Alma Lee, the founder of Vancouver Writers Fest, has died at the age of 84, according to family and friends.
A writer champion and the written word, Lee helped launch the First International Writers Festival of Vancouver in 1988 and also helped to found the Union of Writers of Canada and the confidence of the writers of Canada.
Vancouver Writers Fest events attract 30,000 attendees annually, according to their website. Over the years, the festival has allowed readers to listen to established authors, such as Lee’s friend Margaret Atwood, and provided a springboard for new emerging writers.
Atwood told CBC News that he worked with Lee in the 1970s to help form the union of writers of Canada, which describes herself as the National Organization of Professionally published writers.
“She was absolutely essential for the Union of Writers and founded the Festival of Readers and Writers in Vancouver,” Atwood said. “All these things require a lot of work and many networks, and she was very good in that.”
Lee was born on May 5, 1940 in Edinburgh, Scotland, daughter of a bagpipe manufacturer who was an avid reader. She emigrated to Canada in 1967.
Atwood described Lee at that time as a “little Scottish hippie” who “was always full of enthusiasm.”
“All our things we were doing in the 70s came out of an enthusiasm for Canada … That was our motivation,” he said.
Lee played a key role in the formation of the writers’ guild and served as its first executive director.
“No one knew anything about contracts at that time,” said Atwood. “We did not know what they were supposed to be in them. There were no agents … those were some of our problems, and that is why we formed the union and soul was the person who organized everything and kept everything.”
Lee also served as executive director of the Trust of writers of Canada, who describes herself as a charitable organization that supports Canadian writers.
Festival of Writers highlighted the newcomers
Later he would focus his attention on forming the Vancouver International Writers Festival. Speaking to CBC News in 1995, Lee said the festival was designed to “give people a fantastic opportunity to interact live with writers.”
Over the years, the festival has hosted notable writers such as Atwood, Miriam Toews, Carol Shields, John Irving and Salman Rushdie.
As Founding Executive Director of the Union of Writers of Canada and the development of Trust Writers, Alma Lee was the driving force for the beginning of the International Festival of Writers and Readers of Vancouver (now known as the @Vanwritersfest). pic.twitter.com/zoq2sriwdp
Leslie Hurtig, the current artistic director of the festival, met Lee for more than 25 years. She said that when Lee created the Writers Festival in 1988, she brought a Scottish format for the Literary Festival, inherited from the Edinburgh Book Festival.
“He used that same model, which is discussion panels, individual conversations and readings, not only established and known writers, but also emerging writers, sharing a stage together,” Hurtig told CBC News.
“He would not only put Margaret Atwood on stage. He would put Margaret Atwood on stage with an emerging writer so that his voices could be maintained and given the same space.”
Hurtig said that Lee was driven and incredibly organized, and that when he believed in something, he would fight for it.
“That could stir the feathers sometimes,” said Hurtig. “But it also resulted in an incredible quality of events, quality of friendships.
“And I have nothing more than respect for that kind of activism. I admire it a lot. I think there was a fire inside it.”
Lee was invested in the order of Canada in 2005.
His children, Kenny and Alan survive. An exact cause of death was not released, but Hurtig said Lee died at home surrounded by family and friends.
