Bionic Women Writers – $20

[gdlr_button href="https://www.artscommons.ca/WhatsOn/ShowDetails.aspx?show_id=2A4F2984-64F5-4343-8719-467BEE28077F" target="_self" size="medium" background="#358CCB" color="#ffffff" border_color="#999999"]Buy Tickets[/gdlr_button] [gdlr_space height="20px"] Because it's 2016 — and these four books are the bomb — Wordfest presents a showcase of powerful, provocative women authors who write strong, smart and with no fear. Together they tackle everything from breast cancer and sexual assault, to pop culture and the future of the feminist movement. Hosted by Naomi Lewis. [gdlr_divider type="solid" size="100%" ]

Featured Books

Who Needs Books? and Sex & Death: Stories by Lynn Coady

In Who Needs Books?, Lynn Coady explores what happens when we separate the idea of "the book" from the experience it has traditionally provided. She challenges book lovers addicted to the physical book to confront their darkest fears about the digital world and the future of reading. Coady also presents her contribution to the new anthology, Sex and Death: Stories, which brings together some of today's most compelling writers from around the globe to explore two of the most dominant urges: the drive for life — for survival and reproduction — and the drive for death — for violence and self-destruction.

In-Between Days by Teva Harrison

Teva Harrison was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer at the age of 37. In this brilliant and inspiring graphic memoir full of comic illustrations and short personal essays, she documents what it means to live with the disease. She struggles to reconcile her long-term goals with an uncertain future, balancing the innate sadness of cancer with everyday acts of hope and wonder. Ultimately redemptive and uplifting, In-Between Days reminds each one of us how beautiful life is, and how it is such a gift.

Flannery by Lisa Moore (Gr. 9-12)

Sixteen-year-old Flannery Malone has it bad. She’s been in love with Tyrone O’Rourke since the days she still believed in Santa Claus. But Tyrone has grown from a dorky kid into an outlaw graffiti artist, the rebel-with-a-cause of Flannery’s dreams, literally too cool for school. Written in Lisa Moore’s exuberant and inimitable style, Flannery is by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, empowering and harrowing — often all on the same page. It is a novel whose spell no reader will be able to resist.

We Were Feminists Once: 
From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl, the Buying and Selling of a political Movement by Andi Zeisler

We Were Feminists Once is the sharp and unsettling story of how we have sold out feminism and what we should do when its fifteen minutes of fame have fizzled. Zeisler draws on 20 years of experience covering popular culture from the frontlines of the feminist movement to explain how feminism has become at odds with its original purpose. Pop culture has co-opted feminism and transformed it into something unrecognizable. It has become a choose-your-own adventure story, one in which women can pick the sexiest aspects of feminism, or the ones that support their personal brand identity, and disregard the rest. As Zeisler argues, this trend has the potential to backfire, as it can present the illusion that the women’s rights movement is gaining traction when in fact it is stalled or taking backward steps politically. [gdlr_button href="https://www.artscommons.ca/WhatsOn/ShowDetails.aspx?show_id=2A4F2984-64F5-4343-8719-467BEE28077F" target="_self" size="medium" background="#358CCB" color="#ffffff" border_color="#999999"]Buy Tickets[/gdlr_button]