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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260421
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260427
DTSTAMP:20260409T091528
CREATED:20260408T190933Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260408T191005Z
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SUMMARY:2026 Imagination Writers' Festival
DESCRIPTION:What’s the Imagination Writers’ Festival? \n\nA dynamic and convivial celebration. Pop-up activities\, wine and tea tastings\, workshops\, concerts\, discussions\, and more.\nA cultural meeting space. Meet authors\, translators\, and artists face to face; chat about books\, drinks\, food\, arts\, and more with other Festival attendees; discover new books\, new universes\, new friends.\nAn unforgettable experience. 30+ authors and artists\, 40+ activities at the Morrin Centre and in nearby schools and partner organizations.\n\nThe Imagination Writers’ Festival aims to promote Canadian literature in its many forms\, showcase the diverse literary landscape of our country\, and be a marker of the vitality of our culture. To that effect\, this year\, we are embracing the theme of connections! The Festival team is delighted to present a series of events and activities held in partnership with cultural and literary organizations\, or inspired by (and put together with advice from) other literary festivals. \nAmong these activities are: \n\nLanguages Intertwined discussion\, in collaboration with the Kwahiatonhk! Festival\nSilent Writing activity\, inspired by the GritLit Festival\nPop-Up-Cartoonist activity\, in collaboration with QuébecBD\nLiterary Translation panel\, in collaboration with the Maison de la littérature\nPop-Up-Poet activity\, inspired by and with advice from the Whistler Writers Festival (and poet Bronwyn Preece) and the Vancouver Writers’ Fest (and poet Elliott Slinn)
URL:https://qwf.org/event/2026-imagination-writers-festival/
LOCATION:Morrin Centre\, 44 Chaussée des Écossais\, Quebec City\, Quebec\, G1R 4H3\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Festival
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260423
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260427
DTSTAMP:20260409T091528
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LAST-MODIFIED:20260408T190943Z
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SUMMARY:2026 Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival
DESCRIPTION:150 AUTHORS AND CULTURAL MEDIATORS\, 110 EVENTS\, 9 DIFFERENT LANGUAGES\nThe 28th edition of the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival will revolve around the theme: “Words for Understanding One Another”. \nAs in past years\, the Festival will be full of interviews\, discussions\, lectures\, debates\, masterclasses and more to delight our audiences. Discover all the festival has to offer below. \nThe Blue Metropolis Literary Festival is also a Youth Festival which takes place in April until early May. Across many libraries\, schools and institutions in Montreal\, there will be meet and greets\, animated workshops and many more events with various children’s authors. Our new Draw Me A Sun exposition will also be on display in 4 libraries across Montreal. Learn more about what we have to offer for the youth by clicking the orange button below. \nBlue Metropolis favours a diversity of viewpoints and freedom of expression. The opinions expressed by Festival participants are theirs alone. \nLearn more on the Blue Metropolis website.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/blue-metropolis-international-literary-festival-3/
LOCATION:Hotel 10\, 10 Sherbrooke Street West\, Montreal\, Quebec\, H2X 4C9\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Festival
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260425T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260425T170000
DTSTAMP:20260409T091528
CREATED:20260402T204205Z
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SUMMARY:Belonging: Who Really Belongs in Quebec?
DESCRIPTION:This event is held in partnership between the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival and the Quebec Writers’ Federation. \nIn keeping with the theme of this edition of the Festival\, ‘Words to Understand Each Other\,’ two gripping and passionate discussions about Québécois identity and who can claim it. Two consecutive and uninterrupted discussions in English and French. \nFirst discussion: What does it mean to be a Québécois? Is being born here enough? Whatever success you may have here\, however many generations you are removed from those who arrived here\, are you ever fully accepted as l’un des nôtres? Last year\, author Kim Thúy suffered dramatic backlash after speaking out about the injustice she has witnessed—and experienced—in spite of being widely lauded as an iconic author in francophone Quebec. Award-winning journalist Toula Drimonis has written movingly about the challenges for immigrants and their descendants in Quebec\, both in her column in The Gazette and in her 2023 book We\, the Others (Nous\, les autres\, translated to French by Mellisa Verreault). Be a fly on the wall as they share their ideas about where Quebec is on this issue\, and where it might be going. \nSecond discussion: Immigrants or those who are considered “outsiders” have had to face the different challenges of trying to make Quebec their home. Over time\, they have begun to experience a strong sense of belonging and become fully integrated into their adoptive chez nous. They have subsequently seen changes in Quebec that have made them question that sense of belonging. Writer and director Guy Rex Rodgers transformed Quebec’s linguistic landscape with his book\, What We Choose to Forget\, an account of a three-year tour of his film What We Choose to Remember. Journalist Francine Pelletier has reflected on the question