Diaspora Dialogues: The Ties That Bind
Speakers for this event
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Anuja Varghese
Anuja Varghese
Author
ANUJA VARGHESE is a Pushcart-nominated writer based in Hamilton, Ontario. Her work appears in several literary magazines and anthologies including Queer Little Nightmares (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022). Her debut short story collection, titled Chrysalis (House of Anansi Press, 2023), explores South Asian diaspora experience through a feminist, speculative lens.
Author
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Catherine Hernandez
Catherine Hernandez
Moderator
CATHERINE HERNANDEZ (she/her) is a queer woman of Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and Indian descent who married into the Navajo Nation. Her first novel, Scarborough, was a finalist for Canada Reads 2022, and the film adaptation, for which she wrote the screenplay, won eight Canadian Screen Awards. Her second novel, Crosshairs, was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award, and her latest novel, The Story of Us, was published in February, 2023.
Moderator
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Zoe Whittall
Author
Event Details
Presented by Diaspora Dialogues Anuja Varghese and Zoe Whittall discuss their new fiction releases Chrysalis and The Fake. The discussion will be
Event Details
Presented by Diaspora Dialogues
Anuja Varghese and Zoe Whittall discuss their new fiction releases Chrysalis and The Fake. The discussion will be moderated by Catherine Hernandez.

Chrysalis by Anuja Varghese
House of Anansi Press
A couple in a crumbling marriage faces divine intervention. A woman dies in her dreams again and again until she finds salvation in an unexpected source. A teenage misfit discovers a darkness lurking just beyond the borders of her suburban home.
The stories in Chrysalis, Anuja Varghese’s debut collection, are by turns poignant and chilling, blurring the lines between the real world and worlds beyond. Varghese delves fearlessly into complex intersections of family, community, sexuality, and cultural expectation, taking aim at the ways in which racialized women are robbed of power and revelling in the strange and dangerous journeys they undertake to reclaim it.
The Fake by Zoe Whittal
HarperCollins
After the death of her wife, Shelby feels more alone than ever—until she meets Cammie, a charismatic woman unafraid of what anyone else thinks and whose own history of trauma draws Shelby close. When Cammie is fired from her job and admits she is in treatment for kidney cancer, Shelby devotes all her time to helping Cammie thrive. But Shelby’s intuition tells her there are things about Cammie’s past that don’t add up. Could the realest thing about Cammie be that she’s actually a scammer?

Partners

Presented by Diaspora Dialogues
Time
(Saturday) 11:00 am - 12:00 pm