By Jacob Alvarado – Event Coordinator, Executive Assistant, & Book Club Host, Giller Prize

This year, I had the honour of representing the Giller Prize at the 2026 San Miguel Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival alongside the 2025 prize winner, Souvankham Thammavongsa. While the conference always features at least one or two prominent Canadians, this year’s festivities were especially representative of Canada’s fiction writers: three of the conference’s eight keynote speakers were Canadian novelists (more than from any other country!), and thanks to prolific author and friend of the prize Merilyn Simonds, I was able to get a sneak peek of some upcoming titles from the many Canadian authors in attendance this year.

WHAT IS THE SAN MIGUEL WRITERS’ CONFERENCE AND LITERARY FESTIVAