Malcolm Gladwell, Naomi Klein, and Emma Donoghue are among the featured guests just announced by the Vancouver Writers Fest. They are among more than 100 authors from around the world that will attend the event, which runs Oct. 21-27.
For more on these and other VWF guests, see below.
According to the media release, this year’s festival “will delve into a range of themes with two at the forefront: the environment, both responding to the ongoing climate crisis and caring for our earth; and the importance of belonging and forging connections across social divides.”
Gladwell and Klein are known for their books of nonfiction, including Blink and No Logo. Donoghue is the bestselling author Room and, most recently, The Wonder. Gladwell will present his new book, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know, at a special event prior to the festival. During the festival itself, Klein will share her new work, On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal.
Other guests include Tash Aw, Lee Maracle, Adam Gopnik, Charlotte Gray, Elif Batuman, Lynn Coady, Sean Michaels, and Eve Joseph.
Tanya Talaga is this year’s Guest Curator. She is a journalist and activist, and the bestselling author of Seven Fallen Feathers and All Our Relations.
Other non-fiction authors grapple with pressing topics around justice, reconciliation, patriarchy, identity, and mental health. These include Adam Gopnik, New Yorker writer and serial author; Charlotte Gray, author of books of popular history and literary biography; Elif Batuman, Pulitzer finalist, author and essayist; and many more.
Featured poets include Griffin Award winners Eve Joseph (Quarrels) and Billy-Ray Belcourt (This Wound is a World), iconic Indigenous poet Lee Maracle, and her daughters, Columpa Bobb and Tania Carter.
Fiction writers include Tash Aw (We, The Survivors), multiple Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning or shortlisted authors including Lynn Coady (Watching You Without Me), Sean Michaels (The Wagers), Anakana Schofield (Bina), Alix Ohlin (Dual Citizens), and more.
The full program of events will be available on August 19 at writersfest.bc.ca.