Wordfest Presents Tegan & Sara

Wordfest Presents Tegan & Sara Quin

Wordfest welcomes indie-pop superstars Tegan & Sara Quin home to Calgary to celebrate their first graphic novel, Junior High. This special conversation starts at 7:00 PM MT and will be hosted by Calgary educator Robin Phillips, who has been best friends with the twins since their teen years. Even better: you will all get a pre-signed copy of Junior High with your ticket! 

To be able to include as many audience members as possible in the Q&A segment following the conversation, Tegan & Sara ask that you please submit your questions in advance via a link provided after your ticket purchase.

We are so grateful to Raincoast Books for making it possible for Wordfest to connect you with Tegan & Sara.

About Tegan & Sara: Junior High

From indie-pop twin-sister duo Tegan and Sara comes a contemporary middle grade graphic novel that explores growing up, coming out, and finding yourself through music and sisterhood.

Before Tegan and Sara took the music world by storm, the Quins were just two identical twins trying to find their place in a new home and new school. From first crushes to the perils of puberty, surviving junior high is something the sisters plan to face side by side, just like they've always faced things. But growing up also means growing apart, as Tegan and Sara make different friends and take separate paths to understanding their queerness. For the first time ever, they ask who one sister is without the other.

Set in the present day, this effervescent blend of fiction and autobiography, with artwork from Eisner Award–winner Tillie Walden, offers a glimpse at the two sisters before they became icons, exploring their shifting relationship, their own experiences coming out, and the first steps of their musical journey.

A prequel of sorts to the authors' bestselling adult memoir High School, which is now an 8-episode Freevee television series!

About Tegan Quin & Sara Quin

During the course of their seasoned career, Tegan Quin and Sara Quin have sold well over one million records and released numerous studio albums. They have received three Juno Awards, a Grammy nomination, a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, and the New York Civil Liberties Union Award. Tegan and Sara have performed on some of the world’s biggest stages, from Coachella to the Academy Awards, and are executive producers of the TV series High School based on their New York Times bestselling adult memoir of the same name. They are also the authors of the Tegan and Sara graphic novel series for young readers, which is illustrated by Eisner Award–winner Tillie Walden. In 2016, they created the Tegan and Sara Foundation, which fights for health, economic justice, and representation for LGBTQ+ people. The sisters currently reside in Vancouver, British Columbia. Follow them on Instagram @teganandsara and twitter @teganandsara.com

About Host Robin Phillips

Robin Phillips is a passionate educator with 18 years of experience who is committed to equity and believes whole-heartedly that public education serves the greater good. She is currently the very proud Assistant Principal of Willow Park Art-Centred Learning School, serving students in grades 5-9. Robin has worked on several projects with multi-faceted artist Vivek Shraya, creating teacher’s guides for three of her books and most recently collaborated with Willow Park students to create a short film for Shraya’s newest children’s book, Revenge of the Raccoons. 

She is also a life-long best friend of Tegan and Sara. They met in junior high at Bob Edwards School in N.E. Calgary and together have revelled in a lifetime of stories! 

Curiouser?

• Tegan and Sara look back: ‘We had terrible haircuts but we had self-belief’ -The Guardian
• I Think We’re Alone Now -substack