FOLD 2023 Festival Program

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STAFF

Executive Director

JAEL RICHARDSON

Communications & Development Coordinator

AMANDA LEDUC

Kids Coordinator

ARDO OMER

Graphic Designer

KILBY SMITH-MCGREGOR

Marketing Assistant

JONISHA LEWINSON

Associate Program Editor

ALEXANDRA YEBOAH

Poetry Curator

THE WILD WOMAN

Pitch Perfect Facilitator

CALYSSA ERB

ACCESSIBILITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Bronwyn Berg

Rhonda-Lee Dynes

Adam Pottle

Rasiqra Revulva

Rahma Shere

PLANNING TEAM

David Burga

Yeli Cruz

Toni Duval

Emmy Nordstrom Higdon

Sarasvathi Kannan

Shoilee Khan

Amanda Leduc

Jonisha Lewinson

Lavanya Narasimhan

Ardo Omer

Louisa Onomé

Anita Ragunathan

Jael Richardson

Karen Richardson Mason

Natasha Ramoutar

Fiona Ross

Natasha Shaikh

Lamoi Simmonds

Alya Somar

Monica Tang

Monika Trzeciakowski

Meg Wheeler

Alexandra Yeboah

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Treasurer TERI VLASSOPOULOS

Secretary

ASHISH SETH

Director, Children’s Programming

KAREN RICHARDSON MASON

Director, Adult Programming

DAVID BURGA

Director, Sponsorships & Prizes

FELICIA QUON

Director, Human Resources

CYNTHIA INNES

Director, Board Governance

MARK RICHARDSON

FROM THE FOLD T E AM

We feel very grateful to be planning and preparing for another festival. For us, the 2023 festival represents an important evolution in the work we do here at the Festival of Literary Diversity.

FOLD 2023 is the second year where the FOLD will operate in a multi-modal format—beginning the week with virtual events and finishing with in-person events in Brampton.

While many are moving away from virtual or leaning into hybrid, virtual events are uniquely important. They are, in many ways, the great equalizer. No matter where you are in the world or what your circumstances are, each author and each audience member who joins a virtual event does so in a very similar way simply by accessing the internet. It’s why more than half of our events are delivered this way.

And while we treasure those virtual connections, our in-person events allow us to honour and celebrate our Brampton community. We love hosting events at the Rose Theatre, and we’ve added some new images to the virtual platform so you can get a little taste of home in the virtual space as well.

Regardless of the format, the focus this year is on connection. It’s about increasing the possibilities for connection through new formats like the Virtual Roundtables and the in-person Microworkshops. In addition to these new features and formats, this year’s festival includes a wide range of events designed for those enjoy other forms of art. In addition to book-centered panels and interviews, there are drawing-based events,

food-based events, and music-based events like The Great Readception—our annual literary cabaret.

We are so grateful to our funders and our sponsors who have supported us this year. They are a critical part of our ability to deliver the festival in a multi-modal format, and their confidence in our work means so much.

We are also grateful to you, our audience and supporters. Wherever you find yourself April 30–May 7, we hope you enjoy this year’s festival. We hope it challenges your way of thinking, and that you discover old favourites and incredible new voices.

— JAEL , AMANDA , and ARDO

April 2023

Greetings from Mayor Patrick Brown

Dear Friends,

On behalf of the Members of Brampton City Council I would like to welcome you to the 8th Annual Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD) which celebrates diversity in literature by promoting diverse authors and stories in Brampton– one of Canada’s most culturally diverse cities. In 2023, the FOLD is debuting its multi-modal format virtual programming from April 30 – May 3, followed by in-person programming from May 4 – 7 at The Rose. It is great to see Jael Richardson and her team continuing to organize this festival during such a challenging time, and especially wonderful to see the in-person festival programming at The Rose once again.

The 2023 festival will take place from April 30 – May 7 and features 25+ events and over 40 authors. Panels, discussions and workshops will allow guests from across Canada and around the world to participate in the festival All virtual and most in-person events will be close-captioned. This festival will bring established and emerging writers, educators, and literary professionals together with readers from all walks of life to celebrate and expand Canada’s body of diverse literature.

The festival will also provide aspiring writers with the opportunity to develop their skills and improve their writing by connecting them with other writers and by providing them with professional development opportunities that allow them to learn. I want to thank the sponsors and the Board of Directors for their ongoing efforts in promoting literacy and making this festival a success.

Enjoy the festival!

Sincerely,

Patrick Brown Mayor

HOW TO SAY BANANA IN KISWAHILI

BY TASLIM JAFFER

“Which sufario should we make the soup in?” I asked my twelve-year-old daughter, Inaya, as she pored over the recipe for Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup on my iPhone. I held out two choices.

She shrugged and turned back to the list of ingredients. “I think we should use the bigger pot.”

“Pot?” I said. “It’s a sufario!”

She laughed. “It’s a pot!”

I faked horror but I was met with a familiar, unsettling feeling. “Please, just say the word sufario. You know how to say it, you know what it means. Please use it!”

Inaya looked up. “Okay, Mom. It’s a sufario.” A silence hung over us. I pretended to move on from our conversation by pulling out the eggs we’d need to beat and add at the very end of the recipe.

Did Inaya concede and use the Kiswahili word because she recognized the importance of doing so or because she was avoiding a fifteen-minute lecture on her family’s rich cultural-linguistic background? Did it even matter to her that her ancestors travelled by dhow on the monsoon winds across the Indian Ocean from Gujarat to East Africa, where generations of them tried to build a life? Was it at all interesting to her that even though socially the Asians and Africans were segregated, there was some adaptation of language in the intersections where people came together?

I glanced over at her. She placed the iPhone down on the island and turned to pull cans of creamed corn from the pantry. These questions were loaded and unfair; I kept them inside me, busying myself with the task of finding the can opener that always seemed to travel from drawer to drawer and was never where I had put it last.

Being from Mombasa, Kenya, right on the equator, I can’t use the North American hyperbole: “Do you know your parents walked to school in the snow, uphill—both ways?” My equivalent is “Do you know your grandparents spoke five different languages?” Unlike my North American counterparts, I am not exaggerating; my parents Kutchi (our native regional language), Gujarati (our native state language), Kiswahili (from having grown up in Kenya), Hindi (from watching Bollywood movies) and English (the language of instruction at school). The Kutchi we speak now incorporates many Kiswahili words, a shift that began within a generation of living in East Africa. It was only when I pursued a minor in Linguistics at university that I was able to tease apart the two languages. To this day, I blow my dad’s mind when I say, “You know that word you used isn’t even Kutchi, it’s Kiswahili.” And when I ask him for the Kutchi word that was replaced, he is hard-pressed to find an answer.

My children can get away with speaking only English where we live, even within our family; there isn’t a single relative now who doesn’t speak it. They even use English to communicate with their ninety-sevenyear-old great-grandmother who learned the language through the twisted, dramatic plots of General Hospital when she moved to Canada in her fifties. But there is something about them only speaking English that doesn’t sit well with me.

I worry that their monolingualism will erase where they came from.

That is something I have discussed with other parents who have the same cultural-linguistic background as me. Every so often, in a private Facebook group of local Ismaili moms, someone would seek advice about passing down the language. The answer, of course, is to provide an immersive environment.

This is not easy—with English now being my primary language, and the language I think in, it is a real effort to remember to use my mother tongue. When I started elementary school in Victoria, B.C., there were many occasions when Kutchi or Kiswahili words would slip into my English sentences. I remember practicing the difference between tongue and thumb, trying to produce the distinction between their initial sounds and trying to figure out where my tongue had to land while making them. Over time, English dominated my

space—school, friends’ homes, extra-curricular activities—and eventually, even though my parents continued to speak to me in Kutchi, I would reply in English. My husband only speaks English, the common language between his Urdu-speaking mom and Kutchi-speaking dad. And so, it became our primary language.

As Inaya and I added garlic, ginger and diced carrots to the sufario, I reflected on the many times my children have engaged with Kutchi and Kiswahili words effortlessly and felt my mood lift a little.

I remembered a familiar scene in which I have found myself in with each of my three kids throughout their early years. We sat in a doctor’s waiting room with other sniffling, coughing patients. The children’s toy corner, decorated with Mother Goose nursery rhymes and separated by a faux-stone border like the one you might find around a garden bed, was crawling with snotnosed toddlers. I was prepared. I had toys and books from home in my bag, ready to pull out when my own toddler’s curiosity grew. The moment they wandered toward the germ-covered, half-dressed dolls in the shared play space, I said to them with a wide smile and singsong voice: “Adeej ma. Chafu ai!” The unsuspecting parents in the waiting area didn’t realize I was forbidding my kids, in a combo of Kutchi and Kiswahili, to play with the same toys their kids were mouthing. And for that moment, I could pretend I was raising bilingual children.

I remembered that my nine-year-old son, Aariz, admitted that he only learned the English word medicine a couple years prior. Up until then, the word for any pharmaceutical or even vitamin was the Kutchi word dava. Every morning, my kids eat their C dava, D dava and fishy dava.

