Renowned sex educator and writer Sara Maitland knows that everyone has embarrassing questions — about writing. So she’s bringing the Anonymous Question Box (think grade 7 health class) to a panel of esteemed authors on the Word Vancouver stage. They’ll answer all your awkward questions about the writing life. If I want to quit my job and write full-time, should I abandon my lyric memoir and write romantasy instead? Is it possible my novel is so good that if I submit it to a literary agent, they’ll steal it and turn it into a bestseller? Is it weird that all my poems are about cats? Are vampires coming back? You ask; they’ll answer. (And seriously — about the vampires — if not now, when?)

Location: Sunroom/Gallery, UBC Robson Square

Type: Panel

Moderator: Sara Maitland, True North: Selected Stories (Comma Press)

Readers: Carleigh Baker, Last Woman (Penguin Random House Canada) | Junie Désil, allostatic load (Talonbooks) | Christina Myers, Beyond Blue: Stories of Heartbreak, Healing, and Hope in Postpartum Depression (Caitlin Press)

About The Host

Sarah Maitland

Sarah Maitland is a certified sexual health educator who writes about sex, love, mental health, and growing up. You might recognize Sarah from working at Geist magazine or co-founding the Writers' Exchange.

About The Readers

Carleigh Baker

Carleigh Baker is an author and teacher of Red River Métis and European descent. Her debut story collection, Bad Endings, won the City of Vancouver Book Award and was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Indigenous Voices Award for fiction. Her stories and essays have been translated into several languages and anthologized in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Her new collection, Last Woman, was a finalist for the 2025 Jim Deva Prize for writing that provokes. She was a 2020 Shadbolt Fellow in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University, where she teaches autobiographical fiction at The Writer's Studio.

Junie Désil

Junie Désil is of Haitian ancestry, born of immigrant parents on the traditional territories of the Kanien’kehá:ka on the island known as Tiohtià:ke (Montréal), and raised in Treaty 1 Territory (Winnipeg). Junie has performed at various literary events and festivals. Her work has appeared in Room Magazine, PRISM International, The Capilano Review and CV2.

A UBC alumnus, a participant in Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio, and current Uvic MFA student, Junie’s debut book of poetry eat salt | gaze at the ocean (Talon Books, 2020) was short-listed for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her second collection allostatic load (Talon Books) came out April, 2025.

Junie mentors poets at SFU's Writers' Studio and also teaches in SFU's Leadership Essentials Certificate program.

Christina Myers

Christina Myers is a writer, editor and former journalist. She is the author of Halfway Home and The List of Last Chances, and was the editor of two anthologies. She has been longlisted for the Leacock Medal, twice shortlisted for the Fred Kerner book prize, and is a two-time winner with the Canadian Book Club Awards. Born in BC, she spent her childhood criss-crossing Canada, before resettling on the west coast in her teens. She is a member of Da’naxda’xw First Nation, lives in Surrey, and teaches writing through SFU's continuing studies.