The Way We Calgary’d

The Way We Calgary'd

Wordfest turns 30 this year and we’re throwing a lively bash to celebrate the Calgarians who helped build Wordfest. It’s our way of thanking writers, readers, and community builders for helping to spark our thriving literary scene. And what better way to showcase this city’s range of wordy goodness than inviting seven of our finest storytellers to share a seven-minute tale about the relationship between their art and their hometown, in its all its contradictions, complexities, and connections. Join us for The Way We… Calgary’d, featuring Ali Bryan, Marcello Di Cintio, Will Ferguson, Cheryl Foggo, Richard Harrison, Joshua Whitehead, and Teresa Wong, with a special performance by Tom Phillips.

Come early to check out our special Anniversary Exhibit, featuring posters, T-shirts, ephemera, and more examples of Wordfest’s creativity over the decades. There will be a special photo opportunity to capture the glam and the glitter, with libations by Dandy Brewing Co. Owl’s Nest Books will be on site with a curated selection of Calgary-authored books. And, for the very first time, Wordfest will be selling signed, first-edition copies from its archive (with proceeds going to Wordfest Youth). And we will be debuting two new, limited-edition 30th Anniversary tote bags for purchase. 

Thank you to Calgary Arts Development for your support of this celebration.

Our Storytellers

Ali Bryan

Ali Bryan is a novelist and creative nonfiction writer who explores the what-ifs, the wtfs, and the wait-a-minutes of every day. A two-time finalist for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, her work has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, longlisted for both the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, and optioned for TV by Sony Pictures. Her novels include Coq, The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships, Takedown, Roost (winner of the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction), The Figgs, and The Hill.

Website: alibryan.com
Instagram/Threads: @alikbryan

Marcello Di Cintio

Marcello Di Cintio is the author of six books, including Driven:The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers; Walls: Travels Along the Barricades (winner of the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the W. O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize) and Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense (also a W. O. Mitchell Prize winner). His new book, Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers, will be released this fall. Di Cintio’s award-winning magazine writing has appeared in publications such as The International New York Times, The Walrus, Canadian Geographic, and Afar. He served as a writer-in-residence at the Calgary Public Library, the University of Calgary, and the Palestine Writing Workshop. He teaches nonfiction writing at the annual WordsWorth youth writing residency.

Website: marcellodicintio.com
Instagram/Threads: @marcello.di.cintio

Will Ferguson

Will Ferguson is a three-time winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour. His novels include his debut, HappinessTM, which sold in 23 languages; 419, which won the Giller Prize; and The Finder, winner of the 2021 Arthur Ellis Award for Crime Fiction. With his brother, Ian, he is the co-author of the mega-bestseller, How to Be a Canadian, as well as the cozy mystery series  I Only Read Murder, Mystery in the Title, and the upcoming, Killer on the First Page. 

Website: willferguson.ca   

Cheryl Foggo

Cheryl Foggo is a playwright, author, and filmmaker, whose work over the last 35 years has focused on the lives of Western Canadians of African descent. Among her many works are the play Heaven, the documentary John Ware Reclaimed, John Ware Reimagined and the autobiographical Pourin’ Down Rain: A Black Woman Claims Her Place in the Canadian West. Foggo is a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Outstanding Artist Award, The Doug and Lois Mitchell Outstanding Calgary Artist Award, the Arts, Media and Entertainment Award from the Calgary Black Chambers, the Women Making History in Alberta Award, the Alberta Order of Excellence and the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal. In 2023, she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Mount Royal University.

Richard Harrison

Richard Harrison is a multiple-award-winning poet, essayist, and editor. His poetry books include 25: Hockey Poems Selected and New, On Not Losing My Father's Ashes in the Flood (awarded the 2017 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry and the Stephan G. Stephansson Alberta Poetry Prize), Big Breath of a Wish, poems about his daughter's acquisition of language, and Hero of the Play, poems in the language of hockey (launched at the Hockey Hall of Fame). Harrison has also published literary criticism, cosplay, spoken word poetry, and mathematics. A Professor Emeritus at MRU, Harriso's scholarly and artistic efforts are focused on the teaching of writing and on poetry as contributor to public dialogue and social change.

Tom Phillips

Tom Phillips has recorded 9 albums of original material and one record of covers, Mr. Superlove. His latest album, Satellites & Stars, was recorded with his band the D.T.’s at the National Music Centre during their 2-week artist-in-residence program in 2020. Phillips' songs have been recorded by several other artists over the years, including Eric Bibb with his version of Ribbons & Bows. In 2007 Phillips wrote and recorded a soundtrack album to the Will Ferguson novel Spanish Fly which was released along with the book by Penguin Books Canada. In 2022 Phillips received the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal (AB) from the Lieutenant Governor for contributions to culture in Alberta; in 2024 Phillips and his band were White Hatted by Rachel Notley and Joe Ceci at the iconic Blues Can, where they have held down a Tuesday night residency for the last 8 years.

Website: tomphillipsmusic.com

Joshua Whitehead

Joshua Whitehead is an Oji-Cree/nehiyaw, Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). His bestselling collection, Making Love With the Land, was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. His novel, Jonny Appleseed, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, shortlisted for a Governor General’s Literary Award in Fiction, and the winner of Canada Reads 2021. His poetry collection, full-metal indigiqueer, was shortlisted for the inaugural Indigenous Voices Award for Most Significant Work of Poetry in English and the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. Whitehead is an Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies and English at the University of Calgary.

Instagram/Threads: @jwhitehead204

Teresa Wong

Teresa Wong is the author of the graphic memoirs All Our Ordinary Stories and Dear Scarlet, which was a finalist for The City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize and longlisted for CBC Canada Reads. Her comics have appeared in The Believer, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and The Walrus. A teacher of memoir and comics at Gotham Writers Workshop, Wong was the 2021–22 Canadian Writer-in-Residence at the University of Calgary.

Website: byteresawong.com
Instagram/Threads: @by_teresawong
Substack: Closet Dispatch

Our History

Wordfest was established in 1996 by committed community partners including The Banff Centre, Calgary Public Library, Mount Royal University, and The Writers’ Guild of Alberta, and incorporated in 1997 as a not-for-profit organization and annual festival. Since its inception, Wordfest has striven to increase and enhance awareness of the most compelling Canadian authors, as well as international authors, through accessible events designed to engage diverse audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

 In 2017, a key strategic partnership was formed with Calgary Public Library to transform the second floor of Memorial Park Library (the oldest library in Alberta) into a vibrant arts and culture space. Now with its own 140-seat theatre, including the only licensed bar in a library in North America, Wordfest was able to program year-round, increasing the diversity and range of the authors it could showcase (and the related audiences it could attract). Through its stellar reputation among authors, publishers, and agents, Wordfest helps put Central Library’s Patricia M. Whelan Theatre, MRU’s Taylor Centre, Decidedly Jazz Dance Centre, The Grand, and Arts Commons on the literary map. Beginning in 2019, to increase equity and impact, Wordfest’s Youth program was refocused on increasing teen literacy and highly theatrical engagement experiences were offered free of charge to students in Grades 5 to 12. 

Responding immediately to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, Wordfest pivoted to produce original online programming that reached global audiences exceeding 80,000 and produced 150+ shows over the two-year period that garnered national acclaim. 

From 2022 to today, Wordfest successfully returned to live in-person, year-round programming, continually improving and enhancing its ability to spark meaningful author-audience connections. With the introduction and integration of Wordfest’s “MORE” branding campaign in 2025, the experienced team and focused board are well-situated to continue this Calgary success story, beaming out “wordy goodness” near and far from the foothills of the Canadian Rockies.