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DTSTART;TZID=America/Edmonton:20260505T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Edmonton:20260505T203000
DTSTAMP:20260623T055111
CREATED:20260410T214636Z
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SUMMARY:LitFest Presents: Kim Echlin
DESCRIPTION:Tuesday\, May 5\, 2026\n7:00 pm\nTickets ($5-$15) available HERE \nCatch Kim Echlin\, internationally bestselling author of The Disappeared\, in conversation with Rayanne Haines. \n\n\n\nFrom the internationally bestselling author of The Disappeared comes a profound meditation on the cultural impact of storytelling and testimony in five intimate and illuminating essays. \nIn this moving collection\, critically acclaimed novelist Kim Echlin examines how we turn to literature to measure our lives against the darknesses of our time. Tell Others explores how literature resists silencing and repression with truth and imagination. \nEchlin skillfully blends her lived experience in different parts of the world—teaching in post-revolutionary China\, researching war crimes in the former Yugoslavia\, studying under one of Canada’s most respected Elders\, Basil H. Johnston—with wide-ranging reading that offers solace and highlights the possibility to transform outrage into understanding and resistance. \nLooking to her favourite writers—Milan Kundera\, Salman Rushdie\, Ma Jian\, Toni Morrison\, Margaret Atwood\, and Haruki Murakami\, to name a few—Echlin grapples in fresh ways with tyranny\, war\, sexual violence\, and censorship to bear witness to the past and look to the future. Written in characteristically unsparing and evocative prose\, Tell Others is an invitation to all readers to acknowledge histories that are difficult to see and to make meaning from the stories that buried bones tell. \nKIM ECHLIN is the award-winning author of Elephant Winter\, Dagmar’s Daughter\, Under the Visible Life\, and Speak\, Silence\, winner of the Toronto Book Award. Her novel The Disappeared won the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award and is published in 20 countries. She serves on the board of PEN International. \nRAYANNE HAINES is a producer\, podcaster\, educator and award-winning poet. Her third collection\, Tell The Birds Your Body Is Not A Gun (Frontenac House 2021)\, won the 2022 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for both the BPAA Robert Kroetsch Award and the ReLit Award. Her poetic memoir\, What Kind of Daughter? (Frontenac House 2024)\, was shortlisted for the 2024 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. Rayanne hosts the Crow Reads podcast\, is the President of the League of Canadian Poets\, and an Assistant Professor at MacEwan University. She teaches and writes with vulnerability as a guiding force. \nPlease note: This event utilizes tiered pricing in an effort to reduce barriers to attendance
URL:https://litfestalberta.org/event-1/litfest-presents-kim-echlin/
CATEGORIES:Feature
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251025T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251025T150000
DTSTAMP:20260623T055111
CREATED:20250917T043544Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251023T184108Z
UID:4631-1761397200-1761404400@litfestalberta.org
SUMMARY:Feature: Ekphrastic Writing\, with David Garneau and Wendy McGrath
DESCRIPTION:This event is free to attend\, but please pre-register as space is limited \nThis event\, which takes place at The Art Gallery of St. Albert\, brings together two beautiful collections of ekphrastic writing: Dark Chapters: Reading the Still Lives of David Garneau\, and The Beauty of Vultures by Wendy McGrath. \nFeaturing: David Garneau and Wendy McGrath\nModerator: Luciana Erregue-Sacchi \n  \nDark Chapters: Reading the Still Lives of David Garneau\nDark Chapters brings together 17 poets\, fiction writers\, curators\, and critics to engage with the works of David Garneau\, the Governor General’s Award-winning Métis artist. Featuring paintings from Garneau’s still life series “Dark Chapters” alongside poetry\, fiction\, critical analysis\, and autotheory\, the book includes contributions from Fred Wah\, Paul Seesequasis\, Jesse Wente\, Lillian Allen\, Billy-Ray Belcourt\, Larissa Lai\, Susan Musgrave\, and more. \nA nod to the Reports of Truth and Reconciliation Commission\, in which Justice Murray Sinclair describes the residential school system as “one of the darkest\, most troubling chapters in our nation’s history\,” Garneau’s still life paintings combine common objects (books\, bones\, teacups\, mirrors) and less familiar ones (a Métis sash\, a stone hammer\, a braid of sweetgrass) to reflect the complexity of contemporary Indigenous experiences. Provocative titles like “Métis in the Academy” and “Smudge Before Reading” invite consideration of the mixed influences and loyalties faced by Indigenous students and