Second annual Watermelon Seeds Festival of Literature. Internationally acclaimed and award-winning novelists, poets, playwrights, and journalists read in solidarity with the Palestinian people in a time of genocide. The Festival features Lucy Alford (Forms of Poetic Attention), Duha Alshaqaqi (We Are Not Numbers), Danielle Janess (The Milk of Amnesia), El Jones (Abolitionist Intimacies), Sonnet L’Abbé (Sonnet’s Shakespeare), Leila Marshy (My Thievery of the People), Nyla Matuk (Stranger), Philip Kevin Paul (Little Hunger), Ziyad Saadi (Three Parties), Neil Surkan (Unbecoming), Craig Taylor (New Yorkers), Saeed Teebi (Her First Palestinian), Paul Watkins (Soundin’ Canaan). A hybrid event with readings on site and by video.
WHERE: Gustafson Theatre (B355, R203), Vancouver Island University, 900 Fifth St, Nanaimo, BC, V9R 5S5, on the land of the Snuneymuxw First Nation | and by live video stream
WHEN: Saturday, 11 October 2025, at 12:00 PM PDT
PRICE: Free and open to the public
Following the success of the inaugural Watermelon Seeds Festival of Literature, the second annual Festival will take place in the Gustafson Theatre at Vancouver Island University on 11 October 2025. The inaugural Festival took place in May 2024, and it featured authors reading in support of student protesters in the Palestine Solidarity Encampment in the exercise of their rights to free expression and peaceful assembly. The mandate of the second Festival is to foster connections between literatures from Palestine and Turtle Island, and to promote intercultural understanding; it will also commemorate the Encampment. It is partly inspired by the Palestine Festival of Literature, in which international authors combine with their Palestinian counterparts for an act of cultural solidarity. The Watermelon Seeds Festival of Literature is sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Gather Grant), VIU’s Department of Creative Writing and Journalism, VIU’s Muslim Women’s Club, and Windowseat Books.
There will also be a special session of the Palestinian Literature Seminar, facilitated by undergraduate scholars, and featuring a text by one of the Festival’s authors, in the week prior to the Festival, on Sunday, 5 October.
The Festival’s readers are:
Lucy Alford (Forms of Poetic Attention, Columbia University Press, 2020) is an Associate Professor in Literature at Wake Forest University, specializing in twentieth and twenty-first century American poetry and comparative poetics in English, French, German, and Arabic. Her first book, Forms of Poetic Attention, examines the forms of attention both required and produced in poetic language. Her second book, Vital Signs, considers trans-historical elements of poetic form (line, meter, stanza) in terms of the human vital signs and vital needs (breath, pulse, shelter). Her scholarly writings have appeared in a range of edited volumes and journals, including Comparative Literature, Modern Language Notes, Philosophy & Literature, and American Literary History. Her poems have appeared in Harpur Palate, Streetlight, Literary Matters, The Warwick Review, Action, Spectacle, Atelier (in Italian translation), and Fence. Her poetry collection, Daylight / Savings, is forthcoming from Black Square Editions in spring 2026.
Duha Alshaqaqi (We Are Not Numbers) is a Palestinian student who is interested in poetry, writing, women’s rights, and growth. Alshaqaqi graduated from high school with a 98.6% ranking, placing her among the top students in her country. Her academic excellence earned her multiple awards, including a fully funded scholarship to a university in Palestine. However, after her university was destroyed, she was determined to start over and continue her education. She secured two fully funded scholarships — one in the U.S. and another in Qatar. Unfortunately, she became trapped in Gaza and was unable to evacuate. Despite these challenges, she remains steadfast in her pursuit of higher education, refusing to give up on her dreams.
Danielle Janess (The Milk of Amnesia, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021) is a Canadian poet and performer living on unrecognized Duwamish Land in what is known as Seattle. She holds an MFA in Writing from the University of Victoria. Her début poetry collection, The Milk of Amnesia, was adapted to short film. Her work has received funding support from the BC Arts Council and Access Copyright Canada. She has taught in the Department of Theatre at the University of Victoria and serves as a poetry editor for Asymptote Journal. Originally from Sarnia-Lambton-Bkejwanong, Janess is at work on new poems that investigate the legacy of Canada’s Chemical Valley on Lake Huron.
El Jones (Abolitionist Intimacies, Fernwood Publishing, 2022) is a poet, journalist, community advocate, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics, Economics and Canadian Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Author of Live from the Afrikan Resistance! (Roseway Press, 2014), Jones was two-time National Slam champion in 2007 and 2008, Poet Laureate of Halifax in 2013-2015, resident of the International Writing Program at University of Iowa in 2015, and poet in residence at University of Toronto Scarborough in 2021. She has received the Dr Burnley Allan “Rocky” Jones Human Rights Award (in 2016) and two Atlantic Journalism Gold awards (in 2018 and 2019). She was the 15th Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University. In 2024, Jones was a research fellow at the University of Cambridge and was honoured with a Doctor of Letters from Acadia University.
Sara Kishawi is a Palestinian community organizer and Sociology graduate from Vancouver Island University. Originally from Gaza, she has been a leading voice in campus and community organizing, and served as the spokesperson for the VIU Palestinian Solidarity Encampment. Through rallies, protests, and public talks, she works to raise awareness about the genocide in Gaza and encourages others to take meaningful action in support of Palestinian human rights.
