5 Not-to-Be-Missed Speakers at The Growing Room Festival 2019
Hannah McGregor, creator of podcasts: Secret Feminist Agenda and Witch Please | Image by Christopher M Turbulence
By Rachel Rosenberg
The Growing Room Festival was founded in 2017 by RoomMagazine and every March since it has brought Canadian authors and artiststogether to converse, educate and collaborate as they discuss feminism in allits intersectional glory. Most panels and readings are pay-what-you-can toensure accessibility, and writing workshops and one-on-one manuscript consultationsare offered.
The festival, running March 8 – 17, has a wonderfullyindie-yet-professional vibe and the panel discussions bring up many complextopics. Here is a small sampling of the incredible artists who will be featuredat this year’s festival:
Ivan Coyote
Long-time Vancouver resident, Coyote, is an author,filmmaker and musician. Well-respected for TomboySurvival Guide, Gender Failureand nine other published works, Coyote tackles important issues such as genderidentity, class, and social justice. A regular performer at folk and spokenword festivals, Coyote should be a lively and insightful part of the Funny Feminists and Transcendent: Writing & Surviving in a CissexistSociety panels.
Eden Robinson
Haisla/Heiltsuk novelist Eden Robinson knows how towrite a fun bio. The sorts of things you can learn from the averageRobinson-penned biography: she jars salmon, gets grumpy when her writing is interrupted,and enjoys shopping for the future apocalypse. The author of Monkey Beach, the Trickster trilogy and more, she is a voice you won’t want to miss.She’ll be part of the Funny Feminists and Dream Me a Dream: Literary Futurismspanels.
Hannah McGregor
Hannah McGregor is the creator of two very excellentpodcasts: Secret Feminist Agenda and Witch Please (afeminist Harry Potter podcast!). She has the wit and creativity benefiting of afeminist pop culture guru and will be featured in Behind Every Microphone, There Is a Great Woman:Podcasting and Feminism.
Leah LakshmiPiepzna-Samarasinha
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is an author, activist,performance artist and educator. Featured in numerous publications andanthologies, her books include Care Work:Dreaming Disability Justice, DirtyRiver, Bodymap, Love Cake, and Consensual Genocide along with two more to be published this year.She is an artist with Sins Invalid, a collective that createsperformance projects on disability and sexuality. That isn’t even half of whatshe’s accomplished in her incredible career, so if you want to learn more I’dsuggest In Conversation with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha,or the panel Whatever Gets You Through.
Canisia Lubrin
Canisia Lubrin is the keynote speaker of the festival thisyear. Voodoo Hypothesis made many “bestof” lists in 2017, and her writing has appeared in The Puritan, The Rusty Toque,Arc Poetry Magazine, Globe & Mail, The Capilano Review, and more. She is a community advocate thatworks to bring more arts into education, currently bringing poetry into schoolsin the Greater Toronto Area through a Poets Network program. Lubrin will bemoderating The Might of the Pen: Writing as a Political Act.
The Growing Room Festival is March 8 – 17, 2019. For more information and tickets, visit festival.roommagazine.com
Rachel Rosenberg is a writer and library technician who is a proudmember of the LGBTQ2+ community. She writes for Book Riot and can befound on Instagram @penandmitten
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