A fantastic variety of workshops and panels will be part of Word Vancouver’s free programming again this year!
The workshops kick off tonight at the nə́c̓aʔmat ct Strathcona Branch of the Vancouver Public Library with Finding, Hiring, and Working with a Freelance Editor with Wendy Barron, Meagan Dyer, and Susan Fitzgerald. In this session, a panel of experienced editors will discuss the benefits of working with an editor, where and how to find the right editor for your project, why a contract benefits everyone and shouldn’t be scary, how to negotiate a project contract with a freelancer, and how to make the most of the editing process once the contract is signed.
The workshops continue on Saturday at Carnegie Community Centre with Write a Book and Get Published with Megan Williams and The Self Publishing Agency. Whether you have started writing, or don’t know where to start, this workshop will give aspiring authors structure, direction, and tools to help finish their manuscripts. In Note to Self: Therapeutic Writing for Writers facilitator Carmen Ostrander will draw on post-modernism, narrative therapy, and neuroscience to help you explore different ways of putting pen to paper in service of self through short exercises and discussion. There will also be a kids’ workshop on Saturday, ArtStarts Explores: Words, at the ArtStarts Gallery! Bring the whole family for this fun workshop to explore the idea of written, spoken, and gestured words through creative art forms.
Dietrich Kalteis
Sunday will feature several workshops all day long in Port of View.
In Establishing a Digital Footprint facilitators Trevor Battye and Suzanne Norman will help authors determine which digital marketing tools are right for them. Indie authors, small presses, and freelance writers will get tips and tricks to help establish their online presence and to up their engagements.
In The Art of the Response with Shazia Hafiz Ramji, you will discover your stories using techniques of response. Participants will be introduced to practices of attention using sources such as art, overheard conversations, news, and memory.
There are gifts and challenges that come with hybrid identities. We may feel that life would have been simpler if we had only one culture or group to be responsible to. And yet we see the possibilities in the weaving. Our stories are enriched by the willingness to embrace it all. Together we will write. All persons of between welcome to attend Feeling a Little Mixed—or—Do I Have a Story to Tell You? with Jónína Kirton.
Join Carollyne Haynes and Janet Dunnett for Adventures in Elder Land and be taken on a journey through Elder Land, using fiction that feels like truth, and truth that feels like fiction, to explore the challenges of life’s third act.
If you’re an aspiring crime fiction author, join Dietrich Kalteis for Writing Killer Crime Fiction where you’ll discover how to put that razor’s edge on your own words and learn how to find your voice, develop unforgettable characters, write brilliant dialogue, and create stories that will have your readers up all night turning pages.
Good stories don’t just happen, they’re built, and as architects use blueprints, writers need sound structures to create effective emotional journeys for their readers. In How to Build a Story with John Mavin you’ll explore the structural elements shared by all stories (from linear to unconventional), uncover the differences between plot and structure, and get the tools to build emotionally satisfying stories again and again.
Also on Sunday are a variety of panel discussions in Perspective Point.
More and more, we live in a society of hybridized, mixed, or blended identities. What is it like to write and read from within or beyond the hyphen or transnational identities? What creative opportunities does hybridity present? Join a group of authors for a reading and discussion of writing in fluid identity contexts in Mixed Voices Raised.
Where is Indigenous writing going in Canada? How have Indigenous writers on the West Coast resisted the colonialism of CanLit? What does this look like in today’s literary landscape? These questions and others will be explored in Resisting “CanLit”: Indigenous Writers.
How does the work of others influence us? How do other writers create space, open conversations, and remind us we’re not alone? Panelists read and discuss the work of pivotal writers whose voices and perspectives have inspired them in Writers Reading Writers: A PRISM Panel on Influence, Space, and Resources.
How has Canada’s oldest feminist literary journal stayed relevant? Join Room staff and contributors for Embracing Change: The Evolution of Room Magazine, a panel discussion and Q&A on the magazine’s history and the recent publication of their fortieth anniversary anthology, Making Room.
Local Authors, Local Settings—Mysteries Set in BC will be a lively panel discussion about creating mysteries in local settings. How have the panelists done it, what were the benefits and challenges, and what are their tips and tricks.
Community Garden will feature a panel on Vancouver Comics History. Vancouver has a long and rocky history with comics. Our journey begins in the 1940s with some short-lived experiments in publishing comic books locally, travels through the underground comics scene of the 1980s, and arrives at an unprecedented explosion of independent comic-making in the 21st century. Find out where Vancouver comics have been in the past, and where we are now.
The Quay will host Getting Started: Children’s Writers and Illustrators Discuss Getting Published. No matter in what genre or for what age group you write for, this panel of professional writers and illustrators from the Children’s Writers and Illustrators Society of BC will be sure to delight, inform, and inspire you.
Visit our website for a full listing of events for this year’s festival!
A First Nations family goes foraging for edibles in the woods, and Grandmother passes down her knowledge of plant life. This picture book is set in the Nicola Valley of BC. First Nations author Nicola I. Campbell lives in BC with her son. Her books have won many awards, including the TD, the Marilyn Baillie, and the Anskohk Aboriginal Children’s Book of the Year awards. Ages 4-7
From its beginnings as a farming celebration marking the end of winter to its current role as a global party featuring good food, lots of gifts, and public parades, Chinese New Year is a snapshot of Chinese culture. Award-winning author and broadcaster Jen Sookfong Lee recalls her childhood in Vancouver, BC, and weaves family stories into the history, traditions, and evolution of Chinese New Year. Jen Sookfong Lee writes, talks on the radio, and loves her slow cooker. Born and raised in East Vancouver, Jen now lives in North Burnaby with her son and dog. Ages 9-12 
In The Nor’Wester, young Duncan Scott must flee his native Scotland, stowing away on a ship bound for Quebec. Hired by the North West Company, Duncan is sent across the continent with an important message for Simon Fraser. Here Duncan joins Fraser on his historic 1808 journey to the sea, meeting the many Indigenous peoples of the river. Along the way, Duncan faces death, danger, and treason, and must find the courage to save his companions, the expedition, and himself. David Starr is a prize-winning author of four books, including The Nor’Wester, Bombs to Books, and Golden Goal. He is a high school principal who lives in Coquitlam. Visit 
In this follow-up to Goodbye Marianne, award-winning author Irene N. Watts and celebrated illustrator Kathryn E. Shoemaker explore the reality of a young refugee girl who flees Nazi Germany on a kindertransporte, taking Jewish children to safety in Britain. Though lucky to be alive, Marianne is terribly lonely in her new home. This story will deeply resonate with young people aware of the plight and dire situation of refugees migrating through Europe and around the world today. Irene N. Watts is the author of numerous award-winning books and plays for children and young people, among them Goodbye Marianne and No Pets Allowed. She lives in Vancouver. Kathryn E. Shoemaker is the illustrator of many books for children, among them A Telling Time and My Animal Friends. She teaches children’s literature at the University of British Columbia. Ages 8-12 
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