I remembered that laundry hamper is foreign to my kids. When their clothes are strewn on their bedroom floors, they know I’m going to be on them to put their dirty ones in the chafu kapada—chafu meaning dirty in Kiswahili and kapada meaning clothes in Kutchi.

I remembered when my five-year-old daughter, Alyzeh, had a school friend over, and her friend asked if she was having dinner at our place. “Not this time, sweetie. I’ll ask your mom if you can stay over another time?”

“Sure!” she responded. “What kinds of things do you make for dinner?”

I paused, caught off guard by having to provide my culinary resume to a kindergartener. “Well, I can make burgers or spaghetti or chicken…”

“And,” Alyzeh piped up, proudly. “She can make macho ngombe!”

I beamed. Not only did my daughter know the colloquial way to ask for sunnyside-up eggs in Kiswahili but it was the only way she knew how to ask for it. One day over, brunch in a diner with friends, she’ll order them in English, but these words will come to her first.

As for my kids being functionally fluent in the language of their ancestors, though, the chances are slim.

That’s why I push for these words and phrases I know are a part of their lexicon. My English-only-speaking friends laugh when I lament that these scarce words include armpit, underwear, fart. “How?” I say to these friends who have never spent a day in their life thinking about passing down their native language. “How did

I manage to teach them these random words but not anything that can form an actual conversation?”

I’m not a purist by any means. I think language is exciting in the way that it changes; the subsequent new words, and how they are used, tell interesting stories of human history.

For example, that word sufario? It’s an adaptation.

It originates from the Kiswahili word ‘sufaria’ which means cooking pot. Kutchi households that employed native African housekeepers adopted this word (and many others) and then applied the linguistic rules of their own native tongue.

Kutchi has grammatical gender while Kiswahili does not. Somehow, cooking pot became masculine, which requires the suffix -o, and that’s how sufario came to be.

My insisting that my children use this word might seem silly to my great-great grandparents, who had never even heard of it. In fact, I don’t know what word they have used instead.

When my dad moved in with us in the fall of 2019, the language differences among the three generations in my home became apparent. By default, my dad speaks primarily our East African version of Kutchi with me. I like it. It gives me a chance to practice. I have to think a little harder when conjugating certain verbs, reach deep into the language files in my brain to decide if something is masculine or feminine. Dad is patient. Kutchi feels like home, even as my Canadian accent dilutes the sounds.

Two years ago, Inaya entered the Late French Immersion program and is already functionally fluent. Within months of being immersed in a French classroom, she was thinking in French. I am pleased that she took this opportunity to stretch her brain in the way that language learning requires and that she enjoys the easing of slipping between tongues.

“I totally didn’t even realize my teacher was speaking French when he was explaining the math to me!” she shared.

“That’s so awesome!” I say, hugging her over the triumph.

The irony is not lost on me that her two languages are the colonial languages of this country and have nothing to do with our history. I swat at the pesky thought.

I have not stopped persisting, insisting they use as many of our native words as they know, providing as much exposure as I can give them in our day-to-day lives. Asking them in Kutchi what they want for breakfast. Holding up my fingers while asking, “Hakro ke ba?” to find out how many slices of toast they would like.

Maybe my kids will hear my voice in their head when they pull out a sufario from their own kitchen cupboards one day. Maybe they will use the word with their own kids or maybe they will simply think of it with fondness but not pass it down. How much further will this word reach?

These are some of the thoughts that come with motherhood for me. Passing down languages is not talked about on the playground or in parenting magazines as much as diaper brands and extra-curricular activities and high school programs. Yet, for many first-generation Canadians, it is an added dimension of parenthood. We try to pull our ancestry and culture and history into the here and now, at the kitchen island with our kids, so that they can get a sampling —even just a taste—of where they come from, of all those generations that existed in other countries before coming to Canada.

One day, a few months after Dad moved in, he was chopping onions at the kitchen island. A couple tomatoes rested nearby, ready to be diced. To their right, the spice dabba was open. I knew he’d be dipping into the ground cumin, ground coriander and turmeric once the onions were nicely browned. I settled into a stool across from him and beside Inaya, who was absent-mindedly nibbling on an apple. Living with Dad means that whoever is in the kitchen, cooking, has the other’s company. Sometimes dishes are created together, but usually, if he’s at the helm, I’m happy to sit and talk his ear off.

I don’t remember our conversation that day but I do know it was in Kutchi, and it was engrossing enough that I completely forgot Inaya was next to me. Inaya, who did not understand a word of what we were saying. Suddenly, we were interrupted. “Ndizi!” Inaya called. I laughed while Dad stopped chopping and stared at Inaya.

“I don’t know what you guys are saying!” she said. And so she had butted into the conversation with the first Kiswahili word that came to her mind. Banana.

BACKTALK

BY PARDIS ALIAKBARKHANI

growing up in brampton is a paradox of otherness. it is home to brownness and not-so-subtle white racism. pretty white girls with blonde hair and blue eyes that wrinkle their button noses at your arm hair, whisper over your lunch, sing chorus to insecurities that you carry into your 30s. growing up in brampton was sean paul playing in the value village you frequent with your mom for back to school clothes shopping. growing up in brampton was microwaving your third jamaican patty of the night while your mom is pulling a second factory shift. growing up in brampton was gestating a unique brand of strangeness that you give birth to years after you graduate university.

amendment: queerness. amendment: queerness juxtaposing colour. queerness juxtaposing poverty. queerness juxtaposing beauty that falls against western convention. queerness in a fat body. sometimes this city is scar tissue i trace over and call my childhood. the first time a girl called me a lesbian i was 12 and everyone laughed. amendment: this city is scar tissue because it taught me how to heal.

the first time a girl, shannon, called me a lesbian because i thought she was my friend and i hugged her, i remember wanting to die. i remember sinking so deep into myself for a moment that i left brampton and momentarily woke up in my mothers’ womb. but wombs have eviction dates. and so does shame. we choose what we wish to carry.

the first time a girl called me a lesbian she followed with braying laughter. told me to order a prostitute to fulfill my needs. oddly specific thing for a 12-yearold to say. cutting in the stares that followed. two-set daggers in prepubescent bodies. “call a prostitute,

call a prostitute.” blue-eyed, blonde-haired shannon caws. another girl chirps disapprovingly, flying onto the empty seat next to me. “that’s so mean! how do you even order a prostitute?” the other girl asks, her brows so furrowed i could build nests in them.

silence. lips shaking as if more laughter is about to spill from them. brampton paradox: i am simultaneously beaten down but keenly aware of the fact that this freckle-faced, anemic girl with manicured fingernails has never nursed a broken wing. silence. “how do you even order a prostitute?” i’ll probably get my ass handed to me tonight when i go home for not folding the sheets right. for sitting improperly. for getting toothpaste on the bathroom vanity. i’ll nurse that. i have no choice. but does my gay ass need to listen to this squawking? no. not today.brampton 101: if you intend to puff out your chest, prepare to have the wind knocked out of it.

“that’s so mean! how do you even order a prostitute?” slightly-less-mean girl asks.

“you just call shannon’s home phone.” i say.

KISMET

BY MONI BRAR

mother pushes a crayon into my dimpled hand, watches a ਮ and then an M swell on the page. she tells me today is the mother of tomorrow, yesterday the grandmother|ਦਾਦੀ, and tomorrow just a seed of unhatched possibility.

she pushes a pencil into my teenaged hand, watches a sentence trellis onto the page. she tells me the trees provide everything, the rivers|ਨਦੀਆ are to be watched, and the sky to be trusted beyond reproach.

she places a pen in my hand, watches this poem blossom on paper. she tells me written words hold power, her illiterate eyes are her kismet|ਕਿਸਮਤ, and the path from mouth to hand is short.

DIVING IN

BY TALYSHA BUJOLD-ABU

GYMS

BY VICTORIA PERRIE

I grew up in community gyms

Sitting on basketball lined floors

Bannock on paper plates cold butter jam with a plastic knife someone pass me moose meat stew

potato salad dinner roll powder covered donuts from the shell gas station next door

Sage smoke billows learning songs for ceremony dancing powwow for ourselves no contests

Aunties singing knee slapping laughter in the kitchen skirts hand sewn down to the floor little stitch rip in the hem

I’m from here

Sneaking cigarettes outside

When moms weren’t looking quick let’s get across the road see how far we can go before they notice Pink church in the hood running around outside late at night unafraid when my best friend told me she wanted to kill herself for the first time

These echoing gyms

Singing loud and holding siblings’ hands

Learning to jingle and hoop dance nighttime north end main street burger king feast

Sound of the drum I carried reverberating through walls hearing worship on Sundays

Now support my best friends back leaning on the church begging money outside on the street

The gyms haven’t changed, but we have

Same gym native kids yelling elders telling stories making a medicine pouch for ceremony here this is how you gut the seal

Now sewing mitts in the back sheriff calls the docket comes up sits down sentenced to three years

s.343 orders s.109 and s.491 no more hunting hides teaching youth making drums same gym different hours

She stands the line I sit the desk

Gym walls whisper

No one lifted hoops hard gallery chairs discomposure as she walks to the front RCMP watching hey you forgot to take her cuffs off shackled shuffle to the defense table

Sits down beside me looks up big eyes no life cuts on her finger’s wrists arms face doesn’t recognize me don’t you remember the time we talked about jumping off that 20-storey building together but they made you suck a guy off for a roach instead

DEATH AND THE WIND FARM

I only went because my grandfather died.

