This year’s Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival will have a collaboration of the world’s best writers.

Running from Oct. 18–23, the festival will allow for undiscovered and unpublished Canadian writers to congregate with award nominated writers like Esi Edugyan, Lynn Coady, Patrick de Witt, David Bezmozgis, Marina Endicott and Andrew Mikiforuk, just to name a few.

According to Hal Wake, artistic director of this year’s festival, “Many writers are envious of the support that exists in Canada.” He adds that this envy stems from factors “such as our grant system, receptive publishing and the fact that first time writers have a very good chance of getting their work published here.”

For a city that boasts diversity, and represents a multitude of ethnicities, Vancouver seems like the place for writers and readers alike to mingle and speak of struggles and successes while on an even playing field.

Kevin Chong, born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver, says he has been greatly influenced by the different cultures in this city and says that it shows in his writing.

“I really enjoy being a part of a majority of minorities,” says Chong. “I think Vancouver is an interesting place in the context of a world where borders are becoming, porous, ethnicities are merging, and people are adopting hyphenated identities.”

Chong will be featured in festival events such as Vancouver Seen and Bamboo Lettering. In the latter, Chong and two other Chinese-Canadian authors, Lisa Zhang and Jen Sookfong Lee, will speak about the tension between avoiding and embracing one’s heritage, and how their family and background reflect in their writing.

“Being [born] Chinese-Canadian, I felt as though there were certain expectations about my subject that came with my ethnicity… I didn’t necessarily want to write about identity politics, my bicultural upbringing, or the history of the Chinese in Canada,” says Chong.

“I’m just not the kind of person who wants to do what’s expected of them. Now, though, after having expressed this resistance, I find myself drawn to some of those subjects, whether it’s writing about a Chinese-Canadian family in my new novel, Beauty Plus Pity, or the history of the Chinese-Canadian restaurant in the Walrus.”

Chong has been attending the festival since 1992 and says he has enjoyed hearing from “amazing writers” from the time when he was just in high school.

This year’s schedule looks like it aims to please both fiction and non-fiction lovers alike and attendees are poised to walk away with an overwhelming sense of how dedicated and talented our Canadian writers truly are.

Wake says that a few years ago, the festival was honoured to have five writers read in their own native language, while English translators used a scrolling text software. He says this kind of innovation, and much more, is something he wouldn’t mind seeing happen again.

“Vancouver has a real interest in writers who come from different parts of the world,” says Wake. “Whether it be Ireland, Sierra Leone, or China, people in this city love to hear them.”

—

Festival details are available at www.writersfest.bc.ca