Stories have power to illuminate our interconnectedness with each other and with our planet—and to find a way forward. Join Elizabeth Hay and Ann-Marie MacDonald, two of Canada’s powerhouse female storytellers, on stage with host Lucy van Oldenbarneveld, as they reflect on their stories of such timeless themes as gender, class, dreams unrealized, friendship, sex and sensuality, what we think makes us happy and what actually does, and love’s capacity to surprise at any age. 

ANN-MARIE MACDONALD is a best-selling novelist, playwright, actor, and television presenter based in Montreal and Toronto. Her work in all capacities has been honoured with multiple awards. Her plays are produced and published internationally. Her new novel, Fayne was an instant Number 1 national bestseller. It was a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year (2022) and a CBC Best Canadian Fiction Books of 2022. Her other novels include Fall on Your Knees, The Way the Crow Flies, and Adult Onset. Her work is translated into seventeen languages.

In 2019, Ann-Marie was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in recognition of her contribution to the arts and her LGBTQ2SI+ activism. Her play, Hamlet-911 premiered last summer at The Stratford Festival. Fall on Your Knees (celebrating its 26th anniversary this year!) is an award-winning and international bestseller and only the second Canadian book to be chosen as an Oprah’s Book Club pick. And Fall on Your Knees just had its world premiere stage adaptation in Toronto, travelling on to London, Ottawa and Halifax this spring

ELIZABETH HAY is the Giller Prize-winning author of six novels, including Late Nights on Air, His Whole Life, and A Student of Weather. Her memoir All Things Consoled won the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction; her story collection Small Change was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. In her latest novel, Snow Road Station (April 2023) the main characters and locale of His Whole Life reappear. A former radio broadcaster, Ms. Hay spent a number of years in Mexico and New York City, and makes her home in Ottawa.

Communications advisor, actor, writer and media veteran, LUCY VAN OLDENBARNEVELD’s early career including reporting for Deutsche Welle in Germany and CBC Whitehorse. She spent a year working in China before moving to CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning as writer-broadcaster and host. In 2006 she moved to television as the host of CBC News at 6, where she was eventually joined by co-host Adrian Harewood.  

As an actress Lucy is known for portraying journalists in such films as Long Shot, starring Seth Rogan and Charlize Theron, and Arrival, starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker. Her one-woman show Me, Vivien Leigh and the Roller Rink, is a hilarious romp through her feathered-bangs-and-Jordache-jeans adolescence in Hamilton. It was performed at the Undercurrents Festival in 2022. She lives in Ottawa.