Téa Mutonji’s conversation with Joshua Whitehead was one of the standouts of our 25@25 online anniversary shows in 2020. So we’re thrilled to (finally!) be presenting her in person to celebrate My Person, her debut novel, in conversation with Paula Turcotte.
This special show will be preceded at 6PM with an exclusive preview of Wordfest’s 2026 Imaginairium (Oct. 13-18), presented by Wordfest’s Creative Ringleader Shelley Youngblut. This is your exclusive opportunity to optimize your festival experience: get the inside scoop on the 30+ shows and stellar international lineup, ask questions, and be the first to buy festival books and the official festival tote. It’s also your last chance to secure a Festival Pass for the early bird rate of $195. (Buy now before June 30 for an additional $30 savings!)
Owl’s Nest Books will be on site with both of Téa’s books (you might remember her debut short-story collection Shut Up You’re Pretty from the 2024 Canada Reads competition), as well as a curated selection of Imaginairium books.
Paula Turcotte (Show)
Shelley Youngblut (Imaginairium Preview)
Insider Info on the 2026 Imaginairium
Lively Conversation
Libations Bar, with non-alcoholic options
Audience Q&A
Book Signing
Imaginairium Preview: 30 minutes. 30-minute break.
Téa Mutonji: 75 minutes. No intermission
Téa Mutonji is a poet and fiction writer. Her debut collection of short stories, Shut Up You’re Pretty, was a finalist for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (2019) and Canada Reads (2024). It won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction (2020) and the Trillium Book Award (2020). Mutonji was a recipient of the Writers’ Trust Rising Stars Award (2022) and received the Jill Davis Fellowship (2021) at New York University, where she completed her MFA in fiction.
“Téa Mutonji writes sharply about the subtle ruptures endemic to formative friendships.” —Raven Leilani, bestselling author of Luster
Intimate and sharply funny, My Person is a bold debut novel following two lifelong friends who suddenly find themselves in an emotional deadlock when one abruptly proposes to break up after years of subtle betrayals.
Best friends of over twenty years, Tania and Margot are preparing to host their monthly Sunday Loaf dinner party, when Tania tells Margot this isn’t working for her anymore—they’ve been entangled for too long and she wants to “unknow” her. But how do you extricate yourself from someone whose family owns the apartment you live in, who has taken you in as their own, even claims you as their “person”?
As Tania attempts to live her life loudly on the outskirts of Margot’s bubble, Margot’s past betrayals become increasingly clear. But she means well, doesn’t she? They’d felt like sisters from the start. Or had Tania just been blind to Margot’s antics?
Set in the framework of a tense will-they-won’t-they break-up, Tania and Margot get entangled in a rigorous revision of history, their once delicate dance intensifying toward a frantic finale and forcing them to reckon with where it all went wrong . . . or whether they were simply wrong for each other to begin with.
A taut, piercing exploration of race and privilege, codependency and the ways in which world-defining friendships can be both beautifully and excruciatingly life-altering, My Person is an addicting, astutely observed novel from a major talent.
Paula Turcotte (Show)
Shelley Youngblut (Imaginairium Preview)
Insider Info on the 2026 Imaginairium
Lively Conversation
Libations Bar, with non-alcoholic options
Audience Q&A
Book Signing
Imaginairium Preview: 30 minutes. 30-minute break.
Téa Mutonji: 75 minutes. No intermission
Paula Turcotte is the Youth Programming Associate at Wordfest. She is a writer and poet who holds an MSt in Creative Writing from Oxford. Her debut chapbook of poetry, Permutations, was published in July 2024 by Baseline Press. Her poems have been shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award and longlisted in ROOM’s Poetry Contest. Her recent work appears in Canthius, Arc Poetry, and elsewhere.
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we live, work and play on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Iyarhe Nakoda Nations, the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation within Alberta District 6, and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.
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