The Shape of You: A Hermit Crab Writing Workshop
Want to work on your personal story with an accomplished novelist? Join us on Wednesday, August 14 at 6:30 p.m. for a “hermit crab” style mental health writing workshop with the wonderful Leanne Toshiko Simpson. Hermit crab essays have emerged as exciting and generative containers for personal storytelling over the past two decades. As their popularity ...read more
Wednesday, Aug 14 Upstart & Crow Studio
Join us on Tuesday, Aug. 13 at 7 p.m. for the Vancouver launch of The Outlier, an audaciously twisty psychological thriller by award-winning writer Elisabeth Eaves published by Random House. Eaves will be in conversation with journalist Peg Fong. Cate Winter is a wildly successful neuroscientist and entrepreneur who has invented a cure for Alzheimer’s that ...read more
Tuesday, Aug 13 Upstart & Crow Studio
Short Forms Forever! With Jen Currin, Cole Nowicki and Deepa Rajagopalan
Join us on Friday, June 28 at 7 p.m. for an evening with three wonderful authors who are all about the short form, stories and essays! Deepa Rajagopalan, Jen Currin and Cole Nowicki will join Upstart staffer and poet, Franz Seachel, for a conversation about writing snappily, as well as read from their new collections. ...read more
Friday, Jun 28 Upstart & Crow Studio
Join us on Monday, June 24 at 7 p.m. as we welcome the wonderful author and former Canadian Poetry Slam champion, Nisha Patel, for an evening conversation about poetry, process, and writing from the self. Patel’s new work, A Fate Worse than Death, is a stunning poetic investigation of the worthiness of disabled life as ...read more
Monday, Jun 24 Upstart & Crow Studio
Join us on Tuesday, June 18 at 7 p.m. to launch Cicada Summer, the sophomore novel of the brilliant local writer, Erica McKeen. We are so excited to welcome this eerie, elegant novel into the world. In the summer of 2020, with a heat wave bearing down and a brood of periodical cicadas climbing into the ...read more
Tuesday, Jun 18 Upstart & Crow Studio
Join us on Thursday, June 13 at 6 p.m. for the Vancouver launch of Thorn Tree, a beautifully wrought novel by Max Ludington on the aftershocks of the heady but dangerous late 1960s and the relationship between trauma and the creative impulse. Now in his late-sixties, Daniel lives in quiet anonymity in a converted guest cottage in the ...read more
Thursday, Jun 13 Upstart & Crow Studio
Get LIT: An Evening with Jeff Karp
In the age of convenience, information overload, and endless exposure to stimuli, it’s easy to trudge through the motions of life, pressured, distracted and seeking instant gratification. When this way of living becomes the norm, it can immobilize us, making it feel impossible to reclaim control of our lives with intention and enthusiasm. There’s another ...read more
Sunday, Jun 9 Upstart & Crow Studio
Join us on Saturday, May 25 at 6 p.m. for an evening with Monia Mazigh, author of Gendered Islamophobia: My Journey With a Scar(f), a memoir that was shortlisted for the 2023 Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction. The book describes the author’s struggles as a hijab-wearing Muslim woman, who was born and raised in Tunisia, ...read more
Saturday, May 25 Upstart & Crow Studio
Forage Fest! A Book Launch and Tasting Night
Do you love foraging, or are you foraging-curious? Look no further — we have the event for you. Join us on Friday, May 24 at 6 p.m. for Forage Fest! At this event, we’ll celebrate the launch of the new book, Foraging as a Way of Life: A Year Round Field Guide to Wild Plants, by Mikaela ...read more
Friday, May 24 Upstart & Crow Studio
Join us on Thursday, May 23 at 6 p.m. for the first event of the Ukrainian Voices Series — an evening conversation with Maria Reva, author of the novel, Good Citizens Need Not Fear, nominated for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize in 2020. Reva will be in conversation with Alina Senchenko, an artist and curator. Clever ...read more
Thursday, May 23 Upstart & Crow Studio
Midlife No. 2: Vancouver Launch
Join us on Sunday, May 19 at 6 p.m. for readings from Midlife No. 2, the second and final anthology on midlife — in all its glories and woes — by a group of authors who are all 1990s-era alumni from the Gateway student newspaper at the University of Alberta. The book is a “pandemic project of former colleagues ...read more
Sunday, May 19 Upstart & Crow Studio
Sex and Swiping: A Dual Book Launch
Join us on Thursday, May 16 at 6 p.m. for a fascinating evening of sex talk! We’ll be joined by sociologist Tina Fetner and anthropologist Treena Orchard, authors of two brand-new books on the subjects. The night will be moderated by author Mandy Len Catron. Expect readings, Q&As, and some fun giveaways! Tina Fetner’s book, Sex ...read more
Thursday, May 16 Upstart & Crow Studio