Sonnet L’Abbé (Sonnet’s Shakespeare, McClelland & Stewart, 2019) is an award-winning Canadian poet, performer, and professor in the Departments of English and Creative Writing and Journalism at Vancouver Island University. L’Abbé is the author of Sonnet’s Shakespeare (2019), Anima Canadensis (2016), Killarnoe (2007), and A Strange Relief (2001), and editor of Best Canadian Poetry in English (2014), and an editor for Brick Books.
Leila Marshy (My Thievery of the People, Baraka Books, 2025) is the author of The Philistine (LLP, 2018) and editor of the soon-to-be-released anthology, Razing Palestine: Punishing Solidarity and Dissent in Canada (Baraka Books, 2025). Marshy’s Palestinian father was exiled from his home in 1948, never to return. During the First Intifada, Leila Marshy lived in Cairo and worked for the Palestinian Red Crescent, the Palestinian Mental Health Association, and Medical Aid for Palestine. She has been a community and political organizer, including founding a dialogue group with the Hasidic community in her neighbourhood. Her stories and journalism has been published in Canadian and American media. She is Editor of Baraka Books and lives in Montreal.
Nyla Matuk (Stranger, Véhicule Press, 2016) is the author of two books of poetry, including Sumptuary Laws (2012), shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award. She is also the editor of an anthology of poems, Resisting Canada (2019). Her poems have appeared in Mizna, The New Yorker, POETRY, The Poetry Review, The Walrus, PN Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and elsewhere. She was born in Canada and has a mixed identity which includes Palestinian, Afghan, and Uzbek roots. In 2018, she served as the Mordecai Richler Writer in Residence at McGill University. Recently, she has been working on a third collection of poetry and a début novel, Leila and Khaled, which will appear with House of Anansi in 2026. In 2025, she is in residence at La Napoule Art Foundation, Mandelieu, France.
Philip Kevin Paul (Little Hunger, Nightwood Editions, 2008) is a member of the W̱SÁNEĆ Nation from the Saanich Peninsula on Vancouver Island. His work has been published in BC Studies, Literary Review of Canada, Breathing Fire: Canada’s New Poets and An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English. Paul has worked with the University of Victoria’s linguistics department to ensure the preservation of the SENĆOŦEN language. Paul’s second book of poetry, Little Hunger, was shortlisted for a 2009 Governor General’s Literary Award. His first book of poetry, Taking the Names Down from the Hill, won the 2004 Dorothy Livesay Award for Poetry.
Ziyad Saadi (Three Parties, Hamish Hamilton, 2025) is a Palestinian-Canadian writer and filmmaker based in Vancouver. He is a Dayne Ogilvie Prize nominee, a Nicholl Fellowship semi-finalist, and the recipient of a 2025 Safina Filmmaker Fellowship. He has contributed to Indiewire, The Independent, and The Gay & Lesbian Review, and his short story “The Third or Fourth Casualty” is featured in the Palestinian speculative fiction anthology Thyme Travellers.
Neil Surkan (Unbecoming, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021) is the current Poet Laureate of Nanaimo, BC (2024-2026) and a professor in the Department of English at Vancouver Island University. Born in Penticton, BC, he is the author of two full-length poetry collections — Unbecoming (2021), which was selected as one of three finalists for the City of Calgary’s W.O. Mitchell Award, and On High (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018) — and the chapbooks Die Workbook (2024), Ruin (2023), Their Queer Tenderness (2020), and Super, Natural (2017). His third poetry collection, Empties, is forthcoming from McGill-Queen’s in 2026.
Saeed Teebi (Her First Palestinian, House of Anansi Press, 2022) is an award-winning writer and lawyer. His latest book is titled You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: A Memoir of Palestine and Writing in Dark Times, and is out in September 2025. His debut short story collection, Her First Palestinian, was the recipient of numerous honours, including being named a finalist for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Prize, the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and Kobo Rakuten Emerging Writer Award. Teebi’s work has appeared in The Globe and Mail and The New Quarterly, and was nominated for a National Magazine Award. Born in Kuwait, he resettled in the United States, then Canada. He lives in Toronto.
Craig Taylor (New Yorkers, Anchor Canada, 2022) is the bestselling author of Londoners, Return to Akenfield, and One Million Tiny Plays About Britain. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Granta and McSweeney’s. His plays have been professionally performed at the Royal Festival Hall (London), Jermyn St Theatre (London), Citz Theatre (Glasgow), Eastern Angles (Ipswich), Live Theatre (Newcastle), and the Edinburgh Festival. His scripts have been reworked as librettos for operas (Liverpool Philharmonic) and performed internationally in Kathmandu and Mumbai.
Paul Watkins (Soundin’ Canaan, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2025) is a professor in the Department of English at Vancouver Island University. His first book, Soundin’ Canaan: Black Canadian Poetry, Music, and Citizenship, was published in 2025. Part exploration of a key group of Black Canadian poets and part literary, cultural, and musical history, Soundin’ Canaan demonstrates how music in Black Canadian poetry is not solely aesthetic but also a form of social, ethical, and political expression. Under his DJ alias, DJ Techné, he has completed several DJ projects — including Dedications (2013), Dedications II (2019), Portals (2020), and Dedications III (2024) — that explore the spaces between poetry, hip-hop, and jazz.
For more information:
watermelon.seeds.litfest[at]protonmail.com