Alma Lee at VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver, one of her favourite spots.Allan Lee
Alma Lee, the founder and longtime artistic director of the Vancouver Writers Fest, has died.
She died late Friday, “surrounded by love,” according to the festival’s current artistic director, Leslie Hurtig.
Lee, 84, was born and raised in Edinburgh, but had an eternal impact on her adopted city, Vancouver, and the country. In addition to the city’s book festival, she was also the founding executive director of both the Writers’ Union of Canada and the Writers’ Trust.
The following is an appreciation by The Globe and Mail’s Marsha Lederman, one of the many readers Lee inspired along the way.
At certain Vancouver Writers Fest events, always in the front row, a sign said a lot about why we were there: seat reserved for Alma Lee. And deservedly so. This is the festival Lee founded in 1988, and long after she retired as artistic director in 2005, she remained a huge presence. Not to swan about as the queen she was, or bask in gushy sentiments from grateful writers, but to listen and engage. Lee loved to read. And she brought that love to festival events, not just listening intently from the front row, but putting up her hand to ask thoughtful questions. And often to cheer on an author, especially an emerging writer with a first book, by offering praise – never false, always deeply considered and eloquently expressed.
Lee loved to talk about books and ideas, query authors – and readers – about their thoughts, not because she had started this festival and will forever be associated with it; but this is who she was – the person who had the passion to create the festival to begin with.
As the founding program director, Lee did something dramatically different from the already established literary festival in Toronto. Rather than focus on author readings, she emphasized panel discussions, on-stage interviews, readings that were more like performances, and what she called readers’ dialogues. She was ahead of the book festival curve.
“Basically we designed the programs here for a lot of access between the writers and the audience,” she told The Globe and Mail in 1988 about the festival she founded with City of Vancouver cultural planner Lorenz von Fersen.
It was a success from the start. “The festival struck a chord with Vancouver audiences, and the discussions with authors in the open forums were frequently lively,” reported The Globe’s Liam Lacey at the time.
In year two, Lee organized readings with music, including an appearance by a founding member of the rock group Chilliwack. Another event featured a hip hop group from Seattle. “Turning words into performances, Vancouver festival emerges with its own strange identity,” The Globe reported. Under Lee, the annual literary cabaret and poetry bash – still hot draws, every year – were born.
Early on, she mused that readers should be acknowledged in the festival’s name. A few years in, she changed the name to the Vancouver Writers and Readers Festival. (It is now the Vancouver Writers Fest.)
When she announced her retirement in 2004 (it took effect at the end of 2005, the same year she was named to the Order of Canada), she told The Globe that the festival needed “someone with more oomph and energy to help it grow even more.”
But she continued to bring that oomph and energy as an appreciative attendee. And an honoured one. The first evening now includes the Alma Lee Opening Night Event, named for the festival’s beloved founder. Last year’s event featured an interview with British detective novelist Ann Cleeves – appropriate, given Lee’s love of crime novels.
Early on, Lee made a point of bringing in younger authors – not just the CanLit giants (although she programmed those too). She wanted to see younger readers in her seats.
She created a mix of established authors (her old friend Margaret Atwood in the inaugural year, Mordecai Richler the next) and new voices, allowing the emerging writers to share the stage – and reap the benefits of that spotlight.
In 2001, Aislinn Hunter, then a self-described “unknown” was shocked that Lee invited her to be part of an event with Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Ford.
“I kept saying, ‘Is she on crack?‘” Hunter told The Globe at the time. No, Lee was on something else: the high of reading – including Hunter’s book. “So many festival directors just bring people in because of their reputation or sales, but Alma actually reads all the books,” Hunter said.
More than 35 years after Lee created the festival, its animated, esoteric-but-accessible literary vibe continues, with authors and readers converging on Granville Island in the second-last week of October every year. The programming has continued to be stellar, with successors Hal Wake and now Hurtig expanding on what Lee started. Many authors say the festival that Alma built is their favourite.
“I can think of few people who have had such an impact, from coast to coast, on the Canadian literary landscape,” Hurtig told me recently, noting that Lee was also involved in creating The Writers Union of Canada and the Writers’ Trust. “And, on a personal note, I owe her my eternal gratitude for being my mentor and for teaching me how to be a strong lassie. Her vision and tireless zest for conversation and smart dialogue shall live on at the festival she started almost 40 years ago.”
When I heard she wasn’t well, I went through my Alma Lee e-mails – I always kept them – and read her notes about the festival, but also responses to some things I (or others at The Globe) had written – sometimes critical, sometimes appreciative. After a piece I wrote in 2016 about how the arts can bring some light as we barrelled toward the darkness of Trump 1.0, Lee thanked me. “The arts do feed our soul in these weird, scary and chaotic days,” she wrote. Then she went on to recommend a documentary, Music with Strangers. “I came away with an uplifted spirit.”
She has done that for countless attendees – and authors, moderators, staff and volunteers – who have participated in the festival she created, and afterward, walked away with uplifted spirits (and, often, a huge pile of books to get us through the winter). We walk into each event as strangers, we leave having communed during a shared experience.
I don’t know what it’s going to be like to be onstage at that festival – I am fortunate enough to sometimes moderate events there – and not see Alma Lee in the front row. Part of me thinks they should keep a seat empty there for her, with that “reserved” sign. But she would balk at that: the festival she created is far too popular, with events regularly selling out, to let a seat go unclaimed.
