43 Truth and Storytelling

Barry Callaghan Ontario	Alexandra Fuller United States / Africa	Gary Geddes British Columbia
Andrew Westoll Ontario

Barry Callaghan, Ontario

Barry Callaghan founded the internationally celebrated Exile: The Literary Quarterly while he was a war correspondent in the Middle East and Africa in the 1970s. He is a novelist, poet and essayist whose work has been much anthologized. His numerous awards include Toronto’s One Hundred Outstanding Citizens Award, the inaugural W. O. Mitchell Award for Fiction and Editorial Monitoring and the Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Letters and Periodical Distributors of Canada Gold Award for Fiction. Read more

Alexandra Fuller, United States / Africa

Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969 and moved to Africa with her family in 1971. She has written four books of non-fiction: Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood, one of the New York Times’ Notable Books for 2002 and the winner of the 2002 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize; Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier; The Legend of Colton H Bryant; and her latest, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness. She now lives in Wyoming. Read more

Gary Geddes, British Columbia

Gary Geddes has written and edited more than 40 books and has received numerous literary awards, including the British Columbia Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence and Chile’s Gabriela Mistral Prize. He is the author of two bestselling travel memoirs, The Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things and Sailing Home. He lives on Thetis Island in British Columbia. His new book, Drink the Bitter Root, is a condemnation of the horrors spawned by greed and corruption and an eloquent tribute to human resilience. Read more

Andrew Westoll, Ontario

Andrew Westoll is an award-winning narrative journalist and internationally published author. His first book, The Riverbones, is a passionate, stunningly written travel-memoir and eco-narrative that describes his five-month odyssey-of-return through the untouched rainforests of Suriname, where he once lived as a monkey researcher. An excerpt won gold at the 2007 National Magazine Awards. His latest, The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary, grapples with questions of what we owe to the animals who are our nearest genetic relations. Read more

Friday, October 21, 2011 - 1:00pm - 2:30pm
Granville Island Stage
$17 / $8.50 for student groups

In a discussion led by seasoned writer Barry Callaghan, four authors talk together this morning about writing non-fiction that has personal significance—and personal repercussions . All of these writers have been touched and changed by what they have experienced, whether the story revolves unavoidably around their own family or the story has been sought out. From growing up in Africa to living side by side with chimpanzees, from personal essays and encounters with significant writers and musicians to personal travels that result in politicization, these writers have stories to tell—and to tell well. Sometimes the truth needs no embellishment to be a great story.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased at the door 45 minutes before the event begins.

43 Truth and Storytelling

2011 Festival