Latest news with #VancouverWritersFest
Calgary Herald
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Presumed Innocent writer Scott Turow brings new book to Vancouver Writers Fest event
Article content Article content Turow will be in Vancouver on June 3 (7:30 p.m.) at the Granville Island Stage for the Vancouver Writers Fest event Books & Ideas: Scott Turow — Presumed Guilty, along with award-winning author and screenwriter Susin Nielsen, the creator of Global TV's Family Law, whose latest book, Snap, is out now. Article content 'I think that my audience has always been disproportionately lawyers,' said Turow when asked about who comes to his live events. 'There are always some lawyers who want to write. The law is all about words. So, lawyers are word people to begin with. So, it's kind of natural.' Article content When wannabe writers turn up, they invariably seek some sort of advice from Turow, who has penned 13 novels and sold more than 30 million books. Article content 'My advice is that there aren't any magic formulas, and you've got to stick your butt in the chair and do it,' said Turow. 'It's like everything else in life. You get better at it by doing it. You know the old joke; how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.' Article content Article content After doing a creative writing degree in the early 1970s, Turow went to law school and then practised law. He stepped away from commercial law in 2022. But, today, he still has his hand in the legal game as he is working on a pro bono civil case — which he thinks will be his last — leaving him to get his legal fix at a keyboard. Article content While Turow's previous novels took place in more urban settings, Presumed Guilty is set in a small town with dynastic legal family. Article content 'The setting that I'm describing in Presumed Guilty is one that I know very well, and I've watched it with interest, even though I think we'll always be outsiders up there,' said Turow, who lives part of the time in rural Wisconsin. 'You're talking about an area, for example, where you know the economic prospects are limited, so you're basically raising your children understanding that they're likely to leave and not leave because they want to, but because they have to … This really is something that I thought I ought to write about, eventually, because it's not a part of American life that's glimpsed as often in our fiction.' Article content Article content He also liked the idea of a story surrounding a family where one member is suspected of a serious crime. Article content 'I've seen lots of good writing about this. There's just been a series on, I think it's on Netflix, called Adolescence, so this seemed really rich to me, because I'm always interested in drawing into the intersection between the law and family life,' said Turow. 'That's kind of a good matrix for me … When I got the idea, I thought wait a minute, this would be a really good coda for Rusty to end up as a defence lawyer. Then I was off to the races.' Article content It's been 15 years since Rusty last appeared in a Turow novel, but the author said he has always had plans to revisit Rusty and his life. Article content 'When I left Rusty at the end of Innocent, I was sort of like, 'Well, you know, I'm not sure I can leave this guy in this position,'' said Turow. 'I always had the sense I would go back to him one more time.'
The Province
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Province
Governor General's Award and Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Madeleine Thien is back with new novel
Vancouver native comes home for Vancouver Writers Fest event to celebrate latest work The Book of Records Award-winning author Madeleine Thien will be talking with fellow writer David Chariandy about her new novel The Book of Records at a Vancouver Writers Fest event on May 8 at the Annex in Vancouver. Photo by Babak Salari / Babak Salari Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Vancouver native Madeleine Thien will be marking the publication of her latest novel The Book of Records, out May 6, with a special Vancouver Writers Fest event on May 8. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Thien, whose book Do Not Say We Have Nothing won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, will take to the Annex stage (823 Seymour St.) for a conversation with Vancouver author David Chariandy. Postmedia reached out to Montreal-based Thien and asked her a few questions. The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien. Photo by Courtesy of Penguin Random House / Courtesy of Penguin Random House Question: What do you say when someone asks what your new book about? Answer: The Book of Records is set in a building made of time. It is about the ideas that transform us, the lives we imagine for ourselves and others, and the hopes we carry. It is about a father who knows that his time is limited, and who wants to give his daughter an inner world that will sustain her after he is gone. Q: In your book The Sea is a large complex that houses migrants. What makes The Sea different in terms of what we generally perceive as migrant centres? Essential reading for hockey fans who eat, sleep, Canucks, repeat. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. A: In fact, The Sea is not a migrant camp or a detention centre. It's an abandoned enclave that, physically, echoes the now demolished Kowloon Walled City. People who have been displaced by war, by the rising sea, by conflict, by dwindling resources, pass through it; The Sea is just one stop on their search for home. Only a very few remain there, often because something prevents them from moving on. Q: You have been working on this book for a decade. How do you feel about it coming out now with immigration such a hot topic? A: My novel — which, I think it's fair to say, is a strange work — is itself, metaphorically, a building, a place that shelters different philosophies across time; it houses people who are grappling with questions about free will, ethics, and what it means to live a good life. In The Sea, ideas migrate, take on new life, are misunderstood, revised, and sometimes reimagined in the hope that they might guide us when all else seems lost. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Of course, ideas are not made of air. They are carried by human beings across space and time, across borders. My heart breaks because I do not know a time when migration, displacement, homelessness, and the search for safety were not part of our world. Q: What themes will fans of your earlier work see you revisiting here in this new book? A: I think I keep returning to the force of history and the significance of individual lives. Perhaps The Book of Records continues an exploration of collaboration, collusion and silence, but also the loyalties of friendship; in this novel, more than the others, there's an exploration of namelessness, and what it means to save another person, especially someone with whom we have no ties of kinship, family or national identity. Q: American political theorist Hannah Arendt is once again in your thoughts as the life of a character in this book mirrors Arendt's life. What keeps you coming back to Arendt? This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. A: I think often of these words written by Arendt in January 1968, in the preface to her book Men in Dark Times. She writes that 'even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination, and that such illumination may well come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering, and often weak light that some men and women, in their lives and their works, will kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time span that was given them on earth.' Q: Your novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing, won the 2016 Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize. Your work has been translated into 25 languages. All that said, what do you consider the most successful signpost for your work? A: Every work changes the novelist herself. For me, that's the vocation. I write to see something clearly in this world. I hope this attempt will resonate. But in the end, we are trying to make sense of the brief life that is given to us, and the immensity within this brevity. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Q: What do you hope readers take away from The Book of Records? A: That every act matters and no choice is insignificant; that everything we do or don't do, say or don't say, is the book we are writing upon this life. Q: When you come back to visit Vancouver what are some of things you like to do when you are here? A: I see my friends. We cook and eat together, we walk everywhere. I feel humbled by this city that has shaped me. Vancouver changed so much since my childhood in the 1980s, and yet I know this place in a very deep and personal, way. I hope it's not too morbid to say that I also tend the graves of my parents and those I love. It's a daughter's duty and one I cherish. 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National Post
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- National Post
Governor General's Award and Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Madeleine Thien is back with new novel
Vancouver native Madeleine Thien will be marking the publication of her latest novel The Book of Records, out May 6, with a special Vancouver Writers Fest event on May 8. Article content Thien, whose book Do Not Say We Have Nothing won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, will take to the Annex stage (823 Seymour St.) for a conversation with Vancouver author David Chariandy. Article content Article content Answer: The Book of Records is set in a building made of time. It is about the ideas that transform us, the lives we imagine for ourselves and others, and the hopes we carry. It is about a father who knows that his time is limited, and who wants to give his daughter an inner world that will sustain her after he is gone. Article content Q: In your book The Sea is a large complex that houses migrants. What makes The Sea different in terms of what we generally perceive as migrant centres? Article content A: In fact, The Sea is not a migrant camp or a detention centre. It's an abandoned enclave that, physically, echoes the now demolished Kowloon Walled City. People who have been displaced by war, by the rising sea, by conflict, by dwindling resources, pass through it; The Sea is just one stop on their search for home. Only a very few remain there, often because something prevents them from moving on. Article content Article content A: My novel — which, I think it's fair to say, is a strange work — is itself, metaphorically, a building, a place that shelters different philosophies across time; it houses people who are grappling with questions about free will, ethics, and what it means to live a good life. In The Sea, ideas migrate, take on new life, are misunderstood, revised, and sometimes reimagined in the hope that they might guide us when all else seems lost. Article content Article content Of course, ideas are not made of air. They are carried by human beings across space and time, across borders. My heart breaks because I do not know a time when migration, displacement, homelessness, and the search for safety were not part of our world.
