Wordfest is a not-for-profit arts organization that produces one of Canada's largest international literary festivals, taking place each October in Calgary, Alberta. In addition to the yearly festival, Wordfest also facilitates and hosts year-round events, including poetry and spoken word performances, current event panels, publishing industry workshops, art installations, and youth and multilingual programming. History Wordfest originated as an idea conceived by Donald Stein, then associate director of the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, who in 1996 envisioned the coordination of a southern Albertan writers' festival. He contacted Darlene Quaife, then president of the Writer's Guild of Alberta, and Peter Oliva, then owner of Pages Books on Kensington in Calgary, and together the three "assembled a team that reads like an honour roll of Calgary's literary community at the time" including booksellers, writers, a Calgary Herald books editor, and representatives from the Calgary Public Library and CBC Radio, among others. With Anne Green as festival producer, Wordfest's first festival featured 50 authors and two dozen events over the course of four days. 1997 marked the incorporation of Wordfest as a not-for-profit, and also was the first year of the Summit Salon writers' retreat hosted by the Banff Centre, which immediately followed the festivals for years. Anne Green was the Director of Wordfest from March, 1996 to December, 2010. Jo Steffens was Wordfest's director from December 2010 to 2015; under Steffens' leadership, Wordfest was the recipient of the Rozsa Award in Arts Management for Innovation in 2014. Shelley Youngblut was named interim General Director of Wordfest in May 2015 and in December 2015 became the permanent General Director. Youngblut, previously an editor with The Globe and Mail and a writer with ESPN, has helped Wordfest grow into a "celebration of ideas even more than[...]a celebration of books", expanding its focus to more heavily include the abstract while still maintaining its core literary aspect. In December 2017, Wordfest moved their offices to the second floor of Calgary's Memorial Park Library, which includes a 110-seat "Engagement Lab" where many of Wordfest's readings and other events are held. Events Wordfest's eponymous festival is held annually in October. It features on average 80 writers, both big-name stars and emerging writers, in a mix of 65 events and performances throughout Calgary. The Festival offers a wide variety of public events: readings, panel discussions, interviews, multimedia performances, workshops, cabarets, book signings, literary death matches, spoken word