scholars. Other paintings explore colonialism\, vertical and lateral violence\, Christian influence on traditional knowledge\, and museum treatment of Indigenous belongings. Rooted in Garneau’s life-long engagement at the intersections of visual art and writing\, Dark Chapters presents a multifaceted reflection on the work of an inimitable\, unparalleled artist. \nIncludes contributions from Arin Fay\, Billy-Ray Belcourt\, Cecily Nicholson\, David Howes\, Dick Averns\, Fred Wah\, Jeff Derksen\, Jesse Wente\, John G. Hampton\, Larissa Lai\, Lillian Allen\, Paul Seesequasis\, Peter Morin\, Rita Bouvier\, Susan Musgrave\, Tarene Thomas\, and Trevor Herriot. \n  \nThe Beauty of Vultures\nThe interplay between photography\, nature and poetic form is on full display in Wendy McGrath’s and Danny Miles’ collaborative new work The Beauty of Vultures. This innovative collection takes readers into the surprisingly chatty world of birds\, whose avian artistry and poignant plumage mimics the formally and structurally inventive tones found in each poem. The language wings its way between funny and serious\, poignant and morbid\, while always drawing parallels between the poets thoughts and the cameras eye. From peahens telling off their elaborately festooned romantic partners\, robins empty eggs recalling air raid tests after WWII\, to seagulls serving as harbingers of humanity’s ongoing crimes against nature\, each unit of photography melds seamlessly with its poetic doppelgänger. \n  \nDAVID GARNEAU (Métis Nation of Saskatchewan) is a Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Regina. He is a painter\, curator\, and writer who engages creative and critical expressions of Indigenous contemporary ways of knowing\, being\, and doing. He received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Art: Outstanding Achievement\, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada\, and received The Order of Gabriel Dumont Silver Medal. Garneau has curated more than two dozen exhibitions in Canada and internationally (including the Museum of the American Indian\, NYC). He has given keynotes in Australia\, New Zealand\, and throughout Canada and written numerous articles and book chapters on re/conciliation\, museums\, Indigenous contemporary and public art\, and numerous other topics. His performance\, Dear John\, featuring the spirit of Louis Riel meeting with John A. Macdonald statues\, was presented in Regina\, Kingston\, and Ottawa. David recently installed a large public artwork\, the Tawatina Bridge paintings\, in Edmonton and designed the Riel Commemorative Silver Dollar for the Canadian Mint. His painting exhibition\, Dark Chapters is currently touring Canada\, and is supported by Chapters: Reading the Still Lives of David Garneau\, a collection of poems and essays by seventeen authors (University of Regina Press\, 2025). \nWENDY McGRATH (she/her) is a Métis poet\, writer\, and artist living in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). Winner of the inaugural Prairie Grindstone Prize\, McGrath’s writing embraces multiple genres. Her latest poetry collection\, The Beauty of Vultures\, (NeWest Press April 2025) is inspired by and includes the bird/wildlife photography of Danny Miles\, drummer for the band ‘July Talk.’ Her most recent chapbook/artist’s book\, The Orange Scribbler (Jack Pine Press 2023) is a hybrid work inspired by heirloom family recipes. She has collaborated with visual artists and musicians\, exploring the relationships between genres. McGrath has published four novels\, two poetry collections\, and two chapbooks/artist’s books which explore a range of forms and approaches. Broke City\, the final book in her Santa Rosa Trilogy\, continues her exploration of the prairie gothic. She is an established member of the writing community\, enriching it through mentoring\, teaching\, and engaging in literary events. \nLUCIANA ERREGUE-SACCHI (Moderator) is a Canadian-Argentinian immigrant settler residing in Amiskwaciwâskahikan\, art historian (MA UofA ’16)\, an award winning publisher (Laberinto Press)\, translator\, author (Of Mothers and Madonna\, an ekphrastic poetry collection published by Polyglot in 2023) and cultural worker. Luciana has presented at LitFest\, Edmonton Poetry Fest\, and Banff Centre. Her work and translations have appeared in her blog SpectatorCurator\, academic publications\, Polyglot Magazine\, AGNI\, and others and she has been featured on CBC Edmonton\, Radio Canada\, Quill and Quire\, Literary Review of Canada\, Westword\, and Edmonton Journal. She is an activist for freedom to read and an advocate for hyphenated Canadian literature. \n  \n This event is presented in partnership with The Art Gallery of St. Albert
URL:https://litfestalberta.org/event-1/feature-ekphrastic-writing-with-david-garneau-and-wendy-mcgrath/
LOCATION:Art Gallery of St. Albert\, 19 Perron St\, St. Albert
