Gals & Good Times, Bionic Women Writers, How to… Rom Com: we’ve called our Saturday morning chat show various things over the decades. This year’s iteration borrows its name from the kids of TikTok. And we kind of can’t wait to hear what’s on the minds of Holly Gramazio (The Husbands), Robyn Harding (The Haters), and Marissa Stapley (The Lightning Bottles), facilitated by interlocutor-author extraordinaire Ali Bryan (Coq, Takedown). Not that we think they’ll need any nudging—these writers all have lots to say! Complimentary Coffee & Tea provided by Barrow Coffee Roasters.

As Tessa Hulls says, “When in doubt, just hop on your bike.” Now head over to Memorial Park Library to see her in conversation with Wordfest favourite Kate Harris. Nobody knows off-grid like these two, and their adventures have taken them across the world, from Antarctica (where Hulls worked as a cook before writing her new graphic memoir Feeding Ghosts) to Azerbaijan (where Harris’s visa nearly expired—read all about it in Lands of Lost Borders) and countless other far-flung locales. Listening to Harris and Hulls, you’ll feel like you got away from it all—without having to give up your comfy bed. 

Though set worlds and generations apart, friendship, masculinity, and the madness and aftermath of war are delicately explored in both Benjamin Hertwig’s (Juiceboxers, Afghanistan) and Alice Winn’s (In Memoriam, World War I) debut novels. Deborah Willis—who edited Hertwig’s novel—will lead the discussion. Expect to leave both deeply shaken and stirred by what human beings are capable of in their darkest hours. 

Zain Velji hosts this conversation about what it costs—professionally and personally—when you decide to make waves. For Catherine Hernandez (Behind You), Michael Lista (Barfly), and Danny Ramadan (Crooked Teeth), art cannot be separated from human rights, facts, and social justice. These writers have stood unwavering in their convictions and desires to create a more equitable, transparent, and empathetic world, often placing themselves in opposition to the status quo, whether literary, political, or societal.

As a young girl, Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger, (Our Green Heart) was educated by elders in the Brehon knowledge of plants and nature, wisdom she integrated into her work as a visionary research scientist. Kate Neville (Going to Seed) shares an interest in fusing science with literature and religious philosophies and traditions. Their passion and advocacy for the natural world just might change your own relationship with nature—and hopefully inspire you to plant a tree! Just watch Jane Fonda’s Teach-In interview with Beresford-Kroeger, known as the Jane Goodall of Trees, for Fire Drill Fridays.

Everything you always wanted to know about writing a YA book but didn’t know where to begin or who to ask. In this informal, informative session, two of Canada’s most acclaimed and bestselling YA authors—Governor General’s Literary Award winner Sarah Everett (The Shape of Lost Things) and the prolific Alice Kuipers (Spark: On Writing for Kids & Young Adults)—will answer those questions, share their insider tips and techniques to help kick-start your own book, or just give you a window into the minds of teen readers.

There is no one who writes like Heather O’Neill. Her new novel The Capital of Dreams weaves together her delicious sentences, inimitable characters, and penchant for dark fables into yet another groundbreaking literary lullaby for the worldly—and otherworldly. Like you, we have major heart-eyes for Heather, so we thought we’d make it official with this afternoon soirée! Prepare to be surprised, awed, and delighted (rumour has it that her Canada Reads friendly nemesis—fremesis?—Naheed Nenshi will be making a special guest appearance).

Award-winning novelist Catherine Hernandez and comics genius Sarah Leavitt come together for a conversation about our shattered, flawed, shared, aching-to-be-renewed hearts. 

Being deeply seen is at the core of Hernandez’s humanity, which she brings to her unflinching novel about the past and present insidiousness of rape culture, triggered by the Scarbough Stalker. Téa Mutonji describes Behind You as “a thrilling-turner with just the right amount of soft touch to get you through… an intimate and unflinching look at what it means to survive and heal and to believe again, urging us to take responsibility for own complicity and for our lives.”

Raves Hernandez about Leavitt’s visual memoir Something, Not Nothing (created over two years after the medically assisted death of the cartoonist’s partner of 22 years): “This book’s visceral illustrations and words are scratches on the prison walls of grief; a declaration of unending love to one who is lost; an apology for moving on; a messy commitment to joining the land of the living. Fellow grievers: prepare to be seen.”

Come hang out with some unlikely, almost sane, super sensitive friends as they grapple with staying steady and creative in a wobbly world.

Hosted by comedian and certified insane person JD Derbyshire (Mercy Gene). Derbyshire is especially equipped to deal with these times of interrupted normalcy, heightened anxiety, the never-ending flip-flop between mania and depression. They’ll discuss the mind-numbing prospect of writing with all that’s going on and how to turn being super sensitive into your superpower. If you’re feeling crazy, think you might be heading there, or wonder what it might be like, come hang out in a space where humour and grief can coexist. Some good old-fashioned laugh-cries or cry-laughs practically guaranteed. Special Guest: Col Cseke, co-host with JD on the podcast Madpractice @madpracticepod.

Always a highlight of the festival: eight writers tell a story about a piece of clothing that became more than just a garment. A lucky left sock? A silk kimono dug up from the bottom of a vintage trunk? The horrible dress your father made you wear to school? The beauty of The Way We… is that we can’t possibly predict what you’ll hear, but we *can* predict you’ll be telling your friends, “You had to be there!”

We’ve been trying to lure horror meister Stephen Graham Jones (the Indian Lake trilogy and I Was a Teenage Slasher) to Calgary forever and are chuffed to announce he’s finally in the house! He’ll be joined by Jeff VanderMeer (the Southern Reach trilogy, which becomes a quartet with Absolution), whose work is at the top of our must-read visionary pile. VanderMeer’s protagonists are faced with the grim and gruesome, while Jones’s protagonist Tolly Driver *is* the grim and gruesome… but we have a feeling they’ll find common ground over our maddeningly real world, which is so much stranger than fiction.