Surrey writers’ conference returns in 2026 after strike cancelled 2025 event

The Surrey International Writers’ Conference (SiWC) returns to the Sheraton Vancouver Guildford Hotel from Oct. 23 to 25, 2026, with in-person and online options. Master classes are scheduled for Oct. 21 and 22. Last year’s conference was cancelled because of a strike at the hotel that has long hosted the event.

On Thursday evening, Oct. 22, writers Susanna Kearsley, Iryn Tushabe and Diana Gabaldon will take part in a reading and book-signing event at Central City Shopping Centre, hosted by Sean Cranbury. Doors open at 6 p.m. RSVPs are required at blackbondbooks.com (https://www.blackbondbooks.com/events/6520520261022).

Gabaldon, a frequent SiWC presenter, wrote the hit Outlander novels. Kearsley is a former museum curator whose biography says she loves restoring the lost voices of real people to the page, often through multi-stranded stories interweaving the present with the past, or one distant past with another. Ugandan-Canadian writer and journalist Tushabe has published nonfiction in The Walrus, among other publications.

Conference co-ordinator Kathy Chung said registration closes Friday, Oct. 16, at 5 p.m. Space is “very limited” in all registration packages and master classes. Organizers launched a fundraiser after the 2025 conference was cancelled.

“We’re delighted to report that the strike has been resolved, the hotel is back to regular operations, and we’re set to return to our home of more than 30 years this October,” Chung wrote in January. She said it was the first year since SiWC began in 1993 that the conference did not take place.