The plan had been Europe—horseback riding in the Spanish countryside, savouring custard tarts in Porto, and castle hopping in Bavaria. I was in Seville, coming out of a flamenco show, when I received the news.

Since we’d immigrated to Toronto thirteen years ago, I’d only returned to Việt Nam sparingly. The last time, I spent three days in my hometown of Hà Nội. When we’d parted on the doorstep, my grandfather had tears in his eyes. Living half a world away, I knew to prepare for goodbyes that might be forever; but I got complacent. I truly thought I would see him again.

My early life weaving between continents meant that our relationship had been built on snippets, always wanting. I remembered him by how still he could sit on a bamboo mat, meditating for hours, and how sharp his eyes looked, right until the end. They took in every story around him with piercing clarity.

He had taught me to conjugate “être” in French. He had survived severe appendicitis, kidney failure, and years on dialysis. He had lived through a revolution and two wars. He had learned Portuguese in his fif-

ties, just for fun. Even into his eighties, he leapt at every opportunity to travel or to recite his poetry. His love for his family was only rivalled by his love for our homeland.

I pieced his final chapter together while booking my emergency flight to Nội Bài Airport. It had ended in a sudden heart failure. Ten minutes of gasping quickly, slowly– and then he was gone.

I came back to my family to grieve, to open arms and my aunt’s simple words, “Welcome home. We’ve missed you.” That broke me.

In the afternoon light, I took walks with my grandmother, hand-in-hand under the shade of cherry trees, and I sat with her by the koi pond. Every morning and night, I lit incense on my grandfather’s altar. I watched the sky try desperately to be blue.

The cruelty of it all only struck me in the days following his funeral—that my sweet aunt, who had been the giver all her life, bore the burden of standing alone with him as he died; that my mother had been headed home anyway, on her way to Pearson Airport when the call came in.

“I was one day late,” she said. I held my mother, shaking. “He knew I was coming, and he didn’t wait for me.”

The days dragged as the house mourned, and when routine began to find its feet, I stood in a half-forgotten home with a month abruptly devoid of plans. Headed to the Mekong delta on a weeklong business trip, my aunt offered me the chance to tag along. I agreed, and we left on a Monday morning before dawn.

We were waiting in the lobby of a hotel in Cần Thơ when the tour agency called to say that every trip I’d booked for the week was cancelled. It was low season, not enough travellers; they apologized. I sat toying with the idea of making my way around alone, but certain points would be impossible to reach by bus, and the hastiness of the trip meant that I was wholly unprepared.

“I’ll take a day off,” my aunt said finally. “We can hire a car to see the neighbouring provinces. It would be a waste to miss.”

Thus, in the pitch black of five in the morning that Thursday, in the streets along the Cần Thơ river lined with waste, our car picked us up for our day trip south. My grogginess dissipated when I saw the sun rise over a foggy plain on a lonely road in Hậu Giang. We stopped the car to stare at the light clinging to the grass, the red, gold, and green of the field.

Contrary to the tour itinerary, our driver suggested we drive straight to Cà Mau in the morning to see the main attractions first—the mangrove forests, the speedboat tour, the southernmost tip of the country—and return for the lesser-known sights along the way back.

We didn’t arrive at the wind farm until sunset. Having done no research prior to coming, I had only heard of it from my aunt, who often worked in the area. She insisted it was not to be missed, despite not being the top attraction in Bạc Liêu. With 62 turbines at 80m high, the slender white windmills spanned far offshore in the clear gray sea. I stepped onto the dock, and the sky opened up before me—a perfect blue with ballooning white clouds. The breeze spun the vanes lazily, and we were alone.

The sun was as gold as when it had risen that morning, spilling over the marsh where newts squirmed in the mud. We watched as it burned red and began to dip. The clouds darkened, and the sky turned lavender and pink. Reflected in the ocean, the windmills stood tall amidst a watercolour painting.

I’d come home to mourn, and I expected to find nothing beyond—yet here was a scene to bring gods to their knees. I stood in awe watching the tinges of light stream across the landscape and marvelled at the plans that had to go wrong, the sorrow that had to be shared, and the coincidences that had to line up to bring me there and then.

With his six grandchildren in six different cities abroad, my grandfather had always wanted us to see the beauty of our roots and our home. He was a proud man, a loyal man. He’d lectured us about the resilience of our people, the strength of our history, and the richness of our country; we’d rolled our eyes, and then left to build new lives oceans away. I remembered in that moment that the heart failure that killed him had not been his first. The first had happened months before, mere hours after my youngest cousin left home for good.

“Cháu gái yêu quý,” was what he had always called me. Cherished granddaughter.

I stood at the edge of the sea that night and stared at the most beautiful sun sinking lower, lower—and then it was gone.

I NEVER KNOCKED

LESLIE ROACH

I’ve wondered why I never knocked when I was left out in the dark hallway. It was dark in that building and I was scared.

And yet I never knocked to the voices inside at the party.

To let me in.

UNMET: AGAIN

BY STEPHANIE ROBERTS

wherever you’re going i am going with you say … I’m afraid say … I’m a yam i don’t want to go nowhere through nothing with nobody say desire wriggles in your bowels mute tapeworm munching chalk, clay, charcoal

tell fear your dreams never slept not by my hands it is you who beat your fist-sized muscle half to death —pulled it over grates & grates of regret

place newborn faith on a belly of shared solitude warm in the sure-coming sunset save all your yeses for me

roost yourself in this nest put blood over the door of the past inside the future has eyes only for you.

RESETTLING

BY MICHELLE RULE

RESETTLING

I hear the geese fly by above my house More than a gaggle their deep melancholy voices now frantic as they call friend and foe

Time to go, time to go! Except one small collection that head simply from lakeshore to landfill

Somehow they lost the navigation gene damaged in some fluke of nature off kilter now through four even five generations

They still feel the urge of migration but work from a different map And as I make my daily move from bed to couch followed by dog and cat

I understand

I am a wayward goose

WOMEN RISING UP

BY KELLY KAUR

When I was born my father placed me at the familiar altar of patriarchy I ranted and raved. Stomped, screamed, and shouted until reluctantly, my father’s infinite love gave me powerful degrees, one for each hand

When my daughter was born I breathed intense joy into her lips carved words of power onto the canvas of her skin propelled her ahead of lines of dissent deconstructed dialogues of traditional expectations celebrated her strength and her passion whispered in her ear that Barbie was too skinny and no one needed to wear high heels unless they wanted to let her embrace her glorious size, perfect shape, and seamless color showed her the map to female autonomy from lessons learnt in classrooms and on the streets

And she became sassy, feisty, intelligent, vivacious, beautiful, dynamic, spirited, confident, audacious, bold, adventurous, self-sufficient, wise, brave, broadminded, inquisitive, ambitious, savvy, liberated

We all need just one advocate

Rise up for our mothers, sisters, and daughters

Rise up for the oppressed, muted, and nameless

Rise up for invisible women of the world

until on her own every single woman in the universe

Rises up for herself

Selected by a jury for a travelling exhibition for the North Dakota Human Rights Arts Festival, January to November 2022.

THE ROOFTOP MIST GARDEN: THE MUSIC OF VANCOUVER

BY VIVIAN LI

The metallic table wobbles with the first piercing shrieks of gulls calling the skyline, evening. You sit in the echoing air, spine angling away from the rigid chair, towards the blinking chains of white light; it must be, you realize, as your eyes follow down the stretch of the tessellated grey-white patterned patio, a dance calling forth the rainstorm that will strike within the hour. Beyond the sporadically thin Granville Island bridge rests a horizon blushing orange. Wrapped by the eastern mountain wind, snake-like, the wiry hands of a silver birch tree uncurl.

A couple smiles with open-orange foreign sounds—a woman with a black hat, a man with a parka jacket holding a Blenz Coffee cup. Pulling on their gloves, they sit six feet away from you, their intertwined fingers gliding through wisps of cloud in the sky. You lean closer, the only listener within the half-dozen round tables, slipping into their secrets. You can almost understand their lifts and turns as you sip your London Fog, sweet and calming between your teeth—its warmth surrounded by a chestnut wrap, bumpy spine sharp against fingertips. Already your hands are chilled from bone to marrow, and your feet angle back, towards home, but you want to listen a little longer, to outlast the thin mist before rain.

