With over 30 years of history, Wordfest’s annual Imaginarium Festival is one of Canada’s leading literary festivals. This year, the festival took place from Oct. 13 to 18 and featured more than 41 shows and 60 authors from around the world.
Dania Idriss was one of this year’s featured authors, having recently published her debut novel, Tales of the Mountains and the Sea in May of 2026. In an interview with the Gauntlet, Idriss fondly reflected on the people and experiences that first sparked her curiosity of literature, including Wordfest.
“Growing up, across the street from my grandparents’ house, there was an older couple [. . .] They were artsy people, and the woman was a poet. Talking to her, listening to her, really instilled a love for words in me. I also used to work at a bookstore, and in high school, I saw a Wordfest pamphlet. Those experiences are big inspirations in my writing journey,” Idriss said.
Going from being a long-time attendee of the festival to a featured author, Idriss emphasized that she believes the Imaginarium Festival is for everybody, and that it plays an important role in a growing city like Calgary. She discussed how the festival is a huge community event that promotes a love for reading, brings reader communities into one lively space and inspires newcomers every year.
“Every time I attended, I was struck by what a diverse, welcoming space this was to discover and nurture a love for words.” said Idriss. “[This festival] is truly the most welcoming space, and drives the belief that words are for everyone, whether you are someone who reads 100 books in a year or two. There is always something to discover, no matter how much or how little you read on a daily basis.”
Many of the events explore new ways to participate in and understand literature, often taking an interdisciplinary approach. On Oct. 15, Idriss was a featured author at the Literary Cabaret event, which melded literature with music to bring the stories to life.
“Some of us would read [excerpts from our own works], and there were live jazz musicians who would play. They would improvise a song on the spot after hearing us read an excerpt, which I thought was the coolest blend of different art forms,” Idriss said.
Idriss also described the Imaginarium Festival as an opportunity to spotlight and discover stories from different parts of the world. Her book, Tales of the Mountains and the Sea, is a genre-bending collection of five short stories, each focusing on a significant point in Lebanese history through the lens of a young female protagonist. The book falls into the folk horror and gothic fiction genre, but for Idriss, the representation of untold stories took precedence over categorizing her work into a genre.
“As I was doing research for my master’s, I noticed that a lot of the documents focused on what was happening to men at the time. For things like famine and conflict, the men were being drafted for wars and not coming back, but that leaves a whole village of starving women.” said Idriss. “Who tells their story? Being able to publish these stories, and [being] able to share them at such a big festival is an honor.”
Idriss’ experience with Wordfest and the Imaginarium Festival is one of many in an incredibly diverse literary event, with countless opportunities to discover literature. Reading, which is often a solitary activity by nature, finds a sense of community in Calgary through Wordfest. Further, when considering the prevalence of discussions on the “literacy crisis” on social media, in news cycles and academic circles, it becomes even more important to promote and engage with large-scale events that encourage a love for reading.
In addition to the annual Imaginarium Festival, Wordfest hosts a variety of events throughout the year that are open to the public. For more information on upcoming events, visit https://wordfest.com.
