Arundhati Roy’s first novel, The God of Small Things, won the Booker Prize and made her an international household name. She has gone on to publish multiple acclaimed books—including The Ministry of Utmost Happiness—and to challenge injustices around the world as a prominent political and environmental activist. She joined us with her debut memoir, in conversation with award-winning author Naomi Klein. One of the best reviewed books of the year, Mother Mary Comes to Me is a soaring account of how Roy became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to her extraordinary, singular mother.

Dionne Brand’s first major book of nonfiction in more than 20 years—Salvage: Readings from the Wreck—offers a bracing look at the intersections of reading and life, and of what remains in the wreck of empire. In conversation with Kimberly Bain, she shares how she learned to read the literature of two empires, British and American, in an anti-colonial light—in order to survive and in order to live. This conversation was recorded on October 23, 2024, and presented in partnership with Hogan's Alley Society.

Malcolm Gladwell’s first book, The Tipping Point, changed the way we think and talk about the dissemination of ideas. Twenty-five years after its publication—and many New York Times-bestselling books later—Gladwell reframes the lessons of his groundbreaking debut for our confounding new era, in Revenge of the Tipping Point. He speaks with CBC’s The National host Ian Hanomansing in this conversation filled with laughs and jaw-dropping stories.

At the heart of Robert Macfarlane's Is a River Alive? is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings, who should be recognized as such in both imagination and law. Around the world, rivers are dying from pollution, drought and damming. But a powerful “rights of nature” movement is underway to re-animate our relationships with these vast, mysterious presences whose landscapes we share. 

Macfarlane joined us and local environmental non-profit Pacific Salmon Foundation to discuss a radical re-imagination of not only rivers but life itself, in conversation with award-winning journalist Laura Lynch.

We all owe a great deal of gratitude—not just admiration—to award-winning, Anishinaabe author and journalist Tanya Talaga, whose work (such as Seven Fallen Feathers and All Our Relations) has transformed Canadians’ understanding of the systemic injustices faced by Indigenous peoples across the country, and offered deeply important, actionable recommendations for how to meet and overcome such wrongs. The Knowing is another essential read: the unfolding of Canadian history unlike anything we have read before. It is the history of the country through an Indigenous lens, beginning with the life of her great-great-grandmother Annie Carpenter and her family as they experienced decades of government- and Church-sanctioned disenfranchisement and genocide. She speaks to this deeply personal, seminal work with Candis Callison, in this conversation recorded at the 2024 Vancouver Writers Fest, and presented in partnership with HarperCollins Canada Ltd. 

Acclaimed authors Christina Wong and Daniel Innes, Henry Tsang, and Fae Myenne Ng joined us at the 2023 Vancouver Writers Fest for a discussion with Kevin Chong all about Chinatown—both what it means as a concept, and its various physical neighbourhoods in Vancouver, Toronto, and around the world. This event was presented on October 21, 2023 in partnership with the Chinatown Storytelling Centre.

Telling what’s real from what’s fake should be easy. In today’s world, that’s far from the case. Bestselling author and Canada Research Chair Timothy Caulfield joined the Vancouver Writers Fest to speak with Marsha Lederman about his new book, The Certainty Illusion—along with misinformation, fake news, and the noble pursuit of truth in science, academia, politics, and life. 

Code Noir, the debut fiction work from acclaimed, award-winning poet, editor, and writer Canisia Lubrin was named a best book of 2024 by CBC and The Globe and Mail. Departing from the “Code Noir” historic decrees in 17th century France which defined the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire, the book of the same name has 59 linked fictions.

In conversation with Dionne Brand, these two literary stars discuss Lubrin’s brilliant book, writing in the long shadow of imperialism, and the intellectual and emotional vigour behind each of these stories.

To honour the life and work of Murray Sinclair—trail-blazing Anishinaabe lawyer and senator, the first Indigenous judge appointed in Manitoba, and Chief Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—hear a conversation between Shelagh Rogers and Tanya Talaga at the 2024 Vancouver Writers Fest, celebrating and discussing his powerful memoir, Who We Are: Four Questions For A Life And A Nation.
This event was recorded on October 24—shortly before Murray Sinclair passed away on November 4, 2024.

Ali Velshi—Chief Correspondent for MSNBC, a weekly economics contributor to NPR, and host of his own news show, “Velshi”—joins us to discuss his new book Small Acts of Courage, a captivating family history that illustrates how small actions can have an outsized political impact. He speaks with Ian Hanomansing, host of CBC’s The National from Vancouver on Fridays and Sundays, about his family, the upcoming US election, and the risks of being a journalist today.