Heavy smoke rises behind three squat beige buildings—within the central seven-floored apartment, only the fourth-floor bulb burns. In the open window, a shadow passes by: a memory. There are other signs of life the longer you hum; a leaf flutters across the ground; a bag lifts, buoyed by air; a chickadee squeaks in the birch tree, its body squinting against the grey-haired sky. Firm solar panels catch the last hazy quivering of light. Your legs, pressed tight against the rattling table, have found grounding, sustenance. Warm air rushes past; two students walk in step as a pair of sparrows brushes bodies in an eternal, infinite loop, before dividing across the skyline, and falling onto separate perches.

You glance behind at the rows of glass in mirrored reflection; the garden aching brown from Winter’s wrath. Anthem music soars from the couple’s phones—you smile at the increasing number of jacketed figures braving the chill to find solace in the sinking sunset. Two old friends, one with grey shoes, another wearing white, call the other sinister and pose before the birch tree. Their masks are down, unadorned. The latter answers a phone call after pointing to the CBC quarters below; teasing, he tells his mother he stopped Ben from jumping off the roof of the library. Ben catches your eye, and he waves as he and his

friend climb down the stairs. Lights are sprinkled everywhere; lights sparkling in tune with the glow on bridges and wire lines. L-shaped sapphire apartments with ash-brown, teal, and ochre roofs crowd the cityscape before you. But what is beyond these buildings, and beyond those?

The first sharp drop on your forehead signals the arrival of twilight, the bruise of grey heavier against the horizon. Soon, you will be recalled home. The

mountain-clear scent of the wind reminds you that within a distanced world, the populated trees, blinking teal-greens, and anchored buildings have not yet shifted. The patio lights will beat on in the storm, vivacious. A lady dressed in silver-and-cream curves a Pano of the patio. The mask on her face does not hide her yearning for connection. You smile as you, the couple, and the birch tree, are captured.

WOLF AND CUB

BY BOBBIE KUMAR

I am the cub, small and fragile. Nestled in the snowy mountains, wild and untamed. With my mother, the wolf, by my side. We roam the frozen tundra, searching for our next meal.

The winds howl and the snow falls, covering our tracks. But my mother’s senses are sharp, she knows the way. She teaches me the secrets of survival, how to hunt and how to hide. I watch her every move, eager to learn.

We huddle close for warmth, sharing our body heat. The frigid air bites at our noses, but we don’t mind. We are strong, we are resilient, we are survivors.

We are a pack, my mother and I, bonded by blood and love. We rely on each other, we protect each other. We are one, united against the cold and the dark.

I am the cub, but I am growing, learning to stand on my own. I know that one day, I will have to leave my mother’s side. But until then, I am grateful for her guidance, her love. And I will always carry her wisdom with me, as I venture out into the world.

For my mother is the wolf, fierce and majestic. She has taught me all that I need to know. To thrive and to survive, in the snowy mountains and beyond. I am her cub, and I am proud.

As the days go by, we roam the snowy mountains, seeking shelter and sustenance. The world is harsh and unforgiving, but we face it head on. We hunt and we gather, we scavenge and we scavenge. Whatever it takes to keep ourselves alive.

But there are moments of beauty too, amidst the cold and the struggle. The northern lights dance in the sky, painting the night with ribbons of colour. The snow-covered trees sparkle in the sunlight, like diamonds on a winter’s day. And the wolves howl, their voices echoing across the landscape.

We are a part of this world, my mother and I. We belong here, in the snowy mountains, wild and untamed. We have adapted to the cold and the dark, we have learned to thrive. We are survivors, we are strong, we are unstoppable.

I am the cub, and I am proud to be my mother’s daughter. She has taught me all that I know, she has shown me the way. And though I may one day have to leave her side, I will always carry her with me. For she is the wolf, fierce and majestic, my guide and my protector. And I am forever grateful for her love and her guidance.

As the seasons change and the snow begins to melt, we know that it is time to move on. The mountains are no longer our home, the time has come to wander elsewhere. My mother and I say goodbye to the snowy peaks, to the frozen tundra. And we set out on a new journey, into the unknown.

We follow the scent of fresh grass and new growth, we chase the sun. We explore new territories, we meet new friends, we make new memories. We are unstoppable, my mother and I, we are unstoppable.

But no matter where we go, no matter what we do. We will always carry the snowy mountains in our hearts. And the memory of the time we spent together, surviving and thriving.

I am the cub, and I am proud to be my mother’s daughter. I am grateful for her love and her guidance, for all that she has taught me. And I know that no matter where our journey takes us, we will always be together. My mother is the wolf, fierce and majestic, my guide and my protector. And I am forever grateful to be by her side.

HYPERTHYROIDISM … AGAIN

BY MELANIE PROULX

HARD OF HEARING: A DIPTYCH

BY YOLANDE HOUSE

My boyfriend’s fleshy face twists with disgust. “What do you mean, you miss a lot?”

We’ve been marathoning the seven seasons of West Wing for weeks. The president and his advisors speed-walk through government offices while having heated deliberations at a pace that matches their stride, like the Gilmore Girls when Rory and Lorelai discuss global politics clutching their coffees as they traipse through the charming streets of Stars Hollow.

My boyfriend has just asked me what I thought of one of those lightning-speed conversations. I’d blinked and shook my head, then admitted I didn’t catch that part.

“They talk fast. I can keep up with most of it, but I can’t hear it all.”

His steel-blue eyes harden; he scoffs and turns his head, his shoulders shaking. He’d wanted a partner to discuss his favourite show with, and here I am, broken.

A few months before, I had a panic attack in his bedroom and asked for his support. He held my hand. When it was over, he told me he’s supposed to be the weak one. I’d cared for him during his months’ long depression, buying him groceries and cooking while he slept. It was me who stayed with him while paramedics came while he was having vomiting spells one morning, to find out it was likely the flu. But I wasn’t allowed one panic attack.

Heat beats my cheeks and I inspect my lap. My fingers coil in a vice grip.

Another boyfriend, another show. My upper body strains toward the TV. Even with the volume jacked, I don’t pick up a lot of dialogue.

“What are they saying?” I ask. He repeats what he heard. We’d turned on captions for this streaming service when we began the episode, but none were available.

I thought I’d be able to follow along if I made sure to study the facial expressions and body language of the people on the TV. I crank the volume button and the boom of aural stimuli helps. But even studying their lips, I can’t make out many exchanges and rely on images instead. Like a real-life conversation, I can pick up more if I apply my full concentration to the effort, but I estimate I’m still missing thirty percent, at least.

My sardonic comments focus on the cooking show contestant’s clothing and the tone and look of the show— this marijuana cooking show is a little too polished to be legit in my former-cannabis legalization crusader’s eyes. Like a foreign language in which I’m medium-proficient, I ride the turns and dips in dialogue and make out the general waves of the discussion, picking up enough of a through-line. But my forehead begins to pinch and I feel the beginnings of the headaches that come on when I do this for too long. Is this show worth my limited hearing energy?

I glare at the TV. “Why the heck doesn’t this show have captions?”’

HOW TO MAKE BOILED POTATOES

BY SHANTELL POWELL

Late 70s. Muscle cars. Chain-smoking. Leaded gasoline. Gun racks on the back windows of pickup trucks.

I’m living out in the bush in central New Brunswick. Our nearest neighbours are a half-mile away along a dirt road. We are deep in a forest, half-way up a steep, long hill across from a tree-covered ridge rising up like a living wall.

To make boiled potatoes for a family of four, you need:

• Water

• Salt

• Margarine

• 10 lbs of Russet potatoes.

Mom always lived in towns, trailer parks, and army bases. Now she is way out in the boonies with two small children. My father lives in a distant man camp during the week. She starves for adult company. Although we are isolated, we never run out of things to do. We live in a mobile home on a small farm and raise most of our food.

Make sure the wood stove is stoked to high heat. (Tip: Hardwood burns hotter than softwood, but don’t burn

wood from apple trees; it burns so hot the stove glows cherry red, and you’ll be afraid the chimney will catch fire.) Fetch potatoes from the root cellar.

When it’s time to fetch potatoes for supper, I go into the porch and down a steep flight of stairs to the dank, unfinished basement. Last winter, Dad still didn’t have the stairs installed and my little baby sister tumbled through the open hole to the cellar. Her snow pants caught on a nail, and she dangled upside down over a puddle screaming, “I can’t swim!” Now there are steps made from repurposed wooden road signs. Now there’s a handrail. The root cellar behind the staircase smells like earthworms. The cement floor is damp, cold, and gritty, and I move quickly. The floor feels disgusting against the skin of my bare feet. Sometimes I remember to wear flip-flops, and then I don’t need to rush so much.

Knock eyes off potatoes if necessary. Wash potatoes in the sink, then peel them with a paring knife. Cut out any bad spots. Throw peelings, eyes, and spots into a bucket to feed to the pigs and chickens.

