Bookworms, wordsmiths: you don’t want to miss this uniquely Hamilton festival

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Published March 11, 2020 at 1:07 am

Hamilton’s prestigious GritLit Festival announced their line-up for their 16th annual four-day event for readers and writers and it features some pretty big names.

Hamilton’s prestigious GritLit Festival announced their line-up for their 16th annual four-day event for readers and writers and it features some pretty big names.

Margaret Atwood, the world-renowned Canadian author of Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and many, many others, will be appearing at the Playhouse Theatre for the opening event of the festival.

She will be sitting down with fellow writer and Governor General’s Award Finalist Merilyn Simonds to chat about inspiration, perseverance, the future of the planet and staying the course through a life in literature.

Unfortunately, Atwood’s event has been sold out but for lovers of the written word, there are dozens of other events and renowned local, Canadian and international writers to celebrate the art form.

There’s something for everyone as the events feature discussions with a wide variety of award-winning and internationally recognized bloggers, short story writers, essayists, journalists, poets and novelists.

Other featured writers include Ted Barris, Gwen Benaway, Lynn Coady, Robyn Doolittle, Terry Fallis to name just a few. In total, 35 authors are featured.

There will be writing workshops — led by world-renowned writers — for aspiring and accomplished wordsmiths alike and several reading events as well as literary trivia and performances, talks and contests.

One particularly interesting event is the Flash Fiction Contest that challenges participants to write a story of no more than 500 inspired by a prompt provided by contest organizers in no more than an hour.

New this year is the GritLit Festival Book Club which will be a book club-style exploration of Annahid Dashtgard’s Breaking the Ocean.

For more information on the festival and its featured authors and events, visit the website. Tickets and event passes can also be found there as well.

Taking place between April 16-19, 2020, all festival events, with the exception of Atwood at the Playhouse Theatre on April 16, will take place at the Homewood Suites by Hilton.

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