Powerhouse graphic novelists Sarah Leavitt (Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love) and Teresa Wong (All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey) will discuss the unique joys and challenges of telling stories in the graphic form with moderator and author Tara McGuire.
Sarah Leavitt is a cartoonist and educator living in Vancouver, BC. She is the author of the graphic memoir Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother, and Me (2010). A feature-length animation based on Tangles is in production, with release planned for 2026. Sarah is also the author of the award-winning historical fiction comic Agnes, Murderess (2019). Her most recent book is Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love (2024). This is a collection of short comics about grief and loss that she drew in the first two years after the death of her partner, Donimo. Sarah is an assistant professor in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where she has developed and taught undergraduate and graduate comics classes since 2012.
Teresa Wong is a writer and cartoonist based in Calgary, AB. Her comics and illustrated essays have appeared in The Believer, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s and The Walrus. Her first graphic memoir, Dear Scarlet: The Story of My Postpartum Depression (Arsenal Pulp Press), was a finalist for the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize and was longlisted for CBC’s Canada Reads. In 2021–22, she served as the Canadian Writer-in-Residence at the University of Calgary, and she currently teaches comics at Gotham Writers Workshop.
Moderator Tara McGuire is a writer, editor and former broadcaster whose first book, Holden After & Before: Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose, is a hybrid work in memoir and fiction exploring grief, motherhood and the overdose crisis. It was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award and one of The Walrus‘ Best Books of 2022. Her essays have appeared in Chatelaine, The Globe and Mail, The Ex-Puritan, Geist, Room, Montecristo, The Tyee and on CBC Radio. Along with her writing, McGuire enjoys engaging with the literary community as a teacher, speaker and moderator—she believes dialogue is the way forward.
