Didn’t get enough of some of your favourite festival authors? Join us at the Homewood Suites by Hilton’s lounge for Drafts & Drafts for an exclusive sneak peek of some works-in-progress we’re sure will end up on your future to-be-read lists. 

Free Event

Get professional editing advice from the Editors Canada.

We are proud to partner with the Editors Hamilton-Halton, a chapter of Editors Canada, to bring professional editing advice for writers 18+.

Get professional advice on a writing project and get a taste of the editing process — supportive, honest, and effective. Submit a writing project of up to 2,500 words to be paired with a professional editor. The editor prepares a brief report on your project and provides feedback. Please note, registrants can only attend one consult.

Poetry, scripts, or academic papers are not accepted.

Consultations are provided as a one-time service to authors. Past participants are not eligible. Please register for one consult only.

Once registered, each participant receives further instructions on how to submit their writing project (must be submitted at least two weeks prior to the event).

Presented in partnership with Editors Hamilton-Halton, a chapter of Editors Canada.

Spots are limited, so be sure to register early!

In just a few pages, a short story can introduce readers to a world they’ve never imagined. In this panel hosted by Anuja Varghese, Jaclyn Desforges (Weird Babies), Trynne Delaney (As The Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories), and Joe Ollmann (The Woodchipper) explore the possibilities of short fiction across genres. 

Hosted by Anuja Varghese | $12 | Included in Weekend Pass

Join Vinh Nguyen, author of The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse, an inventive memoir about one family’s escape from Vietnam and a father’s mysterious disappearance along the way, for a writing workshop on the speculative memoir. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll explore writing around absence, the what-could-have-been in life writing, and ways to challenge truth, memory, and desire in autobiography.

$25 | Not Included in Weekend Pass

In 2022, the Collins Dictionary announced that its word of the year was “permacrisis,” which it defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events.” In his new book, In Crisis, On Crisis, James Cairns draws on social research, pop culture, and literature to consider not only what makes something a crisis, but how to navigate one. He’s joined by Vinh Nguyen, who co-edited “Dispatches: Writing In/During Crisis” for The New Quarterly, which explores what it means to be a writer in times of political and moral crisis. Nguyen’s book, The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse, brings readers to the end of the U.S. war in Vietnam when the refugee crisis was only beginning. 

Hosted by Linzey Corridon | $12 | Included in Weekend Pass

It took Ann Y. K. Choi 21 years to get her first novel, Kay’s Lucky Coin Variety, published. It was 18 years before Saad Omar Khan landed his first publishing contract for Drinking the Ocean. Join the authors for a candid conversation about perseverance, mentorship, and the long road to publication. They’ll share insights on the importance of writing communities to the often-lonely act of writing, how to deal with professional rejection, and the strategies they use to keep writing in a world of imposter syndrome. This pay-what-you-will session is perfect for writers in any stage of their publishing journey. 

Pay-What-You-Will | Included in Weekend Pass

In a literary landscape increasingly hungry for authenticity, your oddities and obsessions are your greatest assets. This workshop celebrates the weird, the personal, and the deeply specific as the most powerful tools in a writer's kit. Through generative exercises and craft discussion, we'll practice turning our vulnerabilities into vivid, surprising work that only we could write. You'll leave with a renewed commitment to your own weirdness and several short pieces that feel bracingly, unapologetically you.

$25 | Not Included in Weekend Pass

Get professional editing advice from the Editors Canada.

We are proud to partner with the Editors Hamilton-Halton, a chapter of Editors Canada, to bring professional editing advice for writers 18+.

Get professional advice on a writing project and get a taste of the editing process — supportive, honest, and effective. Submit a writing project of up to 2,500 words to be paired with a professional editor. The editor prepares a brief report on your project and provides feedback. Please note, registrants can only attend one consult.

Poetry, scripts, or academic papers are not accepted.

Consultations are provided as a one-time service to authors. Past participants are not eligible. Please register for one consult only.

Once registered, each participant receives further instructions on how to submit their writing project (must be submitted at least two weeks prior to the event).

Presented in partnership with Editors Hamilton-Halton, a chapter of Editors Canada.

