Word Vancouver celebrates its 30th festival with diverse writing panels and activities
KPU creative writing co-chair and instructor Nicola Harwood discussing their memoir Flight Instructions for the Commitment Impaired at Word Vancouver. (Stella Biscaia)
The largest free literary arts festival in Western Canada, Word Vancouver, celebrated its 30th year on Sept. 28 at UBC Robson Square.
The festival featured around 70 exhibitors ranging from booksellers and publishers to writers, artists, and comic designers, Word Vancouver Executive Director Bonnie Nish says.
“Although we do bring some authors in from other places in Canada,” Nish says, “we are proud to present B.C. authors to the public and give, … especially up-and-coming authors who have been published in the last few years, a platform for which people can come and hear them and get to know them.”
Attendees had the opportunity to meet the authors during the festival, which also showcased poets published in the last year, and excerpts of their poems were displayed on transit buses.
The event featured two interactive rooms — one with all-day readings and the other focused on interactive activities such as podcast demonstrations, writing prompts, and comic drawing. The interactive room also had a photographer for people interested in having new headshots for their book covers.
Word Vancouver highlighted writers and creatives with a series of panel and in-conversation discussions on topics including short stories, the romance genre, and Indigenous literature.
Nicola Harwood, KPU creative writing co-chair and instructor, was among the speakers on a panel called “Writing Queer Lives.” They were invited by Jen Currin, their fellow creative writing department co-chair and instructor, to discuss their memoir Flight Instructions for the Commitment Impaired.
“I think the book I wrote talks a lot about the struggle with how to make a family in a queer context and my own personal relationship to traditional family structures and how those didn’t really work,” Harwood says. “And yet the kind of reinventing, trying to make new structures is also fraught.”
Harwood says their memoir also discusses family as a concept and the queer community as a symbol of resistance.
Despite queer representation being better today than how it was for their generation, Harwood finds it is still a significant issue and believes it’s important for queer artists to express themselves and their art.
“I wrote this book a while ago, so it’s really fun to revisit it,” Harwood says. “It’s always really nice to celebrate with my peers and be out in public celebrating our work together.”
Nish says the festival team is very proud of its diverse programming.
“We feel it really represents the makeup of what Vancouver has become and where it’s going, and the different voices that in the past haven’t been heard that need to be heard,” Nish adds.
For more information about Word Vancouver, visit www.wordvancouver.ca. For more information about Nicola Harwood, head to www.nicolaharwood.com.