We raise chickens, rabbits, and pigs for meat. Dad hunts for deer and moose in the fall, and we fish year-round. We keep geese and chickens for eggs. I pick berries, but more end up in my mouth than in the bucket. We have goats for milk, and when they’re not producing, we get milk from our neighbours’ cattle: Oscar with his herd of doe-eyed Jerseys, or Guy with his one Holstein, Bossy. Every year, a city person shoots at Oscar’s cows thinking they are deer. Sometimes they even shoot at the black and white spotted Holsteins. I’ve never fired my Dad’s hunting rifle, but I know the difference between a deer and a cow, and Bossy needn’t fear me. She lets me rub her crooked horns, but refuses to let me lasso her with a lariat made of baling twine. She won’t let me sit on her back, either. How will I ever become a cowboy?

The root cellar is lit by a single lightbulb. I need to walk halfway into the room to switch it on. I fumble in the darkness for the dangling pull-cord. Cobwebs always seem to be hanging from the walls and lightbulb. I do my best to avoid them, but sometimes they catch in my hair.

I always choose the biggest potatoes I can find. I read an entry in Anne Frank’s diary about how she likes tiny potatoes the best. This makes no sense to me. What is so great about tiny potatoes? When you peel

them, there’s barely anything left. Peeling ten pounds of potatoes is a lot of work, and I’m not very fast.

A plywood cabinet with peeling white paint stands at the end of the root cellar. It is filled with jars of Mom’s preserves and is also stacked with squashes, carrots, beets, parsnips, and rutabagas. Sitting on the end of a shelf is a huge mason jar containing a vinegar plant. It looks like moon-white layers of fungus embalmed in amber fluid.

After you peel the potatoes, chop them into uniformly-sized pieces and put them in a big pot. Rinse them again, because they will somehow still be dirty. Cover the potatoes with water. Add salt. Cover pot with a lid and place onto a hot wood stove. Bring the water to a boil, then tilt or remove the lid so the pot won’t boil over and make a starchy mess.

We get our water from the spring in the backyard. The water is cold and sweet and alive. Every winter, we harness up the dog team and collect firewood from Dorn Lake. Dad made the dog harnesses from old polyester pants wrapped around worn-out nylon

pantihose. He cuts the wood with his chainsaw, and my sister, Mom, and I load the wood onto the dogsled. The basement stove keeps our trailer warm. One winter, after an ice storm, an earthquake runs a crack through the entire length of the basement. I follow the crack in the ice-crusted snow for miles through fields and forest, but I never find its end.

After boiling for about twenty minutes, potatoes should be soft enough to eat. Test with fork. When they are cooked according to preference, strain potatoes, reserving the water for the pigs.

By late winter, the potatoes in the root cellar shrivel. Touching them is like touching the skin of an old, old person. I know a woman named Alice. She is one hundred years old. I don’t know if she ate a lot of potatoes, but she is as wrinkly and brown as last season’s harvest. Pallid tentacles grow from the shrunken potatoes in the root cellar, reaching for a sun they know is up there somewhere. In the springtime, the leftover potatoes with their long spindly eyes will be chopped into pieces and buried in the tilled rows of the garden. A few will liquefy and smell like rotting meat. Then the root cellar needs to be scrubbed clean.

Serve as a side dish for meat or fish. Add salt, pepper, and cheap margarine.

Dad says we are living the way people are meant to live. We grow our own food. Mom makes all our clothes. We take care of our neighbours, and they take care of us. I wish Dad didn’t have to work so far away.

I HAVE A SPECIFIC HAND TOWE L

BY LARISSA BENFEY

i have a specific hand towel it doesn’t make me cringe it doesn’t rub my fingerprints and catch upon my skin perhaps you’ve never thought about it or felt it, as it were perhaps we see and feel the world in different hues and blurs

i shut down, shut out, and turn away when the world is pressed on me the smallest tasks can become impossible, suddenly

my limbs get heavy, my mind—a knot a jumble of thoughts and dread in a heartbeat, it consumes every part of me no blood in my veins, just lead

FESTIVAL PARTICIPANTS

AUTHORS, POETS & PERFORMERS

ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD is the host of CBC’s Commotion, and author of the No. 1 national bestseller Son of Elsewhere, a New York Times notable book of the year.

DANIEL ALEMAN is the award-winning author of Indivisible and Brighter Than the Sun

WAYNE ARTHURSON is a writer and literary agent of Cree/ French Canadian descent from Edmonton.

AJHANI AZURE is a 21-year-old independent artist, producer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist from Brampton, Ontario.

BRITTA B. is a poet and author of Wires that Sputter (McClelland & Stewart, 2023) living in Toronto.

KATE BEATON is the cartoonist of Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands , which is a New York Times Notable Book and one of Barack Obama’s favourite books of 2022.

LEANNE BETASAMOSAKE SIMPSON is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer, musician and thinker.

CODY CAETANO is the author of Half-Bads in White Regalia (Hamish Hamilton). He works as a literary agent with CookeMcDermid.

MICHAEL CHRISTIE is the author of the bestselling and award-winning novel Greenwood, as well as other books. He lives in Victoria.

JESSIE CONRAD is an emerging speculative fiction Dene Métis author. Mentorship and critical reflection of all stages of the writing process allow her to consistently advance her craft.

GIA DE CADENET. Author, Writing Mentor, Expat.

CHERIE DIMALINE is a bestselling author and member of the Georgian Bay Métis Community who writes YA and adult literature, screenplays and essays.

ELI TAREQ EL BECHELANY-LYNCH is a writer living in Tio’tia:ke, author of knot body (Metatron Press 2020) and The Good Arabs (Metonymy Press 2021).

JEN FERGUSON (she/her) is the author of The Summer of Bitter and Sweet and the forthcoming Those Pink Mountain Nights , both from Heartdrum/HarperCollins.

R. BARRI FLOWERS is a literary criminologist and bestselling crime writer.

SHELLY GRACE is a Toronto-based spoken word poet, photographer, and arts educator.

MARKUS HARWOOD-JONES is an author of YA and romance fiction, featuring stories of queer and trans love.

ALI HASSAN is a Stand-up Comedian, Actor, CBC Personality and Author.

CATHERINE HERNANDEZ is the award-winning author of Scarborough the book and screenwriter of Scarborough the film.

KEVIN HERONJONES is a youth basketball coach, author, journalist, lecturer and award-winning performance poet. He has numerous spoken word recordings and has published three poetry books and two youth novels.

TALIA HIBBERT is the New York Times bestselling author of several diverse and indulgent romance novels.

SHAHADDAH JACK is an 18-year-old poet and author whose poetry speaks to the lived Black experience, the intersectionality of womanhood, and the adversity of adolescence.

EL JONES is a writer, professor, and activist who works with people facing deportation and incarceration. She is the author of Abolitionist Intimacies and Life from the Afrikan Resistance

ZOULFA KATOUH is the author of As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow and is currently pursuing her master’s in Drug Sciences.

JESMEEN KAUR DEO is the author of the YA novel TJ Powar Has Something to Prove, which was a 2022 Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and Indie Next Pick.

SANDRA LAMOUCHE is a Nehiyaw Iskwew (Cree Woman) from the Bigstone Cree Nation in Northern Alberta. She married into the Piikani Nation in Southern Alberta and is mother to two boys with braids.

JEN SOOKFONG LEE is an author and editor whose books include The Conjoined, The End of East , The Shadow List , and her most recent memoir, Superfan

MEEGAN LIM is an illustrator & arts facilitator based in Brampton, ON—known for her illustrations focused on food, culture and everything in between.

ROSELLE LIM is the critically acclaimed author of Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune, Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop and Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club

JULIAN MARTIN is a Two-Spirited Indigenous Man. Julian has always been passionate about writing and storytelling from a very young age.

ROBYN MAYNARD is an award-winning author and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto-Scarborough.

Based in Calgary, SUZETTE MAYR is the author of six novels including her most recent, The Sleeping Car Porter, winner of the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

SUSAN MOCKLER ’s recent memoir, Fractured, recounts her experiences with acquired disability following a car accident that left her with an incomplete spinal cord injury.

SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA is the author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic. She won the Locus and British Fantasy awards for her work as a novelist.

SHEILA MURRAY ’s 2022 debut novel, Finding Edward, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and was a longlist nominee for Canada Reads 2023.

ALESSANDRA NACCARATO is a poet and essayist whose work explores intersections of disability and ecological change. She’s the author of Imminent Domains: Reckoning with the Anthropocene and Re-Origin of Species

DIMITRI NASRALLAH is the author of four novels. His most recent, 2022’s Hotline, is a national bestseller that’s been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and CBC’s Canada Reads.

JANIKA OZA is the author of the novel, A History of Burning , forthcoming from McClelland & Stewart in May 2023.

CASEY PLETT is the author of A Dream of a Woman, Little Fish, and A Safe Girl to Love.

TAHIRA RAJWANI is a Mississauga-based student, volunteer and spoken word artist.

