Program and Sessions for Conference 2006

Please see the Session Details page for specifics about particular sessions.

Keynote Speaker: Wayson Choy

This year's keynote speaker is 2005 Order of Canada recipient and award-winning author Wayson Choy.

Choy's first novel, The Jade Peony, spent 26 weeks on the Globe and Mail's bestseller list and placed number six on its 1996 Year-End National Bestseller List for fiction. It shared the Trillium Award with Margaret Atwood's novel Morning in a Burned House. It also won the 1996 Vancouver Book Award and was selected as one of the 100 Most Important Books in Canadian History by the Literary Review of Canada (2005).

His second novel, All that Matters, won the 2004 Trillium Award and has been long-listed for the 2006 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood, was the Globe and Mail's 1999 Notable Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the 1999 Governor General's Award.

Choy, who grew up in Vancouver's Chinatown, currently lives in Toronto and taught at Toronto's Humber College and the Humber School for Writers from 1967 to 2004. He is a tireless supporter of community literacy projects and AIDS advocacy groups. Choy also served as the president of Cahoots Theatre Company of Toronto from 1999 to 2002.

Schedule at a Glance

See sessions information below for more details. You may also download the Conference 2006 Brochure (1.2 MB PDF) or schedule (63.2 KB PDF) for viewing or printing on your computer.

Thursday, June 8, 2006
Informal Dinner at the Water Street Cafe 6:00 p.m.
300 Water Street, Vancouver, BC

Friday, June 9, 2006