By: Lindz Marsh for What’s On Queer BC Magazine

September 30th - October 4th, 2020 - The upcoming AfterWords Literary Festival offers a diverse range of writers, including many who explore themes of queerness, sexual politics, and gender identity in their work such as Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist), Shani Mootoo (Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab), Catherine Hernandez (M is for Mustache: A Pride ABC Book), Francesca Ekwuyasi (Butter Honey Pig Bread), Vivek Shraya (God Loves Hair), as well as Vancouver's own Cicely Belle Blain (Burning Sugar). 

Originally co-founded by Ryan Turner and Stephanie Domet in 2019 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 2020 AfterWords Literary Festival has gone virtual due to COVID-19, allowing audiences across Canada, and the world, to join the conversations online between September 30th and October 4th.  

The Festival is interested in presenting (and being in the audience for) conversations among a diversity of writers about the ideas that push them forward, the experiences that formed them into writers, and what writing can tell us about being human.

This year’s theme is "Writing Into An Uncertain Future," which is timely considering the massive changes, calls to action (think: Black Lives Matter), and future unknowns that 2020 has brought to us. Co-Director Stephanie Domet shares that the organizers “can't wait to hear what Cory Doctorow, Thea Lim, and Catherine Hernandez have to say about how fiction writers extrapolate from the way we live now to imagine how we might live in an even more challenging future. Plus, of course, Roxane Gay's voice is one I want to hear speak on just about any subject, but to have her speaking at AfterWords as part of that theme is a dream come true. We're similarly excited to have Vivek Shraya and Cecily Belle Blain on a bill together, talking about what we learn from each other.” The two authors are joining Stephanie Domet in conversation about mentorship, writing, representation, and community.

The festival’s fiction panel includes Shani Mootoo, Michelle Good (Five Little Indians), and Francesca Ekwuyasi. Hear these three novelists read from their new works, and be joined in conversation with writer and journalist, Evelyn C. White.

New York Times best-selling author Roxane Gay will be in conversation with Mary Lynk of CBC Radio’s IDEAS, following Halifax’s former Poet Laureate El Jones (Live From the Afrikan Resistance!) on Sunday, October 4th.

Keen to know how authors build believable worlds? Participate in a number of workshops such as an introduction to playwriting, re-engaging with your writer’s practice, and a session on “wordlbuilding” that will teach you the basic rules of launching a world for any genre and how worlds that don’t make space for readers from marginalized groups are also badly built.

Stephanie felt that going virtual with the 2020 festival “felt like a big risk at first, and now it feels like the most natural thing in the world. We love the idea that anyone, anywhere in the world, can join us for AfterWords this year. We think of the festival as a place where writers and readers meet, and though that meeting will be at a distance this year, presenting our festival online just opens up the number of writers and readers we can bring together.” The organizers aim to incorporate virtual events into their lineup in future festivals as well, allowing for greater accessibility and broader reach.

The festival events and workshops are scheduled mainly during evening hours in Atlantic Daylight Time (so 4:00 PM ADT is 12:00 PM PDT), but organizers hope that this means that attendees in every time zone in Canada can join the festival virtually.

Most of the events are by donation (a suggested $5) and most workshops are $15, with several exceptions.

Tickets to the 2020 Afterwords Literary Festival events and workshops are available here:  https://www.afterwordsliteraryfestival.com/events

For more details on the festival line-up, including speaker biographies, please visit:
https://www.afterwordsliteraryfestival.com/

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