Article by Jay Sanni, Photos from Calgary WordFest Website
The annual event, Calgary WordFest, began this week on October 8th. The week-long festival ending on October 15th was founded in 1996 and aims to promote literature and written work created by people from all backgrounds of life.
What makes this year’s festival exceptional is the fact that, this year, the event not only features “more than 70 authors from Calgary, Canada and around the world” but also, “for the first time ever Wordfest is holding its festival in the Beltline district of Calgary, taking over 12th Avenue between Wordfest’s home and 125 seat theatre at the Memorial Park Library on one end, and the DJD Dance Centre on the other end.”
One national author performing at the event is the Ghanain Canadian author, Esi Edugyan whose reading of Washington Black is scheduled for October 11th at the Bella Concert Hall. Other nationals featured include; the Hungarian Jewish Canadian author, Sheila Heti who will be reading from Motherhood on October 11th, Sherwin Tjia, a Chinese Canadian poet, author and illustrator who will be reading from You are Alice in Wonderland’s Mom on October 10th, and Vivek Shraya, an Indian Canadian author and LGBT activist who will be reading from I’m Afraid of Men on October 10th as well. Readings at the event are not restricted to local writers only, there will be readings from international writers such as Singaporean author, Thea Lim and, Irish author, Liz Nugent as well.