of who Québécois in her book Dream Interrupted: The Rise and Fall of Quebec Nationalism. \nDiscussions in English and French. \nParticipants: Discussion 1: Kim Thúy\, Toula Drimonis; Discussion 2: Guy Rex Rodgers\, Francine Pelletier \nModerator: Anne Lagacé Dowson \nThe Participants\nPhoto by John Kenney\nToula Drimonis is a Montreal-based journalist\, opinion columnist\, and writer. A former news director for TC Media\, her byline appears in national and international publications\, with a focus on politics\, social justice\, immigration\, and women’s issues. She currently writes a weekly column for the Montreal Gazette and Cult MTL\, and a monthly for The Walrus. She’s worked in television\, radio\, and print in English\, French and Greek. She was on the advisory board for Use the Right Words\, a national media guide on how to report on sexual violence. In 2022 she published her first book\, We\, the Others: Allophones\, Immigrants\, and Belonging in Canada. Her second book\, Seeking Asylum: Building a Shareable World was published in 2024. \n\n \nKim Thúy a quitté le Vietnam avec les boat people à l’âge de dix ans et s’est installée avec sa famille au Québec. Diplômée en traduction et en droit\, l’écrivaine a travaillé comme couturière\, interprète\, avocate et propriétaire de restaurant. Kim Thúy a reçu plusieurs prix\, dont le Prix littéraire du Gouverneur général 2010\, et a été l’une des quatre finalistes du Nobel Alternatif en 2018. Ses livres\, dont les ventes montent à plus de un million de copies partout dans le monde\, sont traduits en 31 langues et 43 pays et territoires. Kim Thúy vit à Montréal et se consacre à l’écriture. \n\nAnne Lagacé Dowson is a bilingual Montrealer by choice\, born in Toronto with a Québécoise mother and an Ontarian dad. A long-time aficionado of the arts\, libraries and everything connected to them\, she is an avid reader with an MA in Social and Women’s History. Anne was a reporter\, editor\, researcher\, host and commentator at CBC\, BellMedia and Radio-Canada for over 25 years\, prioritising authors\, libraries\, education\, public interest issues\, and literacy in her on-air work. She is very proud of her two daughters\, who are bilingual products of Québec’s public school system. \n\nFrancine Pelletier is a journalist based in Montreal\, Quebec\, Canada and former co-host of CBC’s Fifth Estate (1995-2000). She is the co-founder of a feminist magazine\, La Vie en Rose\, and has written for La Presse\, Le Devoir\, and the Montreal Gazette. \n\nPhoto by Pantea Pezeshkan\nGuy Rex Rodgers arrived in Quebec as a young adult to study at the National Theatre School. He has been a writer\, columnist\, interviewer\, translator\, filmmaker and community activist: founder of the English Language Arts Network (ELAN). In 2015\, he was appointed a companion in l’Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec. In 2020\, Rodgers began filming a series of eight documentaries about waves of immigration\, and how immigrants successfully adapted to Quebec since it adopted the first language laws half a century earlier. His three-year tour of Quebec with We Choose To Remember\, as the government imposed harsh new language laws\, is the story of What We Choose To Forget. \n\nGet tickets
URL:https://qwf.org/event/belonging-who-really-belongs-in-quebec/
LOCATION:Hotel 10 – Salle Saint-Laurent\, 10 Sherbrooke Street West\, Montreal\, Quebec\, H2X 4C9\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Festival,QWF Events,Writers Out Loud
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260425T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260425T210000
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SUMMARY:Imagination Writers' Festival: Valentine in Montreal with Heather O'Neill and Arizona O'Neill
DESCRIPTION:Meet Heather O’Neill and Arizona O’Neill\, the writer and illustrator of the novel Valentine in Montreal\, during this live interview followed by a Q&A! \nHost: Julia Caron\, CBC journalist \nThis activity is presented with the collaboration of the Writers Out Loud program of the Quebec Writers’ Federation\, and CBC Radio. \n\n\nArizona O’Neill\nArizona O’Neill is a Montreal author and illustrator. She is the illustrator of Nelly Arcan’s L’enfant dans le miroir and Heather O’Neill’s Valentine in Montreal. Her comics have appeared in Hazlitt\, Exclaim!\, Canadian Geographic\, and The Montreal Gazette. She has created animated videos for many outlets\, including CBC. A regular contributor to Radio-Canada’s Il restera toujours la culture\, she is one half of the Bookstagram page @ONeillReads. Her graphic novel Opioids and Organs is coming out in May 2026 with Drawn & Quarterly. \n\n\n\n\nHeather O’Neill\nHeather O’Neill is a novelist\, short-story writer\, and essayist. Her most recent novel is The Capital of Dreams. Her previous works include When We Lost Our Heads\, which was a #1 national bestseller and a finalist for the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal; The Lonely Hearts Hotel\, which won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and CBC’s Canada Reads; and Lullabies for Little Criminals\, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night\, and Daydreams of Angels\, which were shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction\, the Orange Prize for Fiction\, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize two years in a row. O’Neill has also won CBC’s Canada Reads and the Danuta Gleed Award. Born and raised in Montreal\, she still lives there today. \n\nGet tickets
URL:https://qwf.org/event/imagination-writers-festival-valentine-in-montreal-with-heather-oneill-and-arizona-oneill/
LOCATION:Morrin Centre\, 44 Chaussée des Écossais\, Quebec City\, Quebec\, G1R 4H3\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Festival,Writers Out Loud
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