Books & Ideas Audio

Where does one start when listing the accolades and praise for Celeste Ng’s deeply felt, intelligent body of work? Little Fires Everywhere sold millions of copies worldwide and was adapted to a highly acclaimed series on Hulu. Of her latest, Our Missing Hearts, Stephen King shared that “it’s impossible not to be moved,” while TIME, NPR, People, The Globe and Mail, and more, listed it as a book of the year. Celeste Ng joined us at the Festival for a conversation with Jael Richardson.

Our annual Poetry Bash is a gateway to discovering exceptional poets from across the globe. In this release from our 2023 flagship Festival, hear readings from Victoria Adukwei Bulley (Quiet), Lorna Crozier (After That), Patrick Friesen (Reckoning), Susan Musgrave (Exculpatory Lilies) Michael V. Smith (Queers Like Me), and Matthew James Weigel (Whitemud Walking).

Acclaimed Canadian writer Sheila Heti speaks with Molly Cross-Blanchard in this conversation from our 2024 Incite series, presented in partnership with the Vancouver Public Library. Her latest book, Alphabetical Diaries, collects lines from a decade's worth of her journals—rearranged in alphabetical order to create something entirely fresh and sublime. Heti is the author of ten previous books, including experimental and philosophical works such as Motherhood, Pure Colour, and How Should a Person Be?

Widely recognized as one of the finest and most influential authors writing in English today, Zadie Smith speaks about her acclaimed latest novel, The Fraud, with her internationally-renowned Canadian contemporary, Madeleine Thien. This event was presented in 2023 in partnership with UBC School of Creative Writing and the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, and with the support of Penguin Random House Canada.

Naomi Klein’s new book, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, delves into what she calls the Mirror World—our destabilized present rife with doubles and confusion, where far-right movements playact solidarity with the working class, AI-generated content blurs the line between genuine and spurious, and so many of us project our own carefully curated digital doubles into the social media sphere. Klein delivers a revelatory treatment of the way many of us now think and feel, in this conversation with Jarrett Martineau from our 2023 Festival.

The legendary Margaret Atwood joined award-winning author Ian Williams to discuss Old Babes in the Wood, her extraordinary new collection of short fiction, as part of our May Bestsellers Series. A cornerstone of Canada’s literary canon, Atwood is the author of over fifty books. Presented in partnership with Scotia Wealth Management and with support from the Chan Endowment Fund at the University of British Columbia.

After 33 years as the acclaimed host of CBC Radio’s Writers & Company, Eleanor Wachtel retired this year. Celebrate her long career by revisiting her interview with Lebanese-German author Pierre Jarawan, who joined us at the 2022 Festival to discuss Song for the Missing, named one of 24 must-read 2022 Books in Translation by BookRiot. Critically lauded by European and North American press alike, this poetic novel links events of the Middle East, including the Lebanese Civil War and the Arab Spring. Discover a deeply personal lens on the complex, tumultuous history of this region—and a literary voice as mysterious as it is moving.

Rebecca F. Kuang shot to #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list with her previous novels Babel and the Poppy War Trilogy. She joined the Vancouver Writers Fest, Massy Books, and SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs with her new literary thriller, Yellowface—a timely and cutting satire that investigates racism in the publishing industry and beyond. She speaks here with Writers’ Trust of Canada Rising Star Eddy Boudel Tan about transparency in publishing; the nuances of cultural identity and appropriation; Asian representation and stories; and her perspective on Yellowface’s messy main character.

Those who are first introduced to Maggie Nelson soon notice her name throughout their literary and social worlds. The award-winning writer, scholar, poet, and critic is one of the most prolific and influential Western thinkers today. She’s the author of the National Book Critics Circle Award winning work The Argonauts, a genre-bending memoir that gives a firsthand account of the complexities and joys of queer family-making. Her latest work, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint, draws on a vast range of material to explore how we might think, experience, or talk about freedom. Thinking publicly through the knots in our culture—from recent art-world debates to the turbulent legacies of sexual liberation, from the painful paradoxes of addiction to the lure of despair in the face of the climate crisis—is itself a practice of freedom, a means of forging fortitude, courage, and company. Hear her in conversation with bookseller-turned-librarian Baharak Yousefi.

These three American writers are at the top of their game, their works each addressing timeless and timely themes of individuality, freedom, justice, equality. Megha Majumdar’s electrifying debut, A Burning, follows three characters seeking to rise—to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies. Kawai Strong Washburn’s groundbreaking novel folds the legends of Hawai’ian gods into an engrossing family saga. Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown is an intimate story about race, pop culture, and escaping stereotypes. These three sharp minds talk about upending stereotypes, writing with a day job, and the bright side of living and writing in America right now.

Entrancing, surprising, and memorable: The Poetry Bash gathers some of our favourite poets from across the globe. This recording from our 2022 flagship Festival features Claudia Castro Luna (Cipota under the Moon) sharing an ode to the Salvadoran immigrant experience in the United States; Andrew Faulkner, who’s written a “buddy cop dramedy poetry collection” (Heady Bloom); New Zealand poet Tayi Tibble sharing a bold, intimate exploration of being an Indigenous woman (Poūkahangatus); Alexandra Oliver with a scintillating portrait of the suburban uncanny (Hail, the Invisible Watchman); and 2022 ReLit Award-winner Charlie Petch (Why I Was Late). Hosted by Billeh Nickerson.

