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Shadow Histories Across Genres

October 15, 2025

Date: October 15, 2025

Time: 8:00 pm EST

Free, online / Registration required

How do you write about the histories that haunt you? Join Larissa Lai (The Lost Century, Arsenal Pulp Press 2022) and Christine Wu (Familial Hungers, Brick Books 2025) as they discuss the ethics of writing about ancestral and cultural history, balancing memory and research, and incorporating literal and emotional truths into their writing.

Christine and Larissa will discuss different approaches to their poetry and fiction and the ways in which they make meaning out of writing about generational and colonial trauma. Moderated by Charlie Foran.

About the Panelists

Larissa Lai

Larissa Lai has authored nine books including: The Lost Century, The Tiger Flu, and Salt Fish Girl. Recipient of the Duggins Prize, the Lambda Award, and the Astraea Award, and finalist for the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Governor General’s Award, she is currently Richard Charles Lee Chair of Chinese Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto.

Christine Wu

Christine Wu is the author of Familial Hungers (Brick Books, 2025). She was the 2023 winner of the RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award and a finalist for the 2022 Writers’ Trust Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Originally from the West Coast, she now lives and writes in Mi’kma’ki.

Charlie Foran (moderator)

Charlie Foran is the author of twelve books, including five novels. A past president of PEN Canada, he is a senior fellow at Massey College and an adjunct professor in the Department of English at the University of Toronto.

This event is part of a webinar series, Drawn to the Page, meant for young writers to develop their craft and purpose as an author.

Occurring biweekly on Wednesdays in October, recent winners of the RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award will discuss what pulls them to the page, and consider, in dialogue with their mentors, collaborators or award-winning peers, how writers respond to the social and political challenges of their time.

The webinars are free to attend. Registration is required for each session.

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