DANNY RAMADAN is a Syrian-Canadian author and advocate for LGBTQ-identifying refugees. His work includes The Clothesline Swing , The Foghorn Echoes and the children’s series Adventures of Salma!

LINDSAY RUCK is an author and editor from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia with a passion for storytelling and an emphasis on representation.

GAVIN RUSSELL is a local Spoken Word poet who relishes in the mundane.

LISELLE SAMBURY is the Trinidadian Canadian author of Delicious Monsters , and the Governor General’s Literary Awards Finalist Blood Like Magic and its sequel, Blood Like Fate. Her latest book is Delicious Monsters , out now.

NISI SHAWL is the multiple award-winning author, coauthor, and editor of over a dozen books, including the standard text on diverse representation in literature, Writing the Other.

Hailing from Jamaica, and raised in Toronto, TANYA TURTON is an award-winning entrepreneur, storyteller, wellness educator, and mental health advocate.

ANUJA VARGHESE (www.anujavarghese.com) lives in Hamilton, has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and is the author of the genre-blending short story collection Chrysalis (House of Anansi, 2023).

SANDRA SG WONG (she/her) writes acclaimed fiction across genres, including the bestselling thriller IN THE DARK WE FORGET, and is an active advocate for equity in the crime writing community.

DAN K. WOO teaches short fiction at the University of Toronto School of continuing studies. His latest book was featured on the Chicago Review of Books most anticipated reads of 2022.

MODERATORS

Author, writer, and community builder. KERN CARTER is writing his own story and helping others share their own.

YELI CRUZ (she/her) is a voracious reader, a writer, and a publishing professional. In her free time she loves playing video games and wearing cozy sweaters.

ALYSSA GRAY-TYGHTER (she/her) is an educator, writer, speaker, and PhD student. For over 10 years, she has taught a variety of subjects in a public middle school in Peel where she is now an Equity Resource Teacher. Her current research focuses of Black girlhood, identity, and belonging in Canada.

AMANDA LEDUC is the author of three books. She has cerebral palsy and lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where she serves as the Communications and Development Coordinator for the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD).

HYACINTHE MILLER writes crime fiction spiced with seasoned romance. Her debut novel, Kenora Reinvented, will be followed by The Fifth Man, book two of the series.

TÉA MUTONJI is a poet writing fiction. Her short stories collection, Shut Up You’re Pretty (2019), was published by VS. Books and Arsenal Pulp Press.

EMMY NORDSTROM-HIGDON is a queer, non-binary colonizer originally from Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland), now based in Tkaronto (Toronto), where they work as a literary agent for Westwood Creative Artists.

ARDO OMER has written for online platforms as a reviewer and critic for almost a decade. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, where she serves as the Kids Coordinator for the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD).

ANITA RAGUNATHAN is a Senior Producer, Cultural and Special Events at Toronto Public Library and a member of the Katarokwi Union of Tenants.

NATASHA RAMOUTAR is a writer of Indo-Guyanese descent from Scarborough. Her debut poetry collection Bittersweet was published in 2020 by Mawenzi House.

JAEL RICHARDSON is an author and the Executive Director of the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD).

JANUARY ROGERS is a Mohawk/Tuscarora poet, media producer, performance and sound art-ist. She lives on her home territory of Six Nations of the Grand River where she operates Ojistoh Publishing and Productions

THE WILD WOMAN is an award-winning spoken word artist, poet, author, educator, and workshop facilitator.

PUBLISHING PROFESSIONALS

KERRY C. BYRNE is the autistic, queer and nonbinary Publisher of Augur Magazine, Co-Director of AugurCon, and a speculative fiction writer.

ANITA CHONG is Executive Editor at McClelland & Stewart, where she acquires and edits literary fiction and memoir.

HANA EL NIWAIRI is a literary agent and Rights Manager at CookeMcDermid Literary Management and one of the cofounders of BIPOC of Publishing in Canada.

THERESE ESTACION is a disabled poet and part of the Visayan diaspora community. Her first book, Phantompains , was published by Book*Hug, in 2021. She lives in Tkaronto/ Toronto.

FAZEELA JIWA is an acquisitions and development editor with Fernwood Publishing.

BRIDGETTE KAM is a literary associate at Westwood Creative Artists.

YASHASWI KESANAKURTHY is the Associate Editor (Children’s) at HarperCollins Canada.

KELVIN KONG is the owner and principal agent at K2 Literary.

CECILIA (“CeCe”) LYRA is an associate literary agent at P.S. Literary Agency representing adult fiction and nonfiction.

BIANCA MARAIS is a bestselling author, a host of the popular podcast, The Shit No One Tells You About Writing , and an award-winning creative writing instructor.

AMEEMA SAEED (@ReadWithMeemz) is a writer, a bookstagrammer, a book reviewer and a sensitivity reader.

RONAN SADLER is an editor, sensitivity reader, and cultural consultant with a focus on disability and transgender issues.

CARLY WATTERS is SVP and Senior Literary Agent at P.S. Literary and co-host of The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Podcast.

LÉONICKA VALCIUS is a Literary Agent at Transatlantic Agency. She represents books for children and adults with a focus on commercial and genre fiction by writers of color.

PROGRAM CONTRIBUTORS

PARDIS ALIAKBARKHANI (she/they) is a writer and artist of the Iranian diaspora. Influenced by her culture, her work explores love, sexuality, and liberation for all.

LARISSA BENFEY writes everything from novels to screenplays and has recently become more intentional in the exploration of her neurodivergence within her writing. More at: www.larissabenfey.com

MONI BRAR is the recipient of the 2022 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award and a finalist for the Montreal International Poetry Prize.

TALYSHA BUJOLD-ABU (she/her) is a Black/Mixed-Heritage illustrator and comics artist—with a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) from the University of Windsor (2018).

YOLANDE HOUSE ’s essays have appeared in The Rumpus , Grain, Joyland, and PRISM international. Currently, she’s working on an essay collection about invisible disabilities.

TASLIM JAFFER is a writer/writing instructor in Surrey, B.C. She is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology, Back Where I Came From (Book*hug Press, 2024).

KELLY KAUR was born in Singapore and lives in Calgary. Her novel, Letters to Singapore, was published by Stonehouse Publishing in May 2022.

Ms Bobbie The Art Pixie is the artist name of BOBBIE KUMAR , a transgender, disabled artist from Brampton, Ontario. Immersed in art her whole life, Bobbie wrote her first story at the age of 11. She started making short films at the age of 15, and music a year later.

VIVIAN LI is a queer writer and interdisciplinary artist. She was a Finalist for the Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award, and her works have been published in The Fiddlehead, The Massachusetts Review, and CV2, among others.

LINH NYUGEN (she/her) is a Vietnamese-Canadian immigrant and writer. Her debut middle-grade fantasy novel, No Place Like Home (HarperCollins Canada) came out on March 14, 2023.

VICTORIA PERRIE is a queer Métis-Cree lawyer, arts educator, and artist from Winnipeg. She is passionate about Indigenous youth education and holding space for community.

SHANTELL POWELL is a two-spirit writer, swamp hag, and artist who grew up on the land and off the grid.

MELANIE PROULX is a queer Ph.D. candidate, author, and comic artist. Her academic and creative work largely focus on social justice for marginalities.

LESLIE ROACH is an Ottawa-based poet and author. Her debut collection of poetry is called Finish this Sentence. She was born and raised in Montreal.

STEPHANIE ROBERTS is the Quebec-based, prize-winning, author of rushes from the river disappointment (MQUP 2020). She is a citizen of Canada, the US, and Panama.

MICHELE RULE is a disabled writer from Kelowna and an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets. “I write so my head doesn’t explode.”

There’s more to the world of writing than you think.

Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing

Sheridan’s Creative Writing & Publishing program is the only program in Canada to fuse creative writing and publishing. Get the skills you need to succeed in the modern publishing industry and write for a variety of genres – games, film, web, traditional media and more! Learn from professors who are practising writers, publishers and editors, and launch an exciting career.

cwp.sheridancollege.ca

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

SUNDAY, APRIL 30

THE FOLD KICK-OFF

11:00am - 12:00pm ET

Celebrate the launch of a brand new season with this annual opening event. Find out about this year’s new schedule and new virtual features like this year’s Roundtable and After-Party options on the virtual platform. There’s more fun than ever this year when you join in live, including insights on our daily trivias. And it wouldn’t be a kickoff without some trivia and prizes.

WHERE WE GO FROM HERE

12:00pm - 1:00pm ET

In this opening panel discussion, authors of two powerful social justice memoirs explore critical questions of care and community. Responding to some of the crises of recent years, they delve into their work as writers and activists—exploring the origins of their most recent work and the community efforts that continue to shape their lives and their stories. With El Jones, Robyn Maynard, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

THE SH*T NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT WRITING

2:00pm - 3:00pm ET

Bianca Marais , CeCe Lyra and Carly Watters , the co-hosts of the popular podcast The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, along with two special FOLD guest hosts— Léonicka Valcius and Kelvin Kong —recreate “Books With Hooks” one of the most talked-about elements of their hit podcast for emerging writers looking to get published.

