Diaspora Dialogues Partners With TIFA for the Canadian Women’s History and Literature Symposium
October 14, 2026
Diaspora Dialogues is proud to partner with the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for our Women’s History Literary Symposium, bringing together an exciting group of women writers to explore who gets to tell our stories, shape our literary history, and imagine what comes next.
This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada.
On the Program
Friday October 30:
Writing Young Women: Developing Realistic Teen Voice For YA with Maya Ameyaw | 12 PM
Capturing voice when writing for teens can be intimidating. Writers venturing into the YA space often worry about how to keep up with the ever-changing trends and slang common with teens without their writing sounding “boomer-coded.” In this writing workshop, YA novelist Maya Ameyaw will share her tips and tricks for honing a fresh, yet timeless, teen writing style that keeps young readers engaged. The workshop will delve into the complex emotional mindsets of modern teens, the responsibilities and issues they face, as well crafting characters and dialogue that feel authentic to the teen experience. Through examples, group discussion, and writing exercises, participants of all experience levels will have the opportunity to work on developing their teen writing voice.
Maya Ameyaw is a Toronto-based author whose young adult novels focus on mental health, identity, and the healing power of art. She is a freelance fiction editor, indie bookseller, and the program lead of InkWell Writing Workshops. Her first two novels, When It All Syncs Up and Under All the Lights were published with Annick Press and Penguin Random House Audio. Her third novel Spiraling Out will be published by Annick Press in 2027.
The Living Archive: An Evening of Women’s Stories in Performance | 6 PM
The Living Archive is something you hear. To open DD’s Canadian Women’s History and Literary Symposium, this evening of short readings and performances brings together poets, playwrights and storytellers who carry memory, history and lived experience off the page and into the room.
Saturday October 31:
Reframing History: Who Gets to Tell the Story? | 3 PM
A conversation with Su Chang and Patty Krawec, moderated by Denise Da Costa, exploring whose stories make it into our histories — and what changes when we revisit the past through different perspectives.
Su Chang is a Chinese-Canadian immigrant writer. She is the author of a debut novel, The Immortal Woman(House of Anansi, 2025), which is a CBC Best Fiction of 2025, a Toronto Book Award nominee, a Foreword INDIES finalist, shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and won the 2025 Independent Publisher Book Award, among other awards and accolades. CBC named her a “Writer to Watch” in 2025. Her short stories have won awards or been shortlisted by the Montreal Fiction Prize, SASFest Fiction Contest, Prairie Fire Fiction Contest, Canadian Authors’ Association National Contest, Disquiet Literary Prize, ILS/Fence Fiction Contest, among others.
Patty Krawec (Anishinaabe/Ukrainian) is a former social worker and founding director of the Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation. Her curiosity about Anishinaabe stories combined with her experiences in social work, community organizing, and union activism to shape her books, Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future (2022) and Bad Indians Book Club: Reading at the Edge of a Thousand Worlds (2025). Through her writing, she examines how stories about marginalized peoples are told, understood, and challenged.
Denise Da Costa is a Canadian, Toronto-based writer whose work explores the complexities of love, mental health, and intersectional identity. She studies Creative Writing as an MFA student at UBC and is an alumnus of the Humber School of Writers. Her publishing credits include an essay in the anthology, Subdivided: City-Building in an Age of Hyper-Diversity(Coach House Books, 2016).
Her debut novel, And the Walls Came Down (Dundurn Press, 2023), was longlisted for the 2024 Toronto Book Award. She is currently working on her next novel.
The CanLit Canon at 100: Who Gets In, Who Gets Left Out? | 6 PM
Rachel Phan and Therese Estacion, moderated by Aparita Bhandari, look back at 100 years of Canadian literature and consider whose voices have been celebrated, overlooked, and left outside the canon.
