Upcoming Event

English Canada once forged a confident literary culture. For decades, books provided the country’s most searching reflections on its history, politics, and identity; they shaped the national conversation and anchored a shared sense of who Canadians were. But now, publishing in Canada has collapsed.

PEN Canada invites you to join Richard Stursberg and Stephen Marche as they discuss what’s at risk when a nation loses the infrastructure that sustains its stories.

This event is free and open to the public. The discussion will be followed by a book signing, with book sales provided by Ben McNally Books.

Richard Stursberg

Richard Stursberg is a writer and media executive. He is the author of The Tower of Babble, named by The Globe and Mail as one of the best books of 2012, and The Tangled Garden, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Donner Prize for the best book on public policy by a Canadian. He was the executive director of Telefilm Canada, chairman of the Canadian Television Fund, head of all English services at the CBC, and president of PEN Canada.

Stephen Marche

Stephen Marche is a novelist and essayist, and the author of, among other works, On Writing and Failure and The Next Civil War. He has written features and essays for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire, The Walrus and many others. He has collaborated with artificial intelligence on the first AI-generated novel reviewed in The New York Times, Death of an Author. His most recent novel, The Last Election, was co-written with Andrew Yang.