Spots are limited, so be sure to register early!

Hamilton is a fascinating mix of old and new, with so many interesting things to see and do. Join Jason Allen, author of 52 Things to Do in Hamilton: The Insider's Guide to Fun in the Hammer, as he takes you on a short walking tour to three of downtown Hamilton’s most fascinating attractions: from hidden gems you’ve likely never visited to hidden-in-plain-sight gems you drive by every day but may not know much about. Bring your walking shoes and dress for the weather as we explore together.

This event is pay-what-you-will. Registration required.

THIS EVENT IS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE SUPPORT OF THE INCITE FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS.

In this one-on-one conversation, Karenna’onwe — Dr. Karen Hill, will discuss her journey publishing her new book, The Good Mind, about her mother who was born during the Depression on Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. Hill, an award-winning Mohawk physician and advocate for traditional Indigenous knowledge, will sit down with January Rogers, whose Ojistoh Publishing is a very small independent Indigenous-owned publishing company. Together, they’ll talk about storytelling, the path to publication, and the importance of centering Indigenous voices.

gritLIT workshops are a great opportunity to explore your creative side and learn more about the writing process. Whether you have a work-in-progress already on the go or are just starting your writing journey, we have a workshop for you! In this hands-on writing workshop, join Carrianne Leung to explore setting and how place shapes character, mood, and story.

$25 | Not included in the weekend pass

gritLIT invites festival-goers to join our festival weekend book club! This year’s pick is All Things Under the Moon by Ann Y.K. Choi. Book club leader Annette Hamm will lead the author in an in-depth discussion about her latest novel. You are encouraged to read the book in advance and join in the conversation, but sitting back with a coffee and pastry to listen is okay too! Copies of the book are available to purchase at Epic Books or to borrow from the Hamilton Public Library.

$5 | Interactive Event

In All Things Under the Moon, Ann Y. K. Choi brings readers from a small village in 1920s Korea to the bustling corridors of Seoul, where women and girls can learn to read and write in multiple languages and members of the revolution pass coded messages through the back rooms of teahouses. In her buzzworthy debut, Honeysuckle, Bar Fridman-Tell crafts a fantastically twisted fairy tale where magic and horror collide. And in Wonderland Road, Carrianne Leung imagines a fragile future where a community tries to survive in a world of massive disruption and uncertainty. Across speculative futures, a psychological fairy tale, and historical fiction, these three authors explore loneliness, power, and resistance through the eyes of women.

Hosted by Kerry Clare | $12 | Included in Weekend Pass

In her national bestseller Life After Ambition: A Good Enough Memoir, Amil Niazi uses sly humour and a deep literary sensibility to interrogate her own ambitions, and how they intersect with adulthood, motherhood, age, identity, class, and race. In Wordly Girls, Tamara Jong uses sparse yet searing prose to reflect on her unconventional childhood, corporate and spiritual burnout, and finding her own path to healing and belonging. 

Hosted by Erin Pepler | $12 | Included in Weekend Pass

gritLIT challenges Hamilton’s new or emerging authors to put their speed-writing skills to the test! You will be given a prompt and one or two required elements. Can you incorporate them into a 500-word-or-fewer story in one hour? The winner will receive a $50 gift certificate from Epic Books and have their story published on the gritLIT website.

$5 | Interactive Event

In two darkly funny, yet heartening, novels, Kerry Clare (Definitely Thriving) and Mai Nguyen (Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead) explore what it means to keep going when love, loss, and life get in the way. Balancing humour with tenderness, the authors craft characters you can’t help but cheer for as they navigate grief and hope, all while trying to figure out how to begin again.

Hosted by Alicia Cox Thomson | $12 | Included in Weekend Pass

Get professional editing advice from the Editors Canada.

We are proud to partner with the Editors Hamilton-Halton, a chapter of Editors Canada, to bring professional editing advice for writers 18+.

Get professional advice on a writing project and get a taste of the editing process — supportive, honest, and effective. Submit a writing project of up to 2,500 words to be paired with a professional editor. The editor prepares a brief report on your project and provides feedback. Please note, registrants can only attend one consult.