Therese Estacion is the author of Phantompains (Book*hug Press), a poetry collection that explores her Filipinx heritage and physical disability. In 2021, the book was a finalist for both the Foreword INDIES Award for Poetry and the Firecracker Award for Poetry. She has been a guest editor for Arc Poetry magazine, Feels zine, The Fiddlehead Magazine, and co-curated Smutburger’s 2023-2024 series. Based in Toronto, Estacion was an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies and is training as a psychotherapist. Her second book, Jelly, Baby: Essays on disability and vulnerability was published by Book*Hug Spring 2026.
Rachel Phan is a Toronto-based Chinese Canadian author. A graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Master of Journalism program, she and her work have been featured on CBC, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Toronto Star, HuffPost, National Post, Chatelaine, and Maclean’s. Her instant national bestselling book, Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family and Belonging (2025), was named one of CBC Books’ Best Books of 2025 and longlisted for Canada Reads in 2026. Check out Phan’s website https://www.rachelphan.com/ and follow her on Instagram.
Aparita Bhandari is an arts and life reporter in Toronto. She has been published in Canadian and international media including CBC, Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and Hazlitt. Her areas of interest and expertise lie in the intersections of gender, culture, and ethnicity. She is the producer and co-host of the Hindi language podcast, KhabardaarPodcast.com.
Sunday November 1:
Sex, Crime & Happily Ever After: How Women Took Over the Bestseller Lists | 11 AM
Uzma Jalaluddin and Jane Igharo, moderated by Jananie K. Velu, dive into the genres women writers and readers have transformed into cultural and commercial powerhouses — from romance and thrillers to speculative fiction and beyond.
Jane Igharo is a critically acclaimed, award-winning author whose novels have captivated readers across the globe with their cinematic storytelling and emotional depth. Born in Nigeria and raised in Canada, Jane brings a cross-cultural richness to her work, weaving themes of love, identity, and belonging that resonate with audiences worldwide. She is the author of Ties That Tether, The Sweetest Remedy, Where We End & Begin, and With Love, Miss Americanah.
Uzma Jalaluddin is a critically acclaimed and bestselling novelist, playwright, and teacher. She writes nuanced and entertaining stories about Muslims, South Asians, and Canadians and is the author of Much Ado About Nada, Three Holidays and a Wedding, Hana Khan Carries On, and Ayesha at Last, as well as her first play, The Rishta. Her novels have been optioned for film and television, including by Amazon Studios and Mindy Kaling. A high school English teacher, Jalaluddin is also a former contributor to the Toronto Star and the Atlantic. She lives near Toronto with her family.
Jananie K. Velu is a content creator, writer, and publisher who raves about her favourite books on her channel thisstoryaintover with its audience of over 130k subscribers. After working in publishing and tech for several years, Jananie joined the startup community powered platform, Bindery, to launch her own independent publishing imprint. Boundless Press strives to uplift marginalized voices and make a space for them in an industry that is set up against them. Jananie was born in Canada to Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and lives in Toronto.
The View from the Future: Who Gets to Write What Comes Next? | 2 PM
Mai Nguyen and Tea Mutonji, moderated by Eternity Martis, explore how a new generation of women writers is reshaping storytelling, representation, and what it means to be a writer today.
Eternity Martis is an award-winning journalist and editor whose work has been featured in Vice, the Huffington Post, Maclean’s, Maisonneuve, Salon, The Fader, CBC, Chatelaine and many more. She is an assistant professor of journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University, and the author of the bestselling memoir, They Said This Would Be Fun (McClelland & Stewart, 2020).
Tea Mutonji is a writer and poet based in Toronto. Her debut collection, Shut Up You’re Pretty (VS. Books/Arsenal Pulp Press) was a finalist for Canada Reads (2024) and the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (2019), and won the Trillium Book Award (2020). My Person is her debut novel.
Mai Nguyen (My Nwin) is a Vietnamese Canadian author based in Toronto. Her debut novel Sunshine Nailswas longlisted for Canada Reads in 2024, and was selected as one of the best books of 2023 by NPR and CBC. Her second novel, Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead, is a poignant exploration of life after infant loss and is out everywhere now.
All events are FREE to attend. Visit TIFA’s website for more information on their 2026 festival.