Emma Donoghue, Uzma Jalaluddin and katherena vermette among authors at the 2023 Eden Mills Writers Festival
The festival takes place from Sept. 8-10 in Eden Mills, Ont.
Emma Donoghue, Uzma Jalaluddin and katherena vermette are among the featured authors at the 2023 Eden Mills Writers Festival.
Now in its 35th year, the festival brings together writers and readers from across Canada to share, read and discuss literature in the Ontario town of Eden Mills.
The festival takes place from Sept. 8 to 10, with school visits on Sept. 8 and writers workshops on the 9th. But the main event is on the last day, explained artistic director Nicola Dufficy in an interview with CBC Books. From 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., roads are closed and 48 Canadian writers read from their latest works and participate in interviews and discussion panels in community members' backyards.
"We have a really great lineup that really celebrates the diverse voices of Canada's literary landscape," Dufficy said.
Among those is Irish Canadian writer Emma Donoghue, who will read from her latest novel, Learned by Heart, which comes out on Aug. 29. It draws on years of research and the five-million-word secret journal of British diarist Anne Lister — dubbed by many as "the first modern lesbian."
Donaghue is known for her novels Landing, Room, Frog Music, The Wonder, The Pull of the Stars and the children's book The Lotterys Plus One. Room was an international bestseller and was adapted into a critically acclaimed film starring Brie Larson.
Best-selling Toronto-based author Uzma Jalaluddin will also be in attendance. She is reading from her most recent novel, Much Ado About Nada, which was published in June and is a modern Muslim take on Jane Austen's Persuasion. Her other works include Ayesha At Last and Hana Khan Carries On.
Festival goers can hear from Métis writer katherena vermette, whose poetry book, North End Love Songs won the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. Her debut novel, The Break, offers a glimpse into the world of a Métis community in northern Winnipeg and was defended by Candy Palmater on Canada Reads 2017. Since then, she's written two companion novels to The Break: The Strangers, published in 2021 and The Circle, that will come out on Sept. 5.
"One of the things that I'm really excited about is there'll be a lot of names that people recognize on our programming list. But I'm really hoping that they come along to the festival and discover a whole bunch of the new debut authors and add them to their reading lists as well," Dufficy said.
Some of these emerging authors include Holly Hogan, who wrote Message in a Bottle, Charlene Carr, author of Hold My Girl, and Janika Oza, reading from A History of Burning.
Ali Hassan, comedian and host of Canada Reads, is also on the lineup. He'll be reading from his first book Is There Bacon in Heaven? which explores what it means to be culturally Muslim through his stand-up comedy.
Tickets to the Eden Mills Writers Festival are available on the website and in-person at The Bookshelf, Guelph's independent bookstore.
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