Award-winning writer and former poet laureate of Kingston, Helen Humphreys brings us her newest grand and beautiful experiment in fiction: Rabbit Foot Bill. Set in a small prairie town, and based on a real-life story, it explores the ways people seek inner peace when their world has been upended. With an abiding love for, and […]

With his signature tantalizing plot and gut-churning tension, Linwood Barclay offers Elevator Pitch, a best-selling novel that provides the thrill of a big drop fairground ride. A Manhattan office tower elevator falls from the top floor to the bottom, killing all its occupants. Next thing you know, another falls the next day, and then another. […]

Can humanity pull itself back from the abyss of extinction? In Commanding Hope, Thomas Homer-Dixon, analytical philosopher and author of bestsellers The Ingenuity Gap, and The Upside of Down, offers a compelling corrective to a prevailing pessimism that it’s too late to stave off climate catastrophe and that it’s hopeless to attempt change in time […]

“What a place we find ourselves in now. What a mad and dangerous universe of possibility.” (Matt Suddain, The Theatre of the Gods) Poets Canisia Lubrin and Sadiqa de Meijer open up the universe of possibility in their poetry. Canisia interrogates selfhood against the contemporary backdrop of toxic nationalism and climate disaster; and Sadiqa writes about […]

Black Lives Matter is currently at the forefront of the news cycle, with worldwide protests and shocking stories revealed almost daily of incidents of systemic racism. In recounting a year of personal experience of racism, Black anti-racism activist and author Desmond Cole offers his experience as a lens through which we can see ourselves clearly. […]

How does oral history align with, or contradict, received history? Join oral history scholar Sara Franklin as she talks with Kingston writer Laura Murray about how oral history might serve as a useful tool in the current reassessment of what’s important to remember and celebrate. How does it contribute to revealing what has been buried, […]

“Certainty is the catalyst that turns attitude into action, bringing beliefs to life and imbuing them with meaning and consequence,” writes Zakary Tormala in the Harvard Business Review. Praised by the Chicago Tribune as “hypnotically beautiful”, Aislinn Hunter’s novel The Certainties is also described as “elegiac and heart-pounding”, “a love letter in the guise of […]

Award-winning author Shani Mootoo said in a NowToronto interview: “I am interested in the fact that no matter how closely you live with someone, you can never really know what is in their mind.” In Polar Vortex, lesbian couple Priya, a Trinidadian, and Alexandra, who is white, have moved to a home in the country. […]

Join Carol Off for a visionary exercise about what the future holds, with statistician Darrell Bricker, economist Jeff Rubin, novelist Catherine Bush, and novelist and memoirist Tessa McWatt. With unprecedented global upheaval, and huge challenges to be addressed – the ongoing health catastrophe of COVID-19, systemic and institutional racism, income instability, the rapaciousness of big […]

Perhaps you’re among the many who recently have taken to walking as means of stress relief. Norwegian author Torbjørn Ekelund understands the healing potential of walking paths and trails. With writer and dedicated walker Kate Kristiansen, Torbjørn reflects on the interdependence of paths and walkers, paths organically taking us through a natural environment to a […]

In a modern world where connectivity is near constant, the idea of disconnecting can feel nerve-wracking, antisocial, or unproductive. Yet a pause - for a breath, an hour, or more - can help us feel restored, reinvigorated, and reinspired. In this event focussing on her book In Praise of Retreat: Finding Sanctuary in the Modern […]

Award-winning novelist, short story writer, scriptwriter and photographer Thomas King is back with a stand-alone thriller that takes a sly and satirical look at politics, greed, and privilege. Mixing a smart whodunnit with a darkly humorous commentary on corporate and government corruption and inequality, Sufferance is being praised as one of his finest books to […]

Join the DAN School of Drama and Music at Queen’s University in partnership with Kingston WritersFest for the international debut stage reading of Gunplay (After the Gun Goes Off).  When Darryl and his friend Niko get caught using a pellet gun in the alley beside an elementary school, it triggers an active shooter response, hitting […]

In Field Study: Meditations on a Year at the Herbarium, award-winning poet and novelist Helen Humphreys continues her series of nature meditations by taking a deep look at the mostly forgotten world of herbariums. With the help of archival photos, illustrations, and her own drawings, Helen reflects on the humble beauty of herbariums from the […]

scoff·law /ˈskôflô/ noun INFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN: a person who flouts the law, especially by failing to comply with a law that is difficult to enforce effectively – Oxford English Dictionary. The shady machinations of colonial legal proceedings in Canada are brilliantly captured in this personification of Garry Thomas Morse’s titular character. The sharp, funny, and playful […]

A long-buried bone found in the forest. A generation of women united by unspoken trauma. Mass graves unearthed. Voices united in protest. A secret that can no longer be hushed, and the slow, quixotic quest to bring those responsible to justice. In this event, authors Kim Echlin (Speak, Silence) and Judith McCormack (The Singing Forest) […]

Jocelyne Saucier avec Rhonda Mullins La Lecture et La Conversation Événement en français L'auteur francophone primée Jocelyne Saucier revient sur la scène du Kingston WritersFest avec un mystère d'une petite ville décrit comme Away From Her rencontre Strangers on a Train. Avec Rhonda Mullins, traductrice du livre français-anglais, Jocelyne parle de son dernier ouvrage, And […]

Speaking openly about women’s sexual lives and desires, outside of the fantasy or the male gaze, is still viewed as a rare and bold activity. In this event, author and poet Amber Dawn (My Art is Killing Me and Other Poems) and poet Molly Cross-Blanchard (Exhibitionist) address the subject head-on, talking with Aara Macauley about […]

Omar El Akkad was born in Egypt and grew up in Qatar before moving to Canada with his family. An award-winning journalist and author, he has traveled the world covering many important news stories, including the war in Afghanistan, military trials in Guantanamo Bay, and Egypt’s Arab Spring revolution. In a conversation with interviewer Jamal […]

Written over the course of a decade peppered with grief and loss Big Reader: Essays explores themes of memory, loss, womanhood, disappointment, and joy, all underpinned by an abiding love of books. Author Susan Olding hopes the book leaves reader feeling “grateful for the incredible gift that reading is, especially in times like ours, where […]

Award-winning author Guy Vanderhaeghe is back with his first new novel in nearly a decade, and readers will agree it was worth the wait! Along with interviewer Eric Friesen, the author of such titles as A Good Man, The Last Crossing, and The Englishman’s Boy, will discuss his lavish, suspenseful and beautifully written new novel […]

With more than 25 years experience in the field of diversity, equity and inclusion, Shakil Chodhury has developed award-winning training and tools for organizations seeking to improve their diversity outcomes. In this event, the author of Deep Diversity: A Compassionate Approach to Achieving Racial Justice will share his personal and professional story and offer ways […]

Mermen, ogres, centaurs, and witches dwell on the pages of Amanda Leduc’s novel The Centaur’s Wife and Therese Estacion’s poetry collection Phantompains. In these two unique and beautifully crafted works, the narrator navigates trauma, grief, pain, and hope through a surreal and fantastical landscape. But these fabled figures also provide a lens into the lives […]

Content warning – this event discusses subject matter that some audience members might find distressing. Discretion is advised. Kevin Lambert is not even 30 years old, and already he is making a big name for himself in Quebec, and building a reputation for his controversial subject matter and powerful, poetic, inventive prose. Here with the […]

“Paintings are rarely sequential by nature,” says author David Macfarlane. “Paintings show you everything about themselves at the same time. This doesn’t mean you see everything at the same time in a painting. Seeing a painting is another matter.” Like stepping back from the details of a painting to take in its whole, Likeness: Fathers, […]

Steven Heighton is no stranger to the Kingston WritersFest stage. As a bestselling novelist, essayist, memoir writer and now musician, his passion for writing and the creative life is writ large. This Fall, Steven is back with Selected Poems 1983–2020 - his seventh volume of poetry, which features curated pieces from his past six collections, […]

“He writes with immediacy and verve, cutting out the unnecessary to leave only the most vivid.” — Literary Review of Canada Short stories tend to get short shrift in the world of readers. But there is much to be said for less is more. In this event, Mark Anthony Jarman joins Adrian Michael Kelly to […]

Fans of magical realism, compelling family dramas, supernatural battles, and dark, humorous coming-of-age stories are in for a treat with this refreshingly unique trilogy about an Indigenous teen who discovers he may be the son of the magical Trickster. The first book in Eden Robison’s trilogy, Son of a Trickster landed her a Giller Prize […]

In On Property: Policing, Prisons, and the Call for Abolition, his 96 page pamphlet for Biblioasis’ Field Notes series, academic and writer Rinaldo Walcott offers an urgent, persuasive, and far-reaching call for a new ethics of care. In this event, Rinaldo will discuss the links between property, policing, and the ways in which the racism […]