Whistler Writers Festival goes digital

August 13th, 2020

Anthropologist and international best-selling author Wade Davis will headline the virtual 2020 Whistler Writers Festival, joining over 50 other presenters including novelists Emily St. John Mandel, David Bergen, Caroline Adderson and Cree writer Michelle Good.

The list of confirmed guest presenters also includes: Leslie Anthony, Jennifer Ashton, Nicola Bentley, Tanya Boteju, Janie Brown, Jillian Christmas, Eileen Cook, Amber Cowie, Annahid Dashtgard, Kilmeny Jane Denny, Lynn Duncan, Katherine Fawcett, Patrick Friesen, Vicki Gabereau, Ulrikka S. Gernes, Genni Gunn, Aislinn Hunter, Rosemary Keevil, David Keplinger, Grant Lawrence, Sara Leach, D.A. Lockhart, Annabel Lyon, Mary MacDonald, Amy McDaid, Roz Nay, Carsten René Nielsen, Zalika Reid-Benta, David A. Robertson, Lori Rohda, Cordelia Strube, Amy Stuart, Stephen Vogler, K. Jane Watt, Rebecca Wood Barrett and Stephanie Wrobel.

The publishers and editors who will be attending include: Amanda Betts (Penguin Random House), Jennifer Croll (Greystone), Jen Knoch (ECW Press), Justin Stoller (Simon & Schuster), Suzanne Sutherland (HarperCollins), and Tanya Trafford (Orca Book Publishers).

Although having transitioned to an entirely digital format because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival will bring together authors and attendees together for real-time conversations through on-screen Q&A sessions during and after readings, live-streaming workshops, virtual pitching sessions and other digital events.

A virtual bookstore has been created where audiences can buy or pre-order books in advance of events.

Tickets go on sale August 31 for the festival that will run from Thursday, October 15 to Sunday, October 18, 2020.

For more information, visit: www.whistlerwritersfest.com.

*

HEADLINER DETAILS

• 

  Wade Davis at UBC

  Wade Davis – International bestselling writer and photographer whose work covers Amazon to Tibet, Africa to Australia, Polynesia to the Arctic. Described as a scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity, Davis is the author of 22 books, including One River, The Wayfindersand Into the Silence. Previously Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and current Professor of Anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia, Davis became a Member of the Order of Canada in 2016 and an Honorary Citizen of Columbia in 2018. His latest book, Magdalena: River of Dreams, will be published in September, 2020.

• Emily St. John Mandel – British Columbia-born and New York City based award-winning author of five novels, including the dystopian novel Station Eleven, a bestseller that propelled Mandel into fame in 2014. Among its many honours, Station Eleven was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, won the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award and has been translated into 33 languages. Her new novel, The Glass Hotel, was recently published in Canada and the US and is forthcoming in the UK in August.
• Marina Endicott – This Albertan storyteller burst into the Canadian literary scene with her debut Open Arms, which was short-listed for the Amazon First Novel award and serialized on CBC Radio. Her second, Good to a Fault, was a finalist for the 2008 Giller Prize, a CBC Canada Reads choice and winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Her novel The Little Shadows was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award, and longlisted for the 2011 Giller Prize, as was Close to Hugh,one of CBC’s Best Books of 2015. Her latest release is the novel The Difference.
• David Bergen – Giller Prize-winning Winnipeg author of eight previous novels and a collection of short stories. Among his acclaimed works are The Time in Between, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and The Matter with Morris, which was a finalist for the Giller Prize, winner of the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, and finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His novel The Age of Hope was a number one bestseller and finalist for Canada Reads. Bergen’s latest release, Stranger, was also a finalist for the Giller Prize.
• Waubgeshig Rice – Author and journalist originally from Wasauksing First Nation. His first short story collection Midnight Sweatlodge, inspired by his experiences growing up in an Anishinaabe community, won an Independent Publishers Book Award in 2012. Following the release of his debut novel Legacy in 2014, he received the Anishinabek Nation’s Debwewin Citation for excellence in First Nation Storytelling. Rice now works as a multi-platform journalist for CBC and splits his time between Sudbury and Wasauksing. Moon of the Crusted Snow is his latest release.

• 

  Caroline Adderson. Photo by Jenelle Schneider

  Caroline Adderson – Multi-award-winning Vancouver author of books and short stories for children and adults, including middle-grade novel, Middle of Nowhere, the popular Jasper John Dooley series, A History of Forgetting, Sitting Practice, Bad Imaginings and Pleased to Meet You. Published in eleven countries, Adderson’s work has received numerous award nominations, including the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rogers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her latest novel, A Russian Sister, is expected in August.

• Dakshana Bascaramurty – National news reporter for The Globe and Mail who writes about race and ethnicity. She won a 2013 National Newspaper Award in beat reporting for her coverage of changing demographics, as well as a Digital Publishing Award for her writing. Her work has appeared in the National Post, the Ottawa Citizen, and on CBC. Her first book, This Is Not the End of Me, is expected to be released in August and tells the story of a young husband and father who, when diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 33, sets out to build a legacy for his infant son.
• Michelle Good – Canadian author, lawyer and member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, who just released her much-anticipated first book, Five Little Indians, in April 2020 to critical-acclaim. Good worked for Indigenous organizations for 25 years, advocating for residential school survivors, before obtaining her law degree. She earned her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at UBC while still practicing law. Her poems, short stories and essays have been published in magazines and anthologies across Canada. Good now lives in the southern Okanagan in B.C.

Share on Facebook

Tweet