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General Backgrounder

Backgrounder

General Information about the Vancouver International Writers Festival

  • Annual event takes place for six days each October, beginning a week after Canadian Thanksgiving
  • Held on Granville Island in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, which has at least six different venues in which events take place
  • Usually between 65 – 70 events—readings, panel discussions, performances, interviews—which feature one or several writers whose books have been published in either English or French
  • Events feature fiction, non-fiction, poetry, spoken word, musical accompaniment, film and more
  • Writers attend by invitation from the Festival’s Artistic Director, Hal Wake
  • Usually about 100 international and Canadian writers are featured
  • Six-day Festival attracts more than 14,000 people
  • Festival features more than 30 events specifically aimed at school-aged students from kindergarten to Grade 12, held during the first days of the Festival. The Schools Program, Spreading the Word, is the largest children’s literary event in Canada.
  • Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival began in 1988 as the idea of founding artistic director Alma Lee, who has been awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Simon Fraser University and made a Member of the Order of Canada for her work
  • The Festival depends for funding on a combination of public sector funding, ticket sales, advertising revenue, corporate support and individual donations
  • More than 280 volunteers are actively involved, both before and during the Festival
  • Outside of the week in October, the Festival also often hosts events with writers at other times of the year, depending on writers’ availability and publishers’ launch schedules
  • Festival has presented some of the world’s best writers to readers, including Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Maeve Binchy, Peter Carey, Roddy Doyle, Timothy Findley, Tomson Highway, John Irving, P.D. James, Thomas Keneally, Frank McCourt, Ian McEwan, Rohinton Mistry, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, Anita Rau Badami, Peter Robinson, JK Rowling, Salman Rushdie and Carol Shields

For media enquiries about the Festival or to set up interviews with Festival staff or Festival authors, please contact: Judith Walker, Media Relations Manager, 604.921.4029 or email.