FOLD – Festival of Literary Diversity

BY: MICHAEL THOMAS 

The city of Brampton will be in a festive mood next weekend.

This mood will be set by none other than author and public speaker Mrs. Jael Ealey Richardson. Mrs. Richardson is the founder of (FOLD) aka Festival of Literary Diversity which is a Brampton based company that is designed to give a voice to underrepresented and marginalized authors and writers who were being overlooked and also to keep it in Brampton. 

When asked how it all started Richardson said, “After going to literary festivals in Canada and the U.S, I noticed that the audience and the authors who were presenting were predominately white and I started asking questions about that then something happened in the states that caused a big controversy about that, and Toronto writer Dalton Higgins wrote a piece about the need for diverse editors, publishers, and festival coordinators and so I said to myself I can do that”

This is how FOLD was born and has been bringing readers, writers, and educators from across Canada to the heart of downtown Brampton since their first festival in 2016 and February 25^th, will be no exception. The featured author that evening will be #1 New York Times bestselling author Angie Thomas.Thomas a Mississippi native who was inspired by the (#BlackLivesMatter) group. Among other things Thomas will discuss her new novel, On the Come Up, a story of fighting for your dreams, and about how, especially for young black people, there is a price to be paid for freedom of speech and her other book The Hate U Give is a book about a young woman whose friend is murdered by police officers and she witnessed the killing. The author will have an hour of interaction with her audience taking questions then she will be available for a book signing after the event.

When asked to describe Thomas, Richardson said, “She is really interested in raising up positive stories about black youths as opposed to what we see in the news today.”

The FOLD founder wanted Toronto Caribbean News to know that there are other upcoming events. On May 2^nd-5^th FOLD will be featuring Esi Edugyan who just won the Giller prize and Cecil Foster who has a book about the first set of black Canadian porters that worked on the trains and from September 27^th-29^th she puts on the FOLD Kids Book Fest also.

In May FOLD will be putting on their fourth festival and their founder emphasizes the importance of social media in all of this “I think that social media is really important to us because so much about marginalized society is the sense that you are alone and with social media it is about connecting people across Canada and the world who want to write, want to tell their stories but feels like there is not enough information, opportunities or support from publishing houses and agents etc.  And having something like FOLD where people can complain about things, celebrate things or take part in things even if they can’t be in the same geographical area is really important,” she said.

Richardson said she gets her inspiration from caring about people and making sure that everyone, not just some people, has the opportunity to share their work widely. She pointed out that most people have a negative view of Brampton and she really hopes to change that.

Richardson noted that all her events take place in downtown Brampton and the festival is being sponsored in part by Audible Books. This particular event on February 25^th will be hosted at the prestigious Rose Theatre Main Stage in Brampton at 7:00 PM. The theatre is located at 1 Theatre Lane, Brampton and admission is pay what you can afford.