Canadian writer, director, and actor Sarah Polley joined the Vancouver Writers Fest in celebration of her evocative release, Run Towards the Danger. A complex and exquisite collection of essays, the book captures keystone moments in Polley’s life, as well as the “fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person you are now but were not then.” With the paperback version publishing this month, and Polley’s adaptation of Women Talking nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, revisit this intimate conversation between Polley and Vancouver Writers Fest Artistic Director Leslie Hurtig.

Two of the biggest names in literary historical fiction discuss race, humanity, and writing sweeping stories based on true events. Nadifa Mohamed’s The Fortune Men, based on the real story of a young Somali sailor accused of a crime he did not commit, was a finalist for the Booker Prize. Nathan Harris joined us with The Sweetness of Water, depicting the bond between two brothers, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in the waning days of the Civil War. It was an Oprah’s Book Club pick, one of President Obama’s favourite books of the year, and won the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction. The authors spoke about their powerful novels, and the historical contexts in which they took place, with moderator John Freeman at our 2022 Festival.

The long wait is over: John Rebus, detective inspector and the central protagonist of Edgar Award and Diamond Dagger recipient Ian Rankin’s acclaimed series, is back in A Heart Full of Headstones. In this 24th book in the now televised series, Rankin brings new intrigue and suspense to the dark of Edinburgh, in what Publishers Weekly called “one of his best Rebus novels in years.” He joined us in partnership with SFU Woodward's Cultural Programs, to speak with local detective writer and Juno-nominated comedian Charles Demers about the craft of sleuths, scandals, and (of course) murder.

In a television interview for CBC in the mid-60s, Mavis Gallant spoke of her love for mirrors—as objects, and as symbols. She refers to them often in her 120 short stories, almost all of which were published over a fifty year span in The New Yorker. Her legacy was even the inspiration behind Wes Anderson’s female journalist in The French Dispatch. Mavis Gallant was often interviewed; sometimes, she cooperated, sometimes not. Born in Montreal in 1922, Gallant died in Paris in 2014. On the last night of the last day of the last full year of her life, alone in her apartment, age 91, she grants one last interview, this one to herself. Tune in to this magnificent one-of-a-kind staging, with the distinguished collaboration of actors Nicola Cavendish, Gabrielle Rose, and Alessandro Juliani. Curated and written by Bill Richardson.

Between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean lies the tiny island of Redonda. Uninhabitable by humans, Redonda is home instead to a variety of wildlife—including untold generations of seabirds that produce the island’s prized source of fertilizer. Though it might not seem like much, this peculiar island is the figurative home of a fantastical and international community of writers, with a highly-contested lineage of kings that includes John Gawsworth, Jon Wynne-Tyson, Dylan Thomas, Umberto Eco, Javier Marías, Alice Munro, and Pedro Almodóvar. In an exclusive Festival Week episode of the Books & Ideas Audio podcast, author Michael Hingston discusses his new book—Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda—in conversation with Naben Ruthnum, the author of A Hero of Our Time and Find You in the Dark, among other books.

We all share a common humanity. No matter how long or difficult the path ahead, we are all one. Chief Robert Joseph, globally recognized peacebuilder and Hereditary Chief of the Gwawaenuk People, joined the Vancouver Writers Fest in September to share his first book, Namwayut. In it, he traces his journey from his childhood surviving residential school to his present-day role as a leader who inspires individual hope, collective change, and global transformation. His dedication to reconciliation has been recognized with multiple honorary degrees and awards. Hear him in conversation with his collaborator, Lisa Thomas-Tench. This event was presented in partnership with Massy Books and Raincoast Books.

“If you love Doug’s fiction, this collection is like rain on the desert,” says the publisher of Douglas Coupland’s first work of fiction since 2013, Binge. And certainly, for the millions of readers for whom Coupland’s existentialism, profundity, and hilarity was generation-defining, this is a welcome collection to devour. A collection of 60 stories featuring myriad characters—from the maudlin to the absurd—they ask us to question how we should be living. The bestselling author speaks with CBC producer Lisa Christiansen in this recording from our 2021 Festival. Community partner: Opus Art Supplies.

This year, the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts holds its 40th annual festival from August 11–14, at the Rockwood Centre in Sechelt, BC. We sat down for a Q+A with Jane Davidson, Artistic and Executive Director of the Festival. Jane shares what makes this year's festival special, and reflects on some of her favourite memories and achievements from the past 15 years, as she prepares to pass on the torch. Next, hear a special release of the 2021 Rockwood Lecture, delivered by Seth Klein, from the SCFWA's archives. The Director of Strategy with the Climate Emergency Unit, Klein's book, A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency explores how we can fight the climate crisis using lessons from the Second World War. Called “a compelling call to arms”, A Good War shows us how far we have to go, but how averting the climate crisis is well within our reach.

We’ve just recently released our 2022 Festival Reading List, filled with over 115 exceptional books and authors that will be joining the Vancouver Writers Fest from October 17–23. In this special episode of the Books & Ideas Audio podcast, Artistic Director Leslie Hurtig introduces the Reading List, and outlines the fascinating process of programming our October Festival, and the many considerations behind the selection of titles. Next, Vancouver Writers Fest staff eagerly share some of the books we’re personally most excited about bringing to this year’s Festival. Dive into this year’s lineup of entertaining and inspiring books with us!