Updated: Sept. 10, 7:23 P.M.
Vancouver Literary fest kicks off this weekend
Works of Asian authors, including Filipinos, are among the featured books
By Charmaine Y. Rodriguez
Word Vancouver, Western Canada’s largest literary arts festival, that brings together established and emerging authors, aspiring writers, literary exhibitors, and book-lovers from across the Lower Mainland will kick off on September 16 at the UBC Robson Square.
Since that inaugural Festival in 1995, the Society has maintained consistent growth year after year, attracting increasing numbers of visitors from across British Columbia and Canada, making it a primary event in Western Canada’s literacy and literary community.
“Every year brings new books, authors, and readers to Word Vancouver, along with those who return to share their work, long-time patrons who bring new friends and volunteers who have dedicated their time because they love the festival,” said Bonnie Nish, Executive Director of the 2023 Festival.
Guests can catch In-person and hybrid events at UBC Robson Square until September 23 although online and offsite events were held earlier.
You can find The Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop at the festival, including our very own Philippine Canadian News Editor in Chief, Ted Alcuitas.
Ted is among the authors of Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing (Cormorant Books), which is the first anthology of Filipino-Canadian writing published by a mainstream press, coming out at a time when the Filipino diasporic population in Canada is fast approaching one million.
Ted, Patria Rivera, and Leah Ranada will read from their contributions to this landmark project at 1pm-2pm at Room C485, UBC Robson Square.
The event will be moderated by C.E. Gatchalian, an author of six books and co-editor of two anthologies. He was the 2013 recipient of the Dayne Ogilvie Prize and a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist. His memoir, Double Melancholy: Art, Beauty and the Making of a Brown Queer Man, was published in 2019 by Arsenal Pulp Press.
Come by to say “hi”, discover more local talented authors, and pick up some new books.
Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing (Cormorant Books) is the first anthology of Filipino-Canadian writing published by a mainstream press, coming out at a time when the Filipino diasporic population in Canada is fast approaching one million. Join Teodoro Alcuitas, Patria Rivera, and Leah Ranada as they read from their contributions to this landmark project.
Hybrid events are held in person, you will also be able to watch it live streamed from our Youtube channel.
Location: Room C485, UBC Robson Square
Type: Panel, Non-fiction
Moderator: C.E. Gatchalian
Readers: Teodoro Alcuitas | Patria Rivera | Leah Ranada
About The Moderator
Born and raised on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tseil-Waututh peoples (“Vancouver”), currently dividing his time between “Vancouver” and Tkaronto (“Toronto”), C.E. Gatchalian is a Filipinx queer neurodivergent author, editor and playwright. The author of six books and co-editor of two anthologies, he was the 2013 recipient of the Dayne Ogilvie Prize and a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist. His memoir, Double Melancholy: Art, Beauty and the Making of a Brown Queer Man, was published in 2019 by Arsenal Pulp Press. He is a recipient of the one-time only British Columbia Lieutenant Governor's Arts & Music Awards for his contributions to the arts in BC.
About The Readers
Teodoro ‘Ted’ Alcuitas is Editor & Publisher of PhilippineCanadianNews.Com, the first and only online newspaper linking the Filipino diaspora in Canada. A long-time community journalist that spans four decades starting when he started the first Filipino newspaper, ‘Silangan’ in western Canada in 1976.
Filipino-Canadian poet, writer, and editor Patria Rivera’s first poetry collection, Puti/White (Frontenac House Media, Calgary, Alberta, 2005), was shortlisted for the 2006 Canadian Trillium Book Award for Poetry. She has also published three other books of poetry, The Bride Anthology (Frontenac House Media, 2007), BE, (Signature Editions, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 2011), and The Time Between (Signature Editions, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 2018) as well as co-authored two chapbooks, Weathering: An Exchange of Poems (Silver Maple Press, 2008) and Sixth from the Sixth (2001). In Fall 2023, Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing, a book Rivera co-edited, will be released by Cormorant Books. Rivera’s poetry is featured in Oxford University Press’s Perspectives in Ideology, and in Elana Wolff’s Implicate me: short essays on reading contemporary poems. Rivera has received fellowships from the Writers’ Union of Canada, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and the Hawthornden Castle International Writers’ Retreat Centre in Scotland. She was also a recipient of the Global Filipino Literary Award for Poetry. Born and raised in the Philippines, Rivera graduated with a journalism degree from the University of the Philippines.
Leah Ranada’s writing is informed by her childhood in Metro Manila and eventual move to Vancouver in 2006, where she made writing her permanent home. In 2013, she attended The Writer’s Studio (TWS) at SFU. She released her debut novel, The Cine Star Salon (NeWest Press), in 2021 and is very honoured to have her story included in Magdaragat – An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing (Cormorant Books, 2023). Leah’s works have also been published in On Spec, Room Magazine, Santa Ana River Review, and elsewhere.
