For Adults
In 2024, Textile launched Black Talk, a literary event bringing celebrated and award-winning Black authors to Waterloo Region for conversation and community engagement. Black Talk 2026 features decorated Black Canadian speculative author Nalo Hopkinson in conversation with literary and cultural critic Donna Bailey Nurse. The evening is being moderated by Carol Duncan.
This year’s event leans into the power of story to create and anchor Black identity. Stories have always been important to Black people across the African Diaspora. Storytelling created a space for Black people to document their stories. Through folktales, songs, proverbs, metaphors, and so much more, Black people preserved their identities and memories for future generations to engage with. Fiction created a space for us to create ourselves.
Nalo Hopkinson will be available for book signing after the conversation (approximately 8:30pm). Books will be available for purchase courtesy of Words Worth Books.
Presented in partnership with Textile, with support from:
Nalo Hopkinson is a Jamaican-born Canadian speculative writer and editor. Nalo is the recipient of numerous awards, including the California State University Eagle-Con 2018 Octavia Butler Memorial Award, which celebrates an author whose writing exemplifies the spirit of Butler's work, and in 2021, she was named the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master, a lifetime honour from Science Fiction Writers of America. Hopkinson is the Youngest Grand Master and the first woman of African descent to receive this honour. Her novels – Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Midnight Robber (2000), The Salt Roads (2003), Blackheart Man (2024) – and short stories such as those in her collection Skin Folk (2001) often draw on Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling.
Donna Bailey Nurse is a Canadian literary critic. She is the author of two volumes of collected writing, What’s a Black Critic To Do? and the editor of Revival: An Anthology of Black Canadian Writing. Her work has also appeared in Publishers Weekly, The Washington Post, The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail. She has conducted on-stage interviews for The International Festival of Authors, Luminato, Toronto Public Library, and the Gardner Museum, and curated events for several institutions, including the Art Gallery of Ontario. Donna taught Arts Journalism at George Brown College and has delivered lectures on Black Canadian literature to Mount Allison University, The University of New Brunswick, the University of Toronto and various clubs and institutions. A former member of the Toronto Arts Council’s Literary Committee, Donna has also been a judge for the Governor General’s Non-Fiction prize, The Amazon First Novel Award, The CBC Poetry Prize and The Hilary Weston Non-Fiction prize.
Carol B. Duncan is a chronicler of human stories of migration, community, and identity. Her publications include scholarly books and articles, creative non-fiction, and short stories. She is a tenured full professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her research focuses on Caribbean migration, gender, religion, and popular culture, as well as on Caribbean religions in diasporic and transnational contexts. She won the Region of Waterloo’s Literary Award in 2002. Carol’s short stories have been published in Augur Magazine, Tales and Feathers, FIYAH Magazine, PREE Magazine of Caribbean Writing, and Apparition Magazine. Her next short story will appear in an upcoming issue of the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies.
AGE GROUP: | Older Adults | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Guest Speakers | Cultures and Communities | Author Events |
TAGS: | Adult learning |
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
67 Erb St. W., Waterloo N2L 6C2
