Western Canada’s largest free literary festival, Word Vancouver, is returning for its 26th year from September 19 – 27, 2020.
The Festival brings authors and readers together to share stories, fictional accounts, poems, tall-tales, picture books and points-of-view. In these difficult times of the COVID-19 precautions, the Festival organizers are providing nine days of free online programming to offer a connection and inspire creativity to everyone in the community.
The 2020 Word Vancouver programming is curated by Bonnie Nish, Executive Director, of Word Vancouver along with guest curators; Betsy Warland (LGBTQ2S+ programs) and Russell Wallace (Indigenous programs). Together the trio have brought together 140 authors and over 50 events featuring a mix of virtual hands-on workshops, panel discussions and readings. The topics include the immigrant experience, Indigenous voices, grief and loss, LGBTQ2S+ perspectives, writing, illustrating, publishing and much more.
The Festival is collaborating with other community organizations including: Word On the Street Toronto, The Italian Cultural Centre, The Vancouver Public Library, SFU / The Writers Studio, Chinese Canadian Writers’ Association, Association of Italian-Canadian Writers, Joy Kogawa House, Crime Writers of Canada and The Story Telling with Drag Queens Foundation.
Some in-person Festival events have limited capacity to for COVID-19 protocols and all events require participants to register in advance. More details can be found online at wordvancouver.ca