Land Acknowledgement
We respectfully acknowledge that we are on the treaty and traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg people.
We offer our respect and gratitude to the First Peoples for their care for, and teachings about, our earth and our relations.
May we honour those teachings.
Our Beginnings
In 1995, the Lakefield Literary Festival began as a way to commemorate renowned Canadian novelist Margaret Laurence, who called our central Ontario village her home.
Our first two-day event was an overwhelming success due to support from the community together with CBC Radio host Shelagh Rogers, and Shelley Ambrose, Peter Gzowski’s personal assistant.
The annual Lakefield Literary Festival was born.
Photo: Margaret_Laurence on her 60th birthday, July 18,1986
By: David Laurence
Our Mandate
Every year, we look forward to fulfilling our mandate:
To commemorate Catherine Parr Traill, Susanna Moodie, Margaret Laurence, and our community’s ongoing literary heritage; to showcase Canadian authors; and to foster a joy of reading in people of all ages.
Photo: Author Elizabeth MacLeod signs her picture book, Meet Buffy Sainte-Marie for a young reader.
By: Andrew Wolf
Readers and Writers in Community
Author readings and conversations are presented every July at Lakefield College School’s wonderful Bryan Jones theatre while children’s authors entertain in the Children’s Tent downtown at Cenotaph Park.
An afternoon reception offers authors, patrons, and volunteers a chance to mingle, and secondary school student writers who entered their fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry come together to celebrate the results of our annual Young Writers Contest.