Poetry, scripts, or academic papers are not accepted.

Consultations are provided as a one-time service to authors. Past participants are not eligible. Please register for one consult only.

Once registered, each participant receives further instructions on how to submit their writing project (must be submitted at least two weeks prior to the event).

Presented in partnership with Editors Hamilton-Halton, a chapter of Editors Canada.

Spots are limited, so be sure to register early!

This generative workshop for queer (or non-performative allied) writers will help craft queer characters and narrators with specificity, agency, and heat without defaulting to 'coming out as plot' or writing for straight audiences. We’ll practice writing voice-forward scenes, charged subtext, and chosen-family dynamics, and participants will leave with two drafted snippets they can build into a story, essay, or memoir. 

This is a pay-what-you-will writing workshop. Registration required.

Your characters are on a journey; in a vehicle, aboard an interstellar pirate ship, or the backseat of a sedan. Midway through the trip, their transport is sabotaged. They have to get out. This interactive workshop explores how crisis activates characters and propels the story into motion. Through guided prompts, participants will uncover the mechanics behind great adventures, and misadventures, while learning practical techniques for generating action, tension, and character-driven decisions.

$25 | Not Included in Weekend Pass

Through reflections on childbirth, parenting, creative practice, and expansive responsibility, Anishinaabe visual artist Quill Christie-Peters (On Wholeness: Anishinaabe Pathways to Embodiment and Collective Liberation) explores how reconnecting with the body can be an act of resistance and healing. Emma McKenna explores the multifaceted themes of bodily autonomy, capturing the empowerment of queer femme identity in Gold Star, her moving collection of poetry. Join the authors as they sit down with Robin Lacambra to discuss bodies, wholeness, and acts of resistance. 

Hosted by Robin Lacambra | $12 | Included in Weekend Pass

You have ideas. You have the desire to write. You want to live a more creative life. You know at some level that you have it in you to do this. But it can be challenging to get motivated. Creative writing doesn’t have to feel like a long uphill climb. In this short burst writing workshop, you’ll experience how playful, surprising and energizing it can be to write some of your life stories.

Anne Bokma is Hamilton-based journalist and author. Her memoir, My Year of Living Spiritually: One Woman's Secular Quest for a More Soulful Life, was published by Douglas & McIntyre and won the 2020 Hamilton Literary Award for Nonfiction and the Kerry Schooley Book Award. She is a recipient of the City of Hamilton's Arts Award for Established Writers and was nominated in 2025 for The Landsberg Award, named after trailblazing feminist journalist Michele Landsberg. Anne is also a memoir writing coach and workshop and retreat leader as well as a columnist at The Hamilton Spectator. She is the founder and host of the 6-Minute Memoir storytelling event.  

$25 | Not Included in Weekend Pass

Each year, we ask our Next Chapter Committee—a group of vibrant young professionals focused on reimagining literary events and showcasing under-illuminated authors and genres—to curate an event during gritLIT 2026. This year, they’re asking the question: What is community? Readers, writers, and their books move through many communities, including cultural, geographic, and chosen ones. In this thoughtful panel, authors Tamara Jong (Wordly Girls), Saad Omar Khan (Drinking the Ocean), and Stephanie Sinclair (A Steady Brightness of Being) will explore what it means to belong, how we find connection, and how stories can help us better understand and inform the communities we’re part of. 

This event is presented by our Next Chapter Committee.

Hosted by Alicia Cox Thomson | $12 | Included in Weekend Pass

Get professional editing advice from the Editors Canada.

We are proud to partner with the Editors Hamilton-Halton, a chapter of Editors Canada, to bring professional editing advice for writers 18+.

Get professional advice on a writing project and get a taste of the editing process — supportive, honest, and effective. Submit a writing project of up to 2,500 words to be paired with a professional editor. The editor prepares a brief report on your project and provides feedback. Please note, registrants can only attend one consult.

Poetry, scripts, or academic papers are not accepted.

Consultations are provided as a one-time service to authors. Past participants are not eligible. Please register for one consult only.

