Wordfest presents Calgary’s celebration of Canada Reads 2026
Katrina Ebuenga, Staff Writer
Battling for the best book this spring season, CBC’s Canada Reads will have book lovers captivated in a literary showdown between authors and celebrities.
Canada Reads offers fans the chance to watch a heated debate take place from April 13 to 16, broadcasted each day on CBC radio. A panel of Canadian celebrities each champion a book on behalf of the author they believe should be Canada’s winning writer.
Fans can tune in and listen to the top contending books battle it out to be Canada’s must-read book of the year. This year’s theme is a book to build bridges, featuring novels that inspire and connect communities.
The competing books include Foe by Iain Reid, The Cure for Drowning by Loghan Paylor, A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt, It’s Different This Time by Joss Richard, and Searching for Terry Punchout by Calgary-based author Tyler Hellard.
Throughout the Canada Reads competition, listeners will have the chance to hear all sides of the story and take part in the elimination process, which happens each day of the competition until one book is crowned.
Celebrate Canada Reads in Calgary
In celebration of Canada Reads’ 25th year, Wordfest presents Calgary’s Canada Reads celebratory event on April 1 at 7 p.m. Held at Memorial Park Library with two of the five finalists, the event will provide readers everything they need to know about these sensational books before the competition begins.
Shelley Youngblut, host of the event and Wordfest’s CEO and creative ringleader, explains that audiences are given a unique experience in these early stages of the competition, experiencing “the exclamation point between the book being written and the book being read.”
Since 2015, Youngblut has been cultivating a remarkable experience that connects readers of all kinds across Calgary, creating a “home-team for Calgarians” to enjoy year after year.
“Our shows are warm and inviting, and the audience is as much a star as the author and the host on the stage,” says Youngblut. “You really feel that as a fan of Canada Reads, as a fan of Canadian literature, you’re in the game too.”
From the two unique authors showcased at the event, P.E.I.-raised and Calgary-based Tyler Hellard, author of Searching for Terry Punchout is one wordsmith to keep an eye and ear out for. Championing his book is Steve “Dangle” Glynn, host of the Steve Dangle Podcast. He integrates elements of hockey with the latest moments in pop culture, branching out his sports-forward content to all kinds of listeners.
In this hockey centred book, readers will be struck with a sense of nostalgia and familiarity to the small hometown setting and the hurdles that come along with it.
Growing up in P.E.I., Hellard is able to encapsulate the feel of a small-town life and showcases the complexities of relationship development and growth. This charming hockey tale intertwines humour with the harder elements of revisiting the past.
Hellard’s competition, It’s Different This Time written by Joss Richard, will have book enthusiasts excited for this second-chance romance debut. The twist of fates of past roommates having to re-kindle their relationship tangled in unresolved feelings will leave readers eager to turn the page.
The champion for this romantic tale is one of Canada’s biggest content creators, Morgann Book, who is a longstanding literary enthusiast and owner of Bookish Media, which spreads all types of book-related content.
At the Calgary event, the stage for Canada Reads is set up differently from the competition’s standard broadcast format, where fans are now able to interact with the author-champions and hear all the insiders scoop to their strategies.
“You’re getting to see two champions and the two authors on stage together,” says Youngblut. “When you’re watching the CBC broadcast, the authors are sitting on the sidelines, at home. They don’t know what’s going to happen and all the pressure falls on the champions.”
Watching the champion and authors’ strategies play out in real-time creates an unique experience and connection for the book-loving community. The celebratory event also prepares champion-authors for the initial competition.
“Our whole philosophy is to encourage people to see books as exciting and reading as exciting and gathering and talking about big ideas as exciting, and this is one tool in our arsenal,” says Youngblut.
Honing the ability to foster a community-based world through ideas, listening and empathy is the antidote that Youngblut believes is very important, especially now.
“I believe that books find you at the right time,” says Youngblut. “For whatever reason, the universe gives you a book, and sometimes the universe will give you a book at the wrong time, and you should just put it aside and wait, and then sometimes it literally falls off your shelf at you.”
Youngblut and her team are driven to bring the best experience forward for fans and the reading community, and through this celebration, Canadians are brought together to further continue the legacy of great literature that connects us all.
“I truly believe that there’s this invisible connection that books have with their intended readers.”
