Wakefield Writers Festival to explore how stories shape identity, memory and change 

Tashi Farmilo

The Wakefield Writers Festival returns for its 12th edition from October 14 to 18 at Centre Wakefield La Pêche and Motel Chelsea. Four ticketed conversations will bring two Giller Prize winners, a Giller nominee, a Hugo Award winner and two Quebec creators to the stage under the title Voices That Shape Us: Stories of Discovery and Becoming (Les voix qui nous façonnent : récits de découvertes et de transformations). Organizers say it celebrates books that challenge assumptions, draw laughter and sometimes change how readers see themselves.

The festival opens on October 14 at 7 pm with Métis novelist Tara Gereaux and Cree poet and broadcaster Rosanna Deerchild, guided by journalist Karyn Pugliese. Gereaux's Wild People Quiet, set in 1940s Saskatchewan, follows a Métis woman who hides her identity in a largely white town. It is on this year's Giller Prize longlist, with the shortlist due October 5 and the winner to be named November 16. Deerchild, who hosts CBC Radio One's Unreserved, brings She Falls Again, which organizers say won the 2025 Indigenous Voices Award. Pugliese, a citizen of the Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn First Nation, has held senior editorial posts at APTN, CBC and Canada's National Observer and now covers Parliament.

The program turns to Quebec on October 16 at 7 pm at the same venue, with novelist, poet and slam artist David Goudreault and comic book author Christian Quesnel. Goudreault, the first Quebecer to win the World Poetry Cup in Paris, in 2011, published his sixth novel, Traumathys, in August. By his own account, it is his "most political and most intimate work to date." Quesnel, a three-time winner of the CALQ Award for Work of the Year in the Outaouais, will discuss Transmission: Les héritages de la Baie-James, created with journalist Annie Desrochers. The book sets an intimate family history against the political, territorial and human upheaval that followed development of the James Bay region. Julie Huard, a poet, photographer and broadcaster who has served as writer in residence at the Gatineau Library from the fall of 2019, will host.

Giller Prize winners Ian Williams and Souvankham Thammavongsa take the stage October 17, also at 7 pm. Williams, whose debut novel Reproduction won the prize in 2019, will discuss You've Changed, a 2025 novel about a marriage in which both partners are changing in ways that baffle the other. It was longlisted for last year's Giller. Thammavongsa won the 2025 prize for Pick a Colour, a novel set over a single day in a nail salon that probes immigrant experience, class and the quiet power dynamics of daily life. She first took the prize in 2020 for the story collection How to Pronounce Knife. Moderating is Omar Dabaghi-Pacheco, anchor of CBC Ottawa News at 6. According to the festival's biography, he divides his time between Ottawa and the Edelweiss Valley, a sector of La Pêche, the same municipality that hosts the festival.

The festival closes on October 18 at 2 pm at Motel Chelsea, 1418 Route 105, with a conversation on myth, music and the fantastic. Amal El-Mohtar, who won this year's Hugo Award for Best Novella for The River Has Roots, joins Charles de Lint, a pioneer of contemporary urban fantasy, who will share from his newest book, Dog Sisters. Both live in Ottawa, and El-Mohtar holds a master's degree from the University of Ottawa, where she taught for several years and launched the creative writing program. Kate Heartfield, whose latest novel is Mercutio, will lead the discussion.

Music runs throughout. Greg Stone, an Australian songwriter and educator who has lived in Wakefield since 2009, performs alongside Rod Fotheringham. Stone also runs Mash Musique, a music school in Sainte-Cécile-de-Masham.

Perfect Books Ottawa and Bouquinart Librairie & Galerie d'art will sell the authors' books on site, and writers will be on hand to sign copies. Tickets and full program details: www.writersfete.com