Once registered, each participant receives further instructions on how to submit their writing project (must be submitted at least two weeks prior to the event).

Presented in partnership with Editors Hamilton-Halton, a chapter of Editors Canada.

Spots are limited, so be sure to register early!

Join us for a restorative morning of poetry in celebration of Poetry in Place: Poetry and Environmental Hope in a Southern Ontario Bioregion, a curated anthology edited by Deborah Bowen and Noah Van Brenk. Enjoy a coffee or tea on us, and hear from local poets read from pieces inspired by the “land between the waters” of Lake Ontario and the Grand River, west of Toronto and east of London, in southern Ontario. Featuring Gary Barwin, Elise Bird, Linzey Corridon, Linda Frank, Chandra Maracle, Arwen Roussell, Bernadette Rule, Jennifer Tan, John Terpstra, Elizabeth Tessier, and Renessa Visser. 

Hosted by Deborah Bowen, co-editor of the collection | $12 | Included in Weekend Pass

Join picture book author Zenia Wadhwani (Once Upon a Sari, Fly in the Chai, and 'Twas the Night Before Diwali) for a morning of stories and art making at the Hamilton Farmers’ Market. 

This event is made possible by the support of the incite Foundation for the Arts. 

Free | Registration not required

THIS EVENT IS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE SUPPORT OF THE INCITE FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS.

In this workshop we’ll start by looking at a few examples of different styles of collage to get you inspired. Absurdist or literal, political or simply pretty, messy and delightfully chaotic or exacting and precise, you’ll bring or discover your own aesthetic and approach. Absolutely no artistic experience or talent necessary. To quote the late great Diane Keaton who collaged throughout her life: “I’m just a person who cuts out paper, throws it up on the wall. I like to play around with cutting objects and putting them in the same moment.” Whether you are a ripper or a cutter or something of both, we’ll have all the tools on hand to play around with making something new through recycling and repurposing materials we all have at hand.

$30 | Includes all Supplies and Admission to the Art Gallery of Hamilton

THIS EVENT IS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE SUPPORT OF THE INCITE FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS.

Each year we kick off our in-person festival with Hamilton Writes, showcasing just a few of the amazing writers that continue to put Hamilton on the literary map. Join local author Jamie Tennant as he welcomes multidisciplinary verbal and literary artist, storyteller and poet Chukky Ibe, Jaclyn Desforges (Weird Babies), and Liselle Sambury (A Mastery of Monsters) to talk about reading, writing, and what it’s like to live and write in Hamilton. 

$12 | Included in Weekend Pass

Hamilton’s literary scene has a lot to offer, from independent bookstores, publishers, and festivals, to a vibrant community of readers and writers always eager to amplify local books. For the past ten years, Jamie Tennant’s radio show, Get Lit on CFMU, has championed local literature, providing a much-needed platform for thoughtful conversations about books. Be part of the live recording of Get Lit’s final show as Tennant and special guests reflect on the importance of literary media, the role it plays in connecting writers and readers, and what’s next for books coverage in Hamilton and beyond.

Hosted by Gary Barwin | $12 | Included in Weekend Pass

The mission of the Reader’s Advisory Divas and Dudes is to spread the word about all the hidden gems on publishing lists: the debut authors, the books that publishers are very excited about, and the quiet bestsellers. Enjoy a cup of coffee or tea while two of the Divas offer an exclusive sneak peek at their picks for the best reads for summer 2026.

$5 | Included in Weekend Pass

Join us at the Art Gallery of Hamilton for an opening night that celebrates beginnings! From unforgettable first lines to debut novels across genres, this kick-off event will feature Sarah Mughal Rana, whose much-anticipated book, Dawn of the Firebird, is the first of a trilogy, and Emily Ohanjanians, a professional book editor who recently released her debut novel, The Book Tour. The event will be hosted by Lavanya Lakshmi, whose own first book, Leave and Come Back, will be released in June. Come early to enjoy interactive activities planned by our Next Chapter Committee, including black-out poetry and take-a-poem, leave a poem.

This is event is hosted at the Art Gallery of Hamilton | $16 | Included in weekend pass, but pre-registration is required