2022 Digital Festival

For the first time ever, gain access to a mastercut of the Vancouver Writers Fest’s October Festival! 

New extended dates: Access the Digital Festival from December 6 to January 20!

This October, we gathered on Granville Island for the 35th Anniversary Festival. We were overwhelmed by the response to our first fully in-person Festival after three years. The warmth of the audiences and the powerful conversations that took place on our stages were captured on camera so that we could share the magic of this week with as many people as possible. The result is this Digital Festival Release: 30 specially curated events, many previously sold out, representing some of the most intriguing, edifying, and fun offerings from our 2022 Festival, available online from December 6 through January 20.

We hope these events will reach people far and wide—and also solve the eternal problem of not being able to be in two places at once during Festival Week. 

Please enjoy these exceptional books, ideas and dialogue!

SEND SOMEONE A DIGITAL FESTIVAL GIFT PASS

We think the Digital Festival will make a truly exceptional holiday gift for your favourite book lover. Please click here to book a Digital Festival Gift Pass.

ACCESSIBILITY INFORMATION

Captioning is available on all of the events. Although ASL interpretation was provided onsite for some of the events, it is not reliably featured in the video presentations. Your purchase receipt will include instructions to stream all festival content on demand (December 6 through January 20).

 

30 fully-captioned events from the 2022 Festival are included in this all-access, pay-what-you-can pass:

 

#01: Educating with the Witness Blanket (High School)
featuring Carey Newman and Kirstie Hudson

 

#02: Sisters in Resistance
Tilar J. Mazzeo in Conversation with Marsha Lederman

 

#03: What Home Means
featuring Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Omar El Akkad, Dimitri Nasrallah, and Debra Thompson

 

#04: Ali Hassan in Conversation with Brent Butt

 

#05: Friendship and Fitting In (Grades 4–7)
featuring Johnnie Christmas, Faith Erin Hicks, and Jonathan Hill

 

#06: An Evening with Wayne Johnston
hosted by Rob Wiersema

 

#07: Freeman's Spotlight
featuring Tess Gunty and John Freeman

 

#08: Fabulous Historical Fantasy

featuring Guy Gavriel Kay, J.M. Miro (Steven Price), and Rob Wiersema

 

#09: An Evening with Billy-Ray Belcourt
hosted by Mercedes Eng

 

#10: Short Story Masters
featuring Caroline Adderson, Jonathan Escoffery, Kim Fu, and Alexander MacLeod

 

#11: The Power of Story: Live Recording for CBC's The Next Chapter

featuring Brian Thomas Isaac, Marsha Lederman, David A. Robertson, and Shelagh Rogers

 

#12: Fiction from Reality

featuring Violaine Huisman, Aislinn Hunter, Gabriel Krauze, and Douglas Stuart

 

#13: Don’t You Want Me, Baby?: Authors Do 80s Lyrics
featuring Heather O’Neill, Omar El Akkad, João Reis, Brendan McLeod, Kevin Sylvester, Marsha Lederman, Iain Reid, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Kern Carter,  David A. Robertson, and Tess Gunty; hosted by Elamin Abdelmahmoud

 

#14: A Gallant Day: The Great Coincidence of August 11

featuring Aamina Ahmad, Ivan Coyote, Veda Hille, Bill Richardson, and Marcus Youssef

 

#15: The Truth Ain’t What It Used To Be: Journalism in the 21st Century

featuring Kamal Al-Solaylee, Omar El Akkad, Brandi Morin, Elizabeth Renzetti, and Andrea Woo

 

#16: Generational Fiction: Stories of Lineage, History and Things Passed Down

featuring Aamina Ahmad, Tsering Yangzom Lama, Marsha Lederman, and Jasmine Sealy

 

#17: Douglas Stuart in Conversation with Eddy Boudel Tan

 

#18: Poems for the Twelfth Hour

featuring Otoniya Okot Bitek, John Freeman, Aislinn Hunter, Gillian Jerome, Brendan McLeod, and Cecily Nicholson

 

#19: An Evening with Heather O’Neill

hosted by Jen Sookfong Lee

 

#20: Queer Little Nightmares

featuring jaye simpson, Amber Dawn, Eddy Boudel Tan, Tin Lorica, Ben Rawluk, Jane Shi, Cicely Belle Blain, and beni xiao, with a drag performance by Persephone. Hosted by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli.

 

#21: Bestseller to Blockbuster

featuring Marsha Lederman, Tom Perrotta, and Iain Reid

 

#22: Wildness: Stories for an Unraveling World

featuring Madhur Anand, Omar El Akkad, Kim Fu, and John Elizabeth Stintzi

 

#23: Building Suspense

featuring Linwood Barclay, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Jerry Wasserman, and Sandra SG Wong

 

#24: The State of Women

featuring Eliza Reid and Elizabeth Renzetti

 

#25: American Debuts: Emerging Authors, Exceptional Tales

featuring Aamina Ahmad, Jonathan Escoffery, Shaena Lambert, and Soon Wiley

 

#26: An Evening with Elif Batuman

hosted by Anakana Schofield

 

#27: The Literary Cabaret

featuring Graeme Macrae Burnet, Pierre Jarawan, Gabriel Krauze, Nadifa Mohamed, and Heather O’Neill; music accompaniment by Sally Zori and the Allegories

 

#28: The Crime [Writing] of the Century: 

Linwood Barclay and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir in Conversation

 

#29: The Future is Now, with Bob McDonald

 

#30: Dr. Gabor Maté in Conversation

hosted by Andrea Woo

 

The Digital Festival is presented thanks to the generous support of the Y.P. Heung Foundation.