The 25th annual Vancouver Writers Fest hits the home stretch with a packed program. On Thursday (October 18) you can take in an all-star lineup of spoken-word artists when the U.K.’s Lemn Sissay joins local heroes Ivan E. Coyote and C.R. Avery for an event titled Word! Later that same day the bill features Redemption, with famed mystery writer Anne Perry and her biographer, Joanne Drayton, who has delved not only into Perry’s bestselling work but also into her involvement decades ago in a murder that would eventually inspire the film Heavenly Creatures.

Friday (October 19) brings a conversation between renowned graphic designer Chip Kidd and cultural Swiss army knife Douglas Coupland, while Saturday (October 20) raises visions of a troubled future by Margaret Atwood, Cory Doctorow, and Pasha Malla.

The whole show wraps up on Sunday (October 21) with The State and the Fate of This Small Blue Planet, an urgent discussion between enviro-sages Tim Flannery and David Suzuki. See the Writer's Fest website for the full program.