Afterwords Literary Festival: What We Learn From Each Other

The AfterWords Literary Festival was co-founded by Ryan Turner and Stephanie Domet, and in the fall of 2019, AfterWords held its inaugural edition.  In 2020, due to Covid-19, the festival will host live events online between September 30th and October 4th. AfterWords is primarily interested in presenting (and being in the audience for) conversations among writers about the ideas that push them forward, the experiences that formed them into writers, and what writing can tell us about how to be human. Our mission is to give those writers who choose to join us the very best experience that Halifax has to offer.

We will offer live captioning upon request to all of our online events. 

We celebrate our festival on the unceded and traditional homeland of the Mi’kmaq People. We do land acknowledgements as a part of the reconciliation process. In order for this festival to exist, for Canadians to enjoy the lives that they have, Indigenous people were removed, displaced, and killed. This truth is an uncomfortable one, but one that is necessary to face if we, as fellow Canadians, are to understand our whole history. We honour the Mi’kmaq, whose stories have been shaped by Mi’kma’ki.

Cicely Belle Blains’s debut collection of poems, Burning Sugar, is the second book to be published under Vivek Shraya’s VS imprint. VS features work by new and emerging indigneous or Black writers, or writers of colour. Vivek and Cicely Belle join Stephanie Domet in conversation about mentorship, writing, representation, and community.

​This event is presented with support from Dalhousie University.

Suggested donation of $5.00.

8:30-9:45 pm AST on Friday, October 2nd.

Tickets available August 10th.