THE WRITER’S HUB

3:00pm - 5:00pm ET

Get connected with publishers and writing professionals. Drop in to important conversations about securing an agent, enrolling in writing programs, and submitting your writing.

SENSITIVITY READS AND CONSCIOUS EDITING

5:00pm - 6:00pm ET

In addressing important subject matter, writers are seeking out sensitivity readers—people with the relevant lived experience—to navigate complex subject matter thoughtfully and accurately. Join Ronan Sadler, Fazeela Jiwa and Ameema Saeed in conversation with Ardo Omer as they discuss the complicated work of balancing sensitivity reads with the practice of conscious editing.

CANADA READS REUNION

Trivia Event 7:00pm - 7:30pm ET

PANEL 7:30pm - 8:30pm ET

Finalists from Canada Reads discuss the process of being selected for the show and the process of navigating the debates. In conversation with Executive Director and Canada Reads superfan Jael Richardson , this is a panel you definitely do not want to miss. With Dimitri Nasrallah , Kate Beaton , Silvia Moreno-Garcia , and Michael Christie

MONDAY, MAY 1

THE TRUTH ABOUT TRENDS IN PUBLISHING

12:00pm - 1:00pm ET

Over the past few years, paper shortages, virtual launches and events, political upheaval and a global pandemic have all contributed to shifts and changes in the publishing industry. But how do these trends impact marginalized authors and industry professionals? In this event, three industry professionals break down what happened, what is happening and the future implications for those in publishing. With Casey Plett , Fazeela Jiwa , and Hana El Niwairi

WORKSHOP: ACQUISITIONS AND EDITING

2:00pm - 3:00pm ET

Acquiring a writer is more than just finding the next big thing; it’s offering a platform to amplify certain voices. How can we approach acquisitions and developmental editing as a creative, collaborative process that builds community and supports liberation struggles? Join Fazeela Jiwa to explore a radical vision of the role of acquisitions and development editing.

WORKSHOP: WRITING 101

4:00pm - 5:00pm ET

In this workshop designed for writers curious about the publishing process, Jesmeen Kaur Deo will provide insight on her personal publishing experience as a debut author moving from query to print.

CRAFTY HEROES AND CURIOUS VILLAINS

Trivia Event 7:00pm - 7:30pm ET

PANEL 7:30pm - 8:30pm ET

Three crime fiction writers discuss the creation of incredible characters. Join Sandra SG Wong , R. Barri Flowers and Wayne Arthurson as they discuss craft secrets on the making of incredible heroes and impeccable villains.

TUESDAY, MAY 2

THE WRITER’S LIFE

10:00am – 11:00am ET

In this Writer’s Life series event Syrian-Canadian author Zoulfa Katouh discusses her writing process and routine as Kids Coordinator Ardo Omer digs into the journey of writing her debut best-selling young adult novel, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow

TELLING TRUTHS

12:30pm - 1:30pm ET

Writing nonfiction can be tricky, especially for emerging writers. In this panel for young people, three memoir writers discuss how they turned their real life stories into a memoir. How do you share those difficult moments? How do you write truthfully without betraying friends and family? With Cody Caetano, Lindsay Ruck , and Jen Sookfong Lee

DISABLED FUTURES

2:00pm - 3:00pm ET

Disability offers society both challenges as well as the unique opportunity to re-imagine the world in which we live. How can we use the insights of disability justice to imagine a radically different future? Join three brilliant writers in conversation with moderator Amanda Leduc as they discuss their own journeys with disability and offer ways of seeing— across various genres—that promise to change the way you view the world. With Nisi Shawl , Susan Mockler, and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch

SUBMISSIONS AND SELECTIONS

4:00pm - 5:00pm ET

In this workshop-panel mashup, three publishing professionals dive into the difficult work of selecting work for a collective publication while tackling important tips and tricks that all writers should know when it comes to making submissions. With Kerry C. Byrne , Therese Estacion , and Anita Chong .

QUEER JOY

Trivia Event 7:00pm - 7:30pm ET

PANEL 7:30pm - 8:30pm ET

In this panel, three authors discuss their writing and their perspective on queer joy as it relates to their own writing, and in literature as a whole. What books have inspired their writing and their boy? What might it look like for LGBTQ2SIA+ writers to feel queer joy in all aspects of the process—from creation to promotion? With Markus Harwood-Jones , Danny Ramadan , and Tanya Turton

WEDNESDAY, MAY 3

WORKSHOP: WRITING COMPELLING CHARACTERS

10:00am - 11:00am ET

Great characters are a critical part of great stories. In this workshop for young people, young adult author Daniel Aleman explores tips and techniques for creating incredible characters.

COMPLICATED FAMILIES

12:30pm - 1:30pm ET

Families are messy—which makes them perfect subject matter for great stories and story-telling. In this panel discussion designed for school groups and readers and writers of young adult fiction, three authors discuss the family dynamics in their most recent novels and the process for creating and cultivating believable relatives and relationships. With Talia Hibbert , Jen Ferguson , and Daniel Aleman .

LIFE AS AN EMERGING WRITER

2:00pm - 3:00pm ET

Three emerging writers from Audible’s Indigenous Writers Circle discuss their plans and pursuits in a discussion about the real life challenges of navigating the publsihing industry as an emerging writer.

WORKSHOP: WRITING YOUR STORY

4:00pm - 5:00pm ET

There are so many choices to navigate when you set out to write a memoir. Where do you begin your research? Whose stories do you tell? Whose memories can you trust? In this virtual workshop, memoirist Susan Mockler provides helpful and practical advice on shaping memories into strong memoirs.

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT

Trivia Event 7:00pm - 7:30pm ET

PANEL 7:30pm - 8:30pm ET

Three writers dig into the process of writing romance— discussing the tropes, the drama, and the happily ever afters. They’ll discuss what drew them to the hot and steamy genre and what keeps them going as they share the ups and downs of their most recent work and the perks and challenges of navigating a romance writing career. With Gia de Cadenet , Markus Harwood-Jones , and Roselle Lim .

THURSDAY, MAY 4

GREAT ESCAPES AND EXPECTATIONS

10:00am - 11:00am ET

Being a teen can be tough. From managing the weight of expectations to dealing with big topics and world issues, it can feel like life is too big and too much to handle. In this panel designed just for students, four young adult authors discusses the ways reading and writing can be a tool for escape and entertainment, as well as a powerful tool to tackle everyday issues . With Kevin heronJones , Jesmeen Kaur Deo, and Liselle Sambury.

THE SPOKEN WORD SHOWCASE

12:30pm - 1:30pm ET

In our annual teen spoken word showcase, three poets take the mic and present incredible poetry. Hosted by poetry curator The Wild Woman, this event is geared towards high school students

With Britta B., Gavin Russell and Tahira Rajwani

DINE + DRAW: DUMPLING EDITION

7:30pm - 9:00pm ET

Create art inspired by delicious food as Brampton-based illustrator Meegan Lim walks participants through her “exploding recipe” process. Dine on dumplings and learn about Meegan’s role in illustrating the anthology What We Talk About When We Talk About Dumplings in this new FOLD in-person evening event in partnership with the Brampton Arts Organization. Open to all skill levels. Limited space. Be sure to get your tickets by April 30.

FRIDAY, MAY 5

THE GREAT READCEPTION

7:30pm - 9:30pm ET

In this in-person evening event, a unique sampling of festival authors read from their works accompanied by music composed and performed by Brampton musician Carmen Spada and a live jazz band. Whether you’re a regular FOLD attendee, a big reader or a lover of live entertainment, this not-to-be-missed signature event is designed to celebrate the power of storytelling and the magic of live musical performance.

SATURDAY, MAY 6

MICROWORKSHOP: PUBLISHING 10:00am - 10:30am ET

HOW WE DID IT

11:00am - 12:00pm ET

Three authors whose works cross a range of forms and styles discuss the process of writing, publishing, and the things they’ve learned about themselves along the way. With Casey Plett , Britta B., and Dan K. Woo

MICROWORKSHOP: SONGWRITING 12:30pm - 1:00pm ET

MEMORABLE MEMOIRS

1:30pm - 2:30pm ET

Three incredible memoirists take to the stage at Brampton’s impressive Rose Theatre to discuss their most recent memoirs. With Elamin Abdelmahmoud , Jen Sookfong Lee , and Alessandra Naccarato.

MICROWORKSHOP: MEMOIR 3:00am - 3:30pm ET

BOOKS WITH BUZZ

4:00pm - 5:00pm ET

Four authors of some of the year’s buzziest books discuss the highs and lows of the season—how their buzzy books made for a busy year, and how they’re coping with the ups and downs that come with publishing. With Cherie Dimaline , Suzette Mayr, Ali Hassan , and Catherine Hernandez

SPOKEN WORD SHOWCASE

7:30pm - 9:00pm ET

Spoken word host, The Wild Woman returns to the Rose Studio to host an incredibly curated event of spoken word performers. With Shelly Grace , Shahaddah Jack , Alessandra Naccarato, and Gavin Russell .

