Vancouver Writers Fest. Grand Openings: Read, Resist, Repair, Rejoice

Tickets

Cost: $45.00
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On this monumental evening, literary greats will transmit an indomitable light through the darkness, illuminating new and ongoing forms of resistance, and inviting hope through the enduring power of the written word. Esteemed authors and leading thinkers will take the stage, in wide-ranging sequential talks, to reflect on the essential themes at the heart of this year’s Festival. Hear original works from Ayad Akhtar, Cory Doctorow, Tayari Jones, Ruth Ozeki, Ece Temelkuran, John Vaillant, Jesse Wente, and Jody Wilson-Raybould. Hosted by Elamin Abdelmahmoud.

Event Participants:
Elamin Abdelmahmoud
ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD is the host of CBC Radio show Commotion. He was a founding co-host of the CBC Politics podcast Party Lines, and he is a contributor to The National’s At Issue panel. His work has appeared in Buzzfeed News, Rolling Stone, the Globe and Mail, and others.

Ayad Akhtar
AYAD AKHTAR is a novelist and playwright. His work has been published and performed in over two dozen languages. He is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Edith Wharton Citation of Merit for Fiction, and an award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other honors. Akhtar is the author of the novels American Dervish, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year, and Homeland Elegies, named one of 10 Best Books of 2020 by The New York Times. He has also authored the plays McNeal, Junk, Disgraced, The Who & The What, and The Invisible Hand. Akhtar was named the New York State Author in 2021.

Cory Doctorow
CORY DOCTOROW is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. He is the author of many books. He writes nonfiction policy books such as The Internet Con and Chokepoint Capitalism, as well as science fiction for adults – Red Team Blues and The Lost Cause – and for young adults – Little Brother. He has been inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame and has been honored with the Arthur C. Clarke Imagination in Service to Society Award and the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by York University and an Honorary Doctor of Computer Science by the Open University. For a quarter century, he has been an activist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He co-founded the UK Open Rights Group and holds visiting appointments at the Open University, MIT, Cornell, and the University of North Carolina. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Burbank, California and London.

Tayari Jones
TAYARI JONES is a New York Times bestselling author of five novels, most recently Kin, an Oprah’s Book Club Selection. Her novel, An American Marriage, was an Oprah’s Book Club Selection and won many awards including the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Jones is the C.H. Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University in Atlanta.

Ruth Ozeki
RUTH OZEKI is the author of The Typing Lady: And Other Fictions, whose novels include The Book of Form and Emptiness and A Tale for the Time Being. She is a Buddhist priest affiliated with the Everyday Zen Foundation, and Professor Emerita of English Language and Literature at Smith College.

Ece Temelkuran
ECE TEMELKURAN is an award-winning Turkish writer, political thinker, and public speaker whose work has been published worldwide. Her novels have been published in several languages and adapted to the stage. After she left her country in 2016, Temelkuran began writing in English. Her first book in this language, How to Lose a Country, received international praise.

John Vaillant
JOHN VAILLANT’s acclaimed, award-winning nonfiction books, The Golden Spruce and The Tiger, were national bestsellers. His debut novel, The Jaguar’s Children, was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. Vaillant has received the Governor General’s Literary Award, British Columbia’s National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, and the Pearson Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. He has written for, among others, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and The Walrus. He lives in Vancouver.

Jesse Wente
JESSE WENTE is a husband and father, as well as a writer, broadcaster, speaker and arts administrator. Born and raised in Toronto, Jesse's family comes from Chicago and Genaabaajing Anishinaabek, and he is a member of the Serpent River First Nation. His memoir, Unreconciled: Family, Truth and Indigenous Resistance, is a national bestseller and was picked as one of best books of 2021 by Chapters-Indigo, Apple Books and the Globe and Mail. Jesse also won the Rakuten-Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Nonfiction.

Jody Wilson-Raybould
The Honourable DR. JODY WILSON-RAYBOULD, PC, OBC, KC, is the former minister of justice and attorney general, a member of We Wai Kai Nation, a lawyer, a leader among Canada’s Indigenous Peoples, and the author of four bestselling books. She lives in Cape Mudge, BC.
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