Odds, Ends, and Exile: Essays in Focus

The personal essay possesses an incredible, elastic range, serving as a vital tool to inform, delight, and profoundly change minds. Award-winning writers Richard Kelly Kemick and Jamaluddin Aram explore this dynamic form on the KWF stage. Kemick discusses Decadence, his "accidental memoir" praised by Publishers Weekly as a "weird and rewarding ride." Filmmaker Jamaluddin Aram presents The Blood of Things, an exquisite debut collection on writing, exile, and the fall of Kabul.

Richard Kelly Kemick is an award-winning poet, journalist, and fiction writer. He is the author of the essay collection, Decadence. Richard is also the author of Hello, Horse, I Am Herod (available on audiobook), the poetry collection Caribou Run, and the stage play Amor De Cosmos: A Delusional Musical. His limited series podcast, Natural Life, is an intimate and unexpectedly honest documentary on his cousin, who is serving a life sentence without parole in Michigan. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Jamaluddin Aram is an Afghan-Canadian author and producer. His debut novel Nothing Good Happens in Wazirabad on Wednesday, won the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. He was also a Bronwen Wallace Award finalist in 2020. He lives in Toronto.

Moderator Krista Foss is a novelist, essayist, and journalist. She has published the novels Smoke River and Half Life. Smoke River won the Hamilton Literary Award. Krista has twice been a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Journey Prize. She lives in Westport.