SUNDAY, MAY 7

HISTORICAL FICTION HIGH TEA

12:00pm - 1:30pm ET

The annual Sunday brunch is back! Don your Sunday best, assemble your fascinator, grab your friends, and join us for a delightful high tea with three incredible historical fiction writers. This history-making special-tea event includes fun trivia with incredible prizes. Limited availability. Be sure to reserve tickets by Sunday, April 30. With Suzette Mayr, Janika Oza , and Sheila Murray

FILM SCREENING: SCARBOROUGH

2:00pm - 5:00pm ET

Join us for a screening of SCARBOROUGH, the film adaptation of the award-winning novel by Catherine Hernandez . Over the course of a school year, 3 kids in a low-income neighbourhood find community and friendship at a drop-in reading program. This event is being offered in partnership with the Toronto International Film Festival and is included in the cost of an in-person pass. Tickets are also available for $10 at the door.

This session is put on in partnership with TIFF’s Film Circuit programme.

The FOLD Challenge

12 Great Ways to Diversify Your Reading

A debut title by a Muslim author

Mystery or crime fiction by an Asian Canadian author

Speculative fiction by a Black Canadian author

A fiction or non-fiction book about an immigration journey

A book of poetry from a small press

A book that celebrates queer joy by a BIPOC author

A book by a Black author from the East Coast

A book that explores the justice system written by an author with lived experience

An audiobook by an Indigenous author

A title featuring magic by a Latine/Latinx author

An epistolary title by an author from a marginalized community

A book by an author who identifies as Mad or who writes about mental health

For monthly reading suggestions visit thefoldcanada.org/ readingchallenge2023

10am

VIRTUAL EVENT DAYS

SUNDAY, APRIL 30 MONDAY, MAY 1 TUESDAY, MAY 2 WEDNESDAY, MAY 3

THE WRITER’S LIFE with Zoulfa Katouh WORKSHOP: COMPELLING CHARACTERS w. Daniel Aleman

11am THE FOLD KICK-OFF

12pm

WHERE WE GO FROM HERE

WORKSHOP: ACQUISITIONS & EDITING 3

pm

DROP-IN

DISABLED FUTURES LIFE AS AN EMERGING WRITER

IN-PERSON EVENT DAYS (BRAMPTON, ON)

THURSDAY, MAY 4

GREAT ESCAPES & EXPECTATIONS**

FRIDAY, MAY 5

SATURDAY, MAY 6

MICROWORKSHOP: PUBLISHING

HOW WE DID IT**

SUNDAY, MAY 7

HISTORICAL FICTION HIGH TEA

SESSIONS ARE CLOSED CAPTIONED*

* Writer’s Hub, Dine+Draw, Historical High Tea, and Microworkshops are NOT closed-captioned.

THE SPOKEN WORD SHOWCASE**

MICROWORKSHOP: SONGWRITING MEMORABLE MEMOIRS**

MICROWORKSHOP: MEMOIR

BOOKS WITH BUZZ**

FILM SCREENING: SCARBOROUGH

VIRTUAL IN-PERSON HYBRID SCHOOL GROUP ASL

All events from SUNDAY, APRIL 30 to WEDNESDAY, MAY 3 are virtual. All events from THURSDAY, MAY 4 to SUNDAY, MAY 7 are in-person, or hybrid**.

DINE + DRAW: DUMPLING EDITION THE GREAT READCEPTION** SPOKEN WORD SHOWCASE**

Elamin Abdelmahmoud

SON OF ELSEWHERE

9780771002229.00

Penguin Random House

BOOK LIST

Gia de Cadenet NOT THE PLAN

9780593356647.00

Penguin Random House

Ali Hassan IS THERE BACON IN HEAVEN?

9781982149178.00

Simon & Schuster

Daniel Aleman BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN

9780316704472.00

Hachette Book Group CA

Cherie Dimaline VENCO

9780735277212.00

Penguin Random House

Catherine Hernandez THE STORY OF US

9781443459754.00

HarperCollins Canada

Wayne Arthurson

DISHONOUR IN CAMP 133

9780888016218.00

Turnstone Press

Britta Badour WIRES THAT SPUTTER

9780771004544.00

Penguin Random House

FUNERAL SONGS FOR DYING GIRLS

9780735265639.00

Penguin Random House

Phantompains Therese Estacion PHANTOMPAINS

9781771666862.00

Book*hug Press

Kate Beaton

DU CKS:

Two Years In The Oil Sands

9781770462892.00

Drawn & Quarterly

Leanne Betasamosake

Simpson

REHEARSALS FOR LIVING

9781039000650.00

Penguin Random House

Cody Caetano

HALF BADS IN WHITE REGALIA

9780735240858.00

Penguin Random House

Michael Christie

GREENWOOD

9780771024481.00

Penguin Random House

Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch KNOT BODY

978-1-988355-21-4

Metatron Press

Jen Ferguson

THE SUMMER OF BITTER AND SWEET

9780063086166.00

HarperCollins

R. Barri Flowers DANGER ON MAUI

9781335582492.00

Harlequin

Markus Harwood-Jones IN A HEARTBEAT

9781459416277.00

James Lorimer & Company

Kevin heronJones

NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU

978-1-4594-1707-6

Lerner Books

Talia Hibbert

HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS AND UNFAIRLY CUTE

9780593482339.00

Penguin Random House

El Jones

ABOLITIONIST INTIMACIES

9781773635521.00

Fernwood Publishing

Zoulfa Katouh AS LONG AS THE LEMON TREES GROW

9780316351379.00

Hachette Book Group Canada

Jesmeen Kaur Deo

T.J. POWAR HAS SOMETHING TO PROVE

9780593403396.00

Penguin Random House

Jen Sookfong Lee

SUPERFAN: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart

9780771025211.00

Penguin Random House

Meegan Lim

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT DUMPLINGS

9781552454527.00 House Books

Roselle Lim

SOPHIE GO’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB

9780593335611.00

Random House

Robyn Maynard

REHEARSALS FOR LIVING

9781039000650.00

Penguin Random House

Alessandra Naccarato

IMMINENT DOMAINS: Reckoning with the Anthropocene

9781771667753.00

Book*hug Press

Dimitri Nasrallah HOTLINE

9781550655940.00

Vehicule Press

Janika Oza A HISTORY OF BURNING

9780771002311.00

Penguin Random House

Tanya Turton

JADE IS A TWISTED GREEN

9781459748606.00

Dundurn Press

Anuja Varghese CHRYSALIS

9781487011666.00

House of Anansi

Sandra S.G. Wong IN THE DARK WE FORGET

9781443465564.00

HarperCollins Canada

Suzette Mayr

THE SLEEPING CAR PORTER

9781552454589.00

Coach House Books

Casey Plett

A SAFE GIRL TO LOVE

9781551529134.00

Arsenal Pulp Press

Susan Mockler

FRACTURED: A Memoir

9781772602708.00

Second Story Press

Danny Ramadan

THE FOGHORN ECHOES

9780735242180.00

Penguin Random House

Dan K. Woo

TAOBAO: Stories

978-1-989496-51-0

Wolsak & Wynn

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

THE DAUGHTER OF DOCTOR MOREAU

9780593355350.00

Penguin Random House

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

MEXICAN GOTHIC

9780525620808.00

Penguin Random House

Lindsay Ruck AMAZING BLACK

ATLANTIC CANADIANS: Inspiring Stories of Courage and Achievement

9781771089173.00

Nimbus Publishing

Liselle Sambury

DELICIOUS MONSTERS

9781665903493.00

Simon & Schuster

Sheila Murray

FINDING EDWARD

9781770866263.00

Cormorant Books

Nisi Shawl

EVERFAIR

9781466837843.00

Tor

Simon & Schuster Canada

welcomes our authors to THE FOLD 2023

Teen Writer in Residence

LISELLE SAMBURY

ALI HASSAN

SimonSchusterCA

ontariocreates.ca

BOOKMARK ONTARIO FOR DIVERSE READS

Ontario Creates proudly supports the The Festival of Literary Diversity and Ontario’s book publishing industry.

© King’s printer for Ontario

PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE CANADA PROUD SPONSOR OF THE FESTIVAL OF LITERARY DIVERSITY

WELCOMES OUR AUTHORS

ELAMIN ABDELMAHMOUD

CHERIE DIMALINE

CODY CAETANO

JESMEEN KAUR DEO

BRITTA BADOUR

TALIA HIBBERT

MICHAEL CHRISTIE

GIA DE CADENET

ROSELLE LIM

SILVIA MORENO GARCIA

DANNY RAMADAN

JANIKA OZA

JEN SOOKFONG LEE

VIRTUAL & IN-PERSON EVENTS, SCHOOL GROUP OPPORTUNITIES AND MORE!