CATEGORIES:Feature
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251018T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251018T163000
DTSTAMP:20260623T055111
CREATED:20250917T050013Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251008T151354Z
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SUMMARY:Feature: Graphic Memoir\, with Teresa Wong and Sarah Leavitt
DESCRIPTION:Tickets: $5 (student/low income)\, $15 (regular)\, Available HERE (Use promo code “LITFEST2025” to access student rate) \nJoin us for this very special reading and conversation with graphic memoirists Teresa Wong and Sarah Leavitt\, featuring their latest graphic memoirs\, All Our Ordinary Stories and Something\, Not Nothing. \n  \nAll Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey\nWINNER of 2 Alberta Literary Awards (the Memoir Award and the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction) \nFrom the author of Dear Scarlet comes a graphic memoir about the obstacles one daughter faces as she attempts to connect with her immigrant parents. Beginning with her mother’s stroke in 2014\, Teresa Wong takes us on a moving journey through time and place to locate the beginnings of the disconnection she feels from her parents. Through a series of stories – some epic\, like her mother and father’s daring escapes from communes during China’s Cultural Revolution\, and some banal\, like her quitting Chinese school to watch Saturday morning cartoons – Wong carefully examines the cultural\, historical\, language\, and personality barriers to intimacy in her family\, seeking answers to the questions “Where did I come from?” and “Where are we going?” At the same time\, she discovers how storytelling can bridge distances and help make sense of a life. \nA book for children of immigrants trying to honour their parents’ pasts while also making a different kind of future for themselves\, All Our Ordinary Stories is poignant in its understated yet nuanced depictions of complicated family dynamics. Wong’s memoir is a heartfelt exploration of identity and inheritance\, as well as a testament to the transformative power of stories both told and untold. \nSomething\, Not Nothing:A Story of Grief and Love\nFinalist\, Will Eisner Award; Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction; Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes \nA poignant and beautifully illustrated graphic memoir about love and loss and navigating a new life. In April 2020\, cartoonist Sarah Leavitt’s partner of twenty-two years\, Donimo\, died with medical assistance after years of severe chronic pain and a rapid decline at the end of her life. About a month after Donimo’s death\, Sarah began making comics again as a way to deal with her profound sense of grief and loss. The comics started as small sketches but quickly transformed into something totally unfamiliar to her. Abstract images\, textures\, poetic text\, layers of watercolour\, ink\, and coloured pencil – for Sarah\, the journey through grief was impossible to convey without bold formal experimentation. She spent two years creating these comics. \nThe result is Something\, Not Nothing\, an extraordinary book that delicately articulates the vagaries of grief and the sweet remembrances of enduring love. Moving and impressionistic\, Something\, Not Nothing shows that alongside grief\, there is room for peace\, joy\, and new beginnings. \n  \nSARAH LEAVITT (she/her) is a cartoonist\, writer and professor. Her most recent book\, Something\, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love (Arsenal Pulp Press\, 2024)\, was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Graphic Memoir. She is also the author of the graphic memoir Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s\, My Mother\, and Me (Freehand Books\, 2010). A feature-length animation based on Tangles is in production\, with release planned for 2026.  She is also the author of the award-winning historical fiction comic Agnes\, Murderess (Freehand Books\, 2019). Sarah Leavitt is an associate professor in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver\, where she has developed and taught undergraduate and graduate comics classes since 2012. \nTERESA WONG (she/her) is a writer and cartoonist based in Calgary\, Alberta. Her comics and illustrated essays have appeared in The Believer\, The New Yorker\, McSweeney’s\, and The Walrus. Her latest book\, All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey (Arsenal Pulp Press\, 2024) received two 2025 Alberta Literary Awards: the Memoir Award and the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction. Her first graphic memoir\, Dear Scarlet: The Story of My Postpartum Depression (2019)\, was a finalist for the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. Both All Our Ordinary Stories and Dear Scarlet were longlisted for CBC Canada Reads.
URL:https://litfestalberta.org/event-1/feature-graphic-memoir-with-teresa-wong-and-sarah-leavitt/
LOCATION:Zeidler Hall\, 9828 101A Ave\, Edmonton\, AB
CATEGORIES:Feature
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251017T193000
DTEND;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251017T210000
DTSTAMP:20260623T055111
CREATED:20250901T221522Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251008T151445Z
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SUMMARY:Feature: A Necessary Distance\, with Julie Salverson
DESCRIPTION:Tickets: $5 (student/low income)\, $15 (regular)\, Available HERE (Use promo code “LITFEST2025” to access student rate) \nIn conversation event with Julie Salverson to talk about her book\, A Necessary Distance: Confessions of a Scriptwriter’s Daughter. \nGeorge Salverson had written over a thousand radio plays for the CBC before he became the first television drama editor for the corporation. He wrote scripts for such beloved series as The Beachcombers and The Littlest Hobo\, but he kept very little of his writing\, being decidedly unsentimental about his work. So when his daughter Julie found a series of notebooks from a round-the-world trip he’d taken in 1963 to work on a documentary about world hunger\, she knew she’d found something important. But the writer of these notebooks is not the father she thought she knew. From there Julie Salverson traces a fascinating web of personal and political history\, of storytelling\, of culture and it’s shaping and of a man caught in a time of great change. \n  \nJULIE SALVERSON is a nonfiction writer\, playwright\, editor\, scholar and theatre animator. She is a fourth-generation Icelandic Canadian writer: her father\, George\, wrote early CBC radio and television drama and her grandmother Laura won two Governor General’s Awards (1937\, 1939). Julie’s theatre\, opera\, books and essays embrace the relationship of imagination and foolish witness to risky stories and trauma. She works on atomic culture\, community-engaged theatre and the place of the foolish witness in social\, political and interpersonal generative relationships. Salverson offers resiliency and peer-support workshops to communities dealing with trauma and has many years of experience teaching and running workshops. Recent publications include the book When Words Sing: Seven Canadian Libretti (Playwrights Canada Press\, 2021) and Lines of Flight: An Atomic Memoir (Wolsak & Wynn\, 2016).
URL:https://litfestalberta.org/event-1/feature-a-necessary-distance-with-julie-salverson/
LOCATION:Zeidler Hall\, 9828 101A Ave\, Edmonton\, AB
CATEGORIES:Feature
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251017T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251017T203000
DTSTAMP:20260623T055111
CREATED:20250915T213304Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251008T151509Z
UID:4617-1760727600-1760733000@litfestalberta.org
SUMMARY:Feature: Curling Rocks! with John Cullen
DESCRIPTION:Tickets: $5 (student/low income)\, $15 (regular)\, Available HERE (Use promo code “LITFEST2025” to access student rate) \nIn conversation event with curling legend John Cullen to discuss his latest book\, Curling Rocks!: Chronicles of the Roaring Game. \nDrawing on author John Cullen’s years of experience as both a stand-up comic and an elite curler\, Curling Rocks! offers a lighthearted\, expertly detailed look at a unique sport and its history\, from the most absurd curling fashions to the most sublime matches ever played. \nThe sport of curling continues to expand its global reach\, attracting new players and fans far beyond traditional strongholds. Yet\, even in Canada—a country with a long curling history and fifteen hundred clubs of its own—the game is often dismissed as an eccentric pastime. \nAccording to author John Cullen\, this is because curling is both inherently funny and chronically underestimated as a battle of skill and strategy. And Cullen is perfectly qualified to make this double-edged claim: not only is he a stand-up comic with many years of experience at the mic\, but he’s had years on the ice as an elite curler. \nBecause most previous books on curling have been either how-to guides or standard biographies of prominent players\, there has long been space for a reader-friendly overview of the “roaring game” (a nickname inspired by the sound of the forty-pound stone en route to its target). Curling Rocks! sets out to fill this gap with a lighthearted\, expertly detailed account of the sport\, ranging from the absurd to the sublime. Next to his observations on ill-fitting fashions and odd scandals—among them “Broomgate\,” when controversial new sweeping technology almost took out the curling world—Cullen offers insights on everything from the greatest matches ever played to the peculiar heartbreak that comes with losing. \nIn these inviting\, irreverent and often deeply personal essays\, Cullen finally gives the perplexing\, beloved game its due. \n  \nJOHN CULLEN has been a medal-winning semi-professional curler for more than twenty years. He has also worked as a teacher\, writer\, comedian and curling analyst\, earning acclaim from such outlets as Vulture\, Forbes\, The Economist and Esquire for hosting the highly popular podcast Broomgate: A Curling Scandal. He has made televised appearances as a stand-up comedian and is a returning guest on CBC Radio’s The Debaters. Cullen lives in Calgary\, AB.
URL:https://litfestalberta.org/event-1/feature-curling-rocks-with-john-cullen/
LOCATION:Muttart Theatre\, 7 Sir Winston Churchill Square\, Edmonton\, AB
CATEGORIES:Feature
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251016T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251016T203000
DTSTAMP:20260623T055111
CREATED:20250901T215225Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251008T151618Z
UID:4575-1760641200-1760646600@litfestalberta.org
SUMMARY:Feature: Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers\, with Marcello Di Cintio
DESCRIPTION:Tickets: $5 (student/low income)\, $15 (regular)\, Available HERE (Use promo code “LITFEST2025” to access student rate) \nAward-winning author Marcello Di Cintio in conversation with LitFest board treasurer Danielle Paradis to talk about his latest book\, Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers. \nWinner of the 2024 Dave Greber Freelance Writers Book Award \nA series of profiles of foreign workers illuminates the precarity of global systems of migrant labor and the vulnerability of their most disenfranchised agents. \nIn 2023\, after weeks of investigation\, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomoyo Obokata came to a scathing conclusion: Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” Workers complained of excessive hours and unpaid overtime; of being forced to perform dangerous tasks or ones not specified in their contracts; of being physically abused\, intimidated\, and sexually harassed; and of overcrowded\, unsanitary living conditions that deprived them of their privacy and dignity. \nIn Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers\, Marcello Di Cintio ranges across the country speaking to those who have come from elsewhere to till our fields\, bathe our elderly\, and serve us our Double Doubles\, uncovering stories of tremendous perseverance\, resilience\, and humanity\, but also of precarity and vulnerability. He shows that vast swathes of our economy depend on the work of people we don’t see\, while expanding our awareness of what migrant work now entails\, and revealing that our mistreatment of the most vulnerable among us diminishes our own dignity. \n  \nMARCELLO DI CINTIO is the author of six books\, including Walls: Travels Along the Barricades\, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense\, and Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers. He has also written for the Globe and Mail\, The Walrus\, The International New York Times\, and Canadian Geographic\, among others. He lives in Calgary. \nIG: @marcello.di.cintio\nBluesky: @marcellodicintio.bsky.social\nTwitter: @DiCintio \nDanielle Paradis (Host) is an Indigenous (Métis) magazine writer\, journalist\, editor\, educator\, and podcaster who lives in Treaty 6 (Edmonton\, Alberta). She has written for both local and international audiences. You can read (or hear) her work at Canadaland\, Chatelaine\, Toronto Star (Edmonton)\, Gig City\, BUSTLE\, Canadian True Crime Podcast\, and The Sprawl. Danielle covers politics\, arts and culture\, and Indigenous Issues. Danielle loves a good FOIP story and studied investigative journalism\, story-based inquiry method\, at the Centre for Investigative Journalism out of the UK. She teaches journalism\, focusing on advanced reporting and reporting on diverse communities at MacEwan University and Humber College. She also works for a non-profit\, Indigenous Friends Association\, that focuses on connecting traditional knowledge and digital technology for Indigenous youth. She also has a background as a literary editor for Other Voices\, and in-depth media experience on both television and radio.
URL:https://litfestalberta.org/event-1/feature-precarious-the-lives-of-migrant-workers-with-marcello-di-cintio/
LOCATION:Muttart Theatre\, 7 Sir Winston Churchill Square\, Edmonton\, AB
CATEGORIES:Feature
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251016T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251016T203000
DTSTAMP:20260623T055111
CREATED:20250901T215037Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251008T151632Z
UID:4574-1760641200-1760646600@litfestalberta.org
SUMMARY:Feature: Bloodied Bodies\, Bloody Landscapes\, with Laura Hall
DESCRIPTION:Tickets: $5 (student/low income)\, $15 (regular)\, Available HERE (Use promo code “LITFEST2025” to access student rate) \nIn Conversation event featuring Laura Hall speaking with University of Alberta associate professor Jordan Abel about her book Bloodied Bodies\, Bloody Landscapes: Settler Colonialism in Horror. \nTurning a lens on the dark legacy of colonialism in horror film\, from Scream to Halloween and beyond \nHorror films\, more than any other genre\, offer a chilling glimpse—like peering through a creaky attic door—into the brutality of settler colonial violence. While Indigenous peoples continue to struggle against colonization\, white settler narratives consistently position them as a threat\, depicting the Indigenous Other as an ever-present menace\, lurking on the fringes of “civilized” society. Indigenous inclusion or exclusion in horror films tells a larger story about myths\, fears\, and anxieties that have endured for centuries. \nBloodied Bodies\, Bloody Landscapes traces connections between Indigenous representations\, gender\, and sexuality within iconic horror classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th. The savage killer\, the romantic and doomed Indian\, the feral “mad woman”—no trope or archetype escapes the shadowy influence of settler colonialism. In the end\, horror both disrupts and uncovers colonial violence—only to bury its victims once more. \n  \nLAURA HALL grew up in N’Swakamok (Sudbury\, Ontario). Laura’s parents\, Shirley (Mohawk) and Dave Hall (English-Canadian) instilled in her a deep love for spooky storytelling. After moving to different cities in Ontario for University and graduate studies\, Laura now resides in Ottawa with their children and partner and works as a professor in Sociology at Carleton University. Currently\, Dr. Hall is working on horror fiction and storytelling workshops with support from federal grants and a general focus on arts-based research and Indigenous wellbeing.  \n  \nJORDAN ABEL (Host) is a queer Nisga’a writer from Vancouver. He is the author of The Place of Scraps (winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize)\, Un/inhabited\, and Injun (winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize). NISHGA won both the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize and the VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres award\, and was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction\, the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction\, and the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize. Abel’s latest work–a novel titled Empty Spaces–  was published by McClelland & Stewart and Yale University Press\, and was the winner of the Governor General’s Award for fiction as well as the winner of a Banff Mountain Book Award. Abel completed a Ph.D. at Simon Fraser University in 2019\, and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta where he teaches Indigenous Literatures\, Research-Creation\, and Creative Writing.
URL:https://litfestalberta.org/event-1/feature-bloodied-bodies-bloody-landscapes-with-laura-hall/
LOCATION:Rice Theatre Lobby\, 9828 101A Ave\, Edmonton
CATEGORIES:Feature
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251016T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251016T133000
DTSTAMP:20260623T055111
CREATED:20250901T184430Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251008T151659Z
UID:4568-1760616000-1760621400@litfestalberta.org
SUMMARY:Online Feature: The Silence of Falling Snow with Kristjana Gunnars
DESCRIPTION:Tickets: $5 (student/low income)\, $15 (regular)\, Available HERE (Use promo code “LITFEST2025” to access student rate) \n  \nOnline event featuring Kristjana Gunnars in conversation with University of Alberta’s 2025-26 Writer in Residence\, Cody Caetano\, to discuss her memoir\, The Silence of Falling Snow. \n  \nFrom an innovator of autofiction comes a meditation on grief\, care\, Buddhism\, and artmaking.  \n‘This is a story. It is a story about someone accompanying another to the last gate.’ \nYears ago\, Kristjana Gunnars took her husband back to his home in Oslo to die. Through the dark\, cold days\, she tends to his needs as she feels her own self disintegrating. Later\, as she looks back to this slow departure of the man she loved\, she weaves together threads from her own life\, reflections on the thoughts of Gautama Buddha\, discussions of Renaissance art\, and considerations of contemporary artists. \nEngaging with thinkers as varied as Ingmar Bergman and Jacques Derrida\, Henry David Thoreau\, and Ursula K. Le Guin\, Gunnars — one of the earliest practitioners of “autofiction” — crafts a new kind of hybrid text\, with elements of memoir\, lyrical essay\, Buddhist teachings\, poetics\, art theory\, and meditation. \nThe Silence of Falling Snow is a deep dive into grief\, the way we circle around it\, dipping in and out of the pain\, finding comfort in art and philosophy and religion where we can. It’s an intellectual cabaret\, a Buddhist primer\, and a pointillist portrait of grief – above all\, it’s the consoling and invigorating reflection we need in this moment. \n  \nKRISTJANA GUNNARS was born in Iceland and has lived in Canada since 1969. She served as Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta\, and as Guest Professor at the University of Trier in Germany and the University of Iceland. She lived on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia for twenty years while pursuing a career in the arts (painting)\, as well as writing. She is the author of numerous books (see websiteskristjanagunnars.com and kristjanagunnarswritings.com for details). Her latest books are The Scent of Light (Coach House\, Toronto) and Ruins of the Heart (Angelico\, New York). She has published a number of chapbooks\, the latest being 112th Street Notebook (akinoga\, Baltimore) and At Home in the Mountains (Junction\, Toronto). Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals in Canada\, the U.S.\,and Europe. \n  \nCODY CAETANO is the author of Half-Bads in White Regalia (Canada: Hamish Hamilton Canada\, 2022)\, winner of two Indigenous Voices Awards\, shortlisted for the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction\, and longlisted for the Toronto Book Award\, the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour\, and Canada Reads. An off-reserve member of Pinaymootang First Nation\, his mother’s family is from the Manitoba Interlake and his father’s family emigrated to Canada from the Azores in the 1960s. He works as a literary agent at CookeMcDermid. \n  \n   \nThis event is presented in partnership with the Writers’ Guild of Alberta and the University of Alberta’s WIR program
URL:https://litfestalberta.org/event-1/the-silence-of-falling-snow-online-event-with-kristjana-gunnars/
LOCATION:Online
CATEGORIES:Feature
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251015T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Edmonton:20251015T193000
DTSTAMP:20260623T055111
CREATED:20250829T013736Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251008T151718Z
UID:4555-1760551200-1760556600@litfestalberta.org
SUMMARY:Feature: John Candy: A Life in Comedy\, with Paul Myers
DESCRIPTION:Tickets: $5 (student/low income)\, $15 (regular)\, Available HERE (Use promo code “LITFEST2025” to access student rate) \nAuthor Paul Myers in conversation with Edmonton’s Historian Laureate\, Donna Coombs-Montrose.  \nFrom the bestselling author of Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy\, the definitive biography of John Candy—a heartwarming portrait of one of comedy’s most beloved and enduring stars. \nFrom his humble beginnings in sketch comedy with the Toronto branch of Second City\, to his rise to fame in SCTV and Hollywood film classics like Planes\, Trains and Automobiles\, The Great Outdoors\, and Uncle Buck\, John Candy captivated audiences with his self-deprecating humour\, emotional warmth\, and gift for improvisation. Now\, for the first time since Candy’s tragic death\, bestselling biographer Paul Myers tells the full story of the man behind the laughs. \nDrawing on extensive research and exclusive interviews with many of Candy’s closest friends and colleagues\, including Dan Aykroyd\, Chevy Chase\, Tom Hanks\, Ron Howard\, Steve Martin\, Catherine O’Hara\, Martin Short\, and many more\, John Candy: A Life in Comedy celebrates the comedian’s unparalleled talent\, infectious charm\, and generosity of spirit. Through ups and downs\, successes and failures\, and struggles with anxiety and self-doubt\, Candy faced the world with a big smile and a warm demeanour that earned him the love and adoration of fans around the world. \n  \nPAUL MYERS is a Canadian writer and musician living in Berkeley\, California. His previous books include The Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy\, which was the source for the Canadian Screen Award-winning documentary The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks from Amazon Studios\, and the critically acclaimed A Wizard a True Star: Todd Rundgren in the Studio; It Ain’t Easy: Long John Baldry and the Birth of the British Blues; and Barenaked Ladies: Public Stunts\, Private Stories.   \nSocial media: IG: @pulmyears X: @pulmyears Bluesky: pulmyears.bsky.social         \n  \nDONNA COOMBS-MONTROSE is a Community Activist and History Advocate who has resided in Edmonton\, Alberta for over 25 years.  Since coming to Edmonton she has served on the board of CARIWEST – Western Carnival Development Association – from 1999-2017\, including the last 10 years as its President. Her core intent was to raise the contributions of Caribbean immigrants to building this society.  She has also served as founding member of the Alberta Labour History Institute (ALHI) from 1999 and continues to serve as a Director.  Her passion for documenting oral histories – the narratives that fuel communities – has resulted in scores of interviews of African-American pioneers\, African-Canadians\, diaspora residents\, community members on the ground of transforming society in health\, labour\, education\, professional occupations\, culture being included in ALHI’s online sites at albertalabourhistory.org/blackcommunities.   \nCoombs-Montrose is also a Founding Member of the Caribbean Women Network\, an Elder to CCACH (Council of Canadians of Caribbean and African Heritage) which is devoted to tutoring and programming for diaspora students grades 1-12\, an active member of Congress of Black Women\, WAWT (When African Women Talk) CURC (Council of Union Retirees of Canada) and several other organizations.  She has contributed to the ECAMP Virtual Museum “And Still I Rise: A Blace Presence in Alberta\, Late 1800s to 1970s\, The Jasper Place Project (jasperplacehistory.org)\, West Indian Diary and other community projects.  Book chapters in several edited volumes also bear her name. \nThe recipient of a Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Medal in 2022\, Donna Coombs-Montrose is currently serving as Historian Laureate for the City of Edmonton for the 2024-2026 term and sits on the Board of the Edmonton Historical Council. \n  \n \nThis event is presented in partnership with the Edmonton Heritage Council. \n  \n 
URL:https://litfestalberta.org/event-1/feature-john-candy-a-life-in-comedy/
LOCATION:Maclab Theatre\, 9828 101A Ave
CATEGORIES:Feature
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