain accessibility for all audiences, a limited number of free or by-donation tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis through our Community Access Ticket Program 48 hours prior to the event. If you have any questions about this program, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at outreach@litfestalberta.org.

Venue

Online

Everything you need to know about oral biography in one easy lesson, with renowned biographer Michael Posner.

Want to buy the book? Find it here.

Michael Posner is an award-winning writer, playwright, journalist, and the author of seven books. These include the Mordecai Richler biography, The Last Honest Man, and the Anne Murray biography, All of Me, both of which were national bestsellers. He was Washington Bureau Chief for Maclean’s magazine, and later served as its national, foreign, and assistant managing editor. He was also managing editor of the Financial Times of Canada for three years. He later spent sixteen years as a senior writer with The Globe and Mail.

To maintain accessibility for all audiences, a limited number of free or by-donation tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis through our Community Access Ticket Program. If you have any questions about this program, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at outreach@litfestalberta.org.

Venue

Online

Co-curated by LitFest and Edmonton Poetry Festival, this year’s Nonfiction Slam will feature prose stories and poetry entries. 4 stories, 4 poems, one winner. All glory. Grab a beverage and join in to be part of the live audience that votes for winner!

Venue

Online

Jordan Abel is a multimedia artist with roots in exploring colonization through textual and poetic interpretation. His work encompasses multifaceted research and presents an intense, calculated and human look at the conditions of living in a colonial state. His works weave a technical mastery of elements and story, provoking us to think about how we read and what we’re reading. His new work, out soon, is again defiant of a single genre. Join us in this reading and Q and A, hosted by Matthew James Weigel.

Venue

Online

The youngest ever winner of the Griffin Prize, Billy-Ray Belcourt mines his personal history to reconcile the world he was born into with the world that could be in his debut memoir, A History of My Brief Body. With startling honesty, and in a voice distinctly and assuredly his own, Belcourt situates his life experiences within a constellation of seminal queer texts, among which this book is sure to earn its place.

Want to buy the book? Find it here.

Billy-Ray Belcourt (he/him) is a poet, author, and scholar from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He won the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize for his debut collection, This Wound Is a World, which was also a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Belcourt is a recipient of the prestigious Rhodes scholarship and an Indspire Award, the highest honour the Indigenous community bestows on its leaders. He is currently working on his PhD at the University of Alberta and will join UBC’s Creative Writing Program as an Assistant Professor in Indigenous Creative Writing in January 2020.

Venue

Online

From the distinct and vibrant voice behind Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi comes the story of pursuing a dream and defying the odds, reminding us all of hockey’s power to unite. Author Harnarayan Singh discusses his new book with Sportsnet senior columnist Mark Spector.

Venue

Online

Join us in meeting Ian Keteku, spoken word poet, musician, and artist, with a look into his celebrated body of work, his new book and latest album, and an immersive Q and A about his process of writing, his history as an artist, and where he is headed next. Ian’s work is transcendent, defying the boundaries of single disciplines and genres, and asking listeners to lean in and embrace art for all it has to offer. This event is not to be missed for fans of sound, words, and music. Hosted by Edmonton Poet Laureate, Nisha Patel.

Venue

Online

In these pandemic times, we’re all looking for ways to spend time in the great outdoors. Authors Gina Rae La Cerva (Feasting Wild), Julia Zarankin (Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder), and Tørbjørn Ekelund (In Praise of Paths) offer stories and ideas on how to make the most of your time outside.

Venue

Online

“This seminar will touch upon some of the questions that keep me awake: How do you write a memoir when your memory’s shot? How do you tell the truth when the truth hurts others? When is nonfiction therapy and when is it art?”

Want to buy the book? Find it here.

Lorna Crozier is the author of seventeen books of poetry, including God of Shadows, which was longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award, What the Soul Doesn’t Want, The Wrong Cat, Small Mechanics, The Blue Hour of the Day: Selected Poems, and Whetstone. She is also the author of The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things and the memoir Small Beneath the Sky. She won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry for Inventing the Hawk and three additional collections were finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. She has received the Canadian Authors Association Award, three Pat Lowther Memorial Awards, and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. She is a Professor Emerita at the University of Victoria and an Officer of the Order of Canada, and she has received five honorary doctorates for her contributions to Canadian literature. Born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, she now lives in British Columbia.

To maintain accessibility for all audiences, a limited number of free or by-donation tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis through our Community Access Ticket Program. If you have any questions about this program, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at outreach@litfestalberta.org.

Venue

Online

Alone: A Love Story is Michelle Parise’s memoir of falling in love, the fallout of infidelity, and everything messy in between. Her memoir is the inspiration behind the hit CBC podcast of the same name.

Venue

Online

Three panelists with memoirs on incredible resilience, and finding your identity amid challenges of all kinds. Panelists include Helen Knott, David A. Robertson and Christa Couture.

Venue

Online

James Raffan explores the challenges and opportunities that come with writing about the environment. He discusses creative nonfiction as an effective approach to engaging readers, and addresses the connections between wild spaces and Indigenous peoples, along with the challenges of voice and appropriation that exist for the creative nonfiction writer.

To maintain accessibility for all audiences, a limited number of free or by-donation tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis through our Community Access Ticket Program. If you have any questions about this program, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at outreach@litfestalberta.org.

Venue

Online

Top-ranking podcasters of Call Your Girlfriend on their new book, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close, in conversation with host Adrienne Pan.

Admission to this event includes a copy of Big Friendship, with free delivery from Glass Bookshop!

To maintain accessibility for all audiences, a limited number of free or by-donation tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis through our Community Access Ticket Program 48 hours prior to the event. If you have any questions about this program, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at outreach@litfestalberta.org.

Venue

Online

To kick off the festival in virtual space, the contributors to Beyond the Food Court —all writers from diverse ethnic backgrounds that call Edmonton home — gather to celebrate the launch of their anthology, along with editor and publisher Luciana Erregue.

Venue

Online

It’s tough to be on zoom all day, so some of our authors have recorded readings that you can download and enjoy on your own time. The readings are free, and will be released on October 15.

If you buy the book when you sign up for the reading, we’ll deliver a small “experience” package along with the book! That way you can listen to the reading and engage with it in a hands-on way. To get the book+package for the October 15 release day, please complete your purchase by October 12.

Special thanks to our local business partners that helped make this happen: Italian Centre Shop, Duchess Bake Shop, and Silk Road Spice Market.

David Berry, On Nostalgia: Nothing says “memories of Edmonton” like a walk along the High Level Bridge, along with a cup of cocoa and sweet treats.

Venue

Online