Past Festivals & Presenters
What authors we have had in our midst! Below are the names of the literary luminaries who have presented at Elephant Mountain Literary Festival since 2011.
About EMLF > Past Festivals
Past festivals
In 2021, for our 10th anniversary, we invited celebrated national and local authors to share their memories of our time together.
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The result: 10 Years 10 Authors, a retrospective of the first decade of Elephant Mountain Literary Festival, and a tribute to the literary lights who've made it possible.
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Download the book as a PDF here (5.7 Mb), or browse on to see and hear their recollections:
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2015 | Fred Wah (video)
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2017 | Eileen Delehanty Pearkes (video)
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2018 | Rayya Liebich (poetry recording)
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2020 | Roz Nay (video)
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2021 | Tom Wayman
How the EMLF Came to Be: A Founding Member Looks Back
2012 | Lisa Moore
2013 | John Lent
2014 | Jane Byers
2015 | Fred Wah
2016 | GRANT Lawrence
2017 | Eileen Delehanty Pearkes
2018 | Rayya Liebich
2019 | Iona Whishaw
2020 | Roz Nay
2021 | Tom Wayman
How the EMLF Came to Be: A Founding Member Looks Back
In 2021, Elephant Mountain Literary Festival celebrated a decade of annual summer celebrations that brought the literary world to Nelson. Our 2021 online festival featured an alumni reading with John Vaillant, Lisa Moore, and Fred Wah; an all-star event with Jenna Butler, Carla Funk, Clem Martini, and Richard Van Camp; Cheryl Foggo was our keynote speaker; and we "celebrated local" with Shayna Jones, Rayya Liebich, Zaynab Mohammed, and Pat Henman. Sami Alwani, Jenna Butler, Carla Funk, and Clem Martini offered workshops, and all presenters took part in panel discussions along with invited guests from Nelson and beyond.
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In 2022 the Festival returned to 100% in-person programming, and boy, were we ready! Our Writer-in-Residence, Shaena Lambert, offered the Craft Talk and consulted with 10 lucky writers. At the All-Star Reading Shaena was joined by Angie Abdou, Suzanne Simard, and Tom Wayman for a stellar evening. Words & Wine: a Storytelling Speakeasy offered wine pairings with tale-spinners Ellen Burt, Magpie Ulysses, and Lucas Myers. Two fascinating panel discussions explored creative rebellion and the challenges of time as a framing mechanism. Blue Pencil sessions were also offered by Rayya Liebich, and workshops in podcasting (with Bob Keating) and Spoken word performance (with Magpie Ulysses) rounded out a great weekend.
all EMLF Presenters, 2012–2022
Angie Abdou | Caroline Adderson | Sami Alwani | Antonia Banyard | Jill Barber | Ellen Burt | Richard Cannings | Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm | Elena Banfield | Amy Bohigian | Bob Bossin | Gail Bowen | Matt Bowes | Marilyn Bowering | Andy Brown | Dave Butler | Jenna Butler | Sarah Louise Butler | Jane Byers | Geordi Campos | Andrew Chesham | Kristin Cochrane | Linda Crosfield | Deryn Collier | Leesa Dean | Anne DeGrace | Eileen Delehanty Pearkes | William Deverell | Slava Doval | Robin DuPont | Esi Edyugan | Marina Endicott | Terry Fallis | Arin Fay | Stephen Fearing | Stephanie Fischer | Cheryl Foggo | Marya Follinsbee | Carla Funk | Camilla Gibb | Pascal Girard | Allison Girvan | Gary Gottfriedson | Douglas Gibson | Susan Andrews Grace | R.M. Greenaway | Ernest Hekkanen | Pat Henman | Tracy Hurren | Sarah Ivany | Ian Johnston | Vici Johnstone | Shayna Jones | Sean Arthur Joyce | Matty Kakes | Brian Kalbfleisch | Bob Keating | Murray Kimber | Ross & Will Klatte | Joy Kogawa | Shaena Lambert | Paul & Laura Landsberg | John Langille | Grant Lawrence | David Lawson | Marsha Lederman | Rayya Leibich | John Lent | Emma Leslie | Melanie Little | Thomas Loh | J.B. MacKinnon | Zoe Maeve | Lee Maracle | Clem Martini | Sid Marty | Ashok Mathur | Rolf Maurer | Micheline Maylor | Sheryl McKay | Brendan McLeod | Zaynab Mohammed | Rita Moir | Lisa Moore | Donna Morrissey | Jordan Mounteer | Jayme Moye | Barbara Curry Mulcahy | Susan Musgrave | Lucas Myers | Roz Nay | Greg Nesteroff | Rose Nielsen | Emily Nilsen | Dan Obradovic | Callum David Pengelly | Briony Penn | Kristene Perron | Avi Phillips | Mary Pinkoski | Steven Price | Kate Pullinger | Robyn Read | Verna Relkoff | Bill Richardson | Genevieve Robertson | Julian Ross | Whitney Rothwell | Craig Shemilt | Suzanne Simard | Brian Lye | Natasha Smith | Fred Stenson | Eija Stephenson | Andrew Steeves | Samuel Stevenson | Ray Stothers | Clinton Swanson | Margaret Tessman | Deb Thompson | Sherwin Tjia | J.G. Toews | Magpie Ulysses | John Vaillant | Richard Van Camp | M. J. Vassanji | Eleanor Wachtel | Fred Wah | Bessie Wapp | Tom Wayman | Ian Weir | Calvin Wharton | Howard White | Sheri-D Wilson | Iona Whishaw | Nancy Wise
Kootenay Mountain Culture Magazine & Kootenay Literary Competition & Richard Carver Award winners