Vancouver Sun
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Vancouver Sun
Governor General's Award and Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Madeleine Thien is back with new novel
Article content Vancouver native Madeleine Thien will be marking the publication of her latest novel The Book of Records, out May 6, with a special Vancouver Writers Fest event on May 8. Article content Thien, whose book Do Not Say We Have Nothing won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, will take to the Annex stage (823 Seymour St.) for a conversation with Vancouver author David Chariandy. Article content Article content Article content Article content Answer: The Book of Records is set in a building made of time. It is about the ideas that transform us, the lives we imagine for ourselves and others, and the hopes we carry. It is about a father who knows that his time is limited, and who wants to give his daughter an inner world that will sustain her after he is gone. Article content A: In fact, The Sea is not a migrant camp or a detention centre. It's an abandoned enclave that, physically, echoes the now demolished Kowloon Walled City. People who have been displaced by war, by the rising sea, by conflict, by dwindling resources, pass through it; The Sea is just one stop on their search for home. Only a very few remain there, often because something prevents them from moving on. Article content Article content Article content A: My novel — which, I think it's fair to say, is a strange work — is itself, metaphorically, a building, a place that shelters different philosophies across time; it houses people who are grappling with questions about free will, ethics, and what it means to live a good life. In The Sea, ideas migrate, take on new life, are misunderstood, revised, and sometimes reimagined in the hope that they might guide us when all else seems lost. Article content Of course, ideas are not made of air. They are carried by human beings across space and time, across borders. My heart breaks because I do not know a time when migration, displacement, homelessness, and the search for safety were not part of our world. Article content A: I think I keep returning to the force of history and the significance of individual lives. Perhaps The Book of Records continues an exploration of collaboration, collusion and silence, but also the loyalties of friendship; in this novel, more than the others, there's an exploration of namelessness, and what it means to save another person, especially someone with whom we have no ties of kinship, family or national identity.
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Vancouver Writers Fest founder Alma Lee dies at 84
Alma Lee, the founder of the Vancouver Writers Fest, has died at the age of 84, according to family and friends. A champion for writers and the written word, Lee helped launch the first Vancouver International Writers Festival in 1988 and also helped found the Writers' Union of Canada and the Writers' Trust of Canada. Vancouver Writers Fest events draw 30,000 attendees annually, according to its website. Over the years, the festival has allowed readers to hear from established authors, such as Lee's friend Margaret Atwood, and provided a springboard for new, emerging writers. Atwood told CBC News she worked with Lee in the 1970s to help form the Writers' Union of Canada, which describes itself as the national organization of professionally published writers. "She was absolutely essential to the writers' union and she founded the Readers and Writers Festival in Vancouver," Atwood said. "These things all take a lot of work and a lot of networking, and she was very good at that." Alma Lee is seen in 1995 at the Vancouver Writers Fest. She said it was a fantastic opportunity for readers to interact live with writers. (CBC) Lee was born on May 5, 1940, in Edinburgh, Scotland, the daughter of a bagpipe-maker who was an avid reader. She immigrated to Canada in 1967. Atwood described Lee in that era as a "little Scottish hippie" who was "always just full of enthusiasm." "All of our things that we were doing in the '70s came out of an enthusiasm for Canada … that was our motivation," she said. Margaret Atwood says her friend Alma Lee was very good at networking. (Evan Mitsui/CBC) Lee played a key role in forming the writers' guild and served as its first executive director. "Nobody knew anything about contracts at that time," Atwood said. "We didn't know what was supposed to be in them. There weren't any agents.… Those were some of our problems, and that's why we formed the union and Alma was the person who organized it all and kept everything going." Lee also served as executive director of the Writers' Trust of Canada, which describes itself as a charitable organization that supports Canadian writers. Writers' festival highlighted newcomers She would later turn her attention to forming the Vancouver International Writers Festival. Speaking to CBC News in 1995, Lee said the festival was designed to "give people a fantastic opportunity to interact live with writers." Over the years, the festival has hosted noted writers such as Atwood, Miriam Toews, Carol Shields, John Irving and Salman Rushdie. Leslie Hurtig, the current artistic director of the festival, knew Lee for over 25 years. She said that when Lee created the writers' festival in 1988, she brought over a Scottish format for the literary fest, inherited from the Edinburgh Book Festival. "She used that same model, which is panel discussions, one-on-one conversations and readings — featuring not only established and well-known writers, but also emerging writers, sharing a stage together," Hurtig told CBC News. "She wouldn't just put Margaret Atwood on stage. She'd put Margaret Atwood on stage with an emerging writer so that their voices could be held up and given equal space." Hurtig said Lee was driven and incredibly organized, and that when she believed in something, she would fight for it. "That could ruffle feathers sometimes," Hurtig said. "But it also resulted in incredible quality of events, quality of friendships. "And I have nothing but respect for that kind of activism. I admire it greatly. I think there was a fire inside her." Lee was invested into the Order of Canada in 2005. She is survived by her sons, Kenny and Alan. An exact cause of death was not released, but Hurtig said Lee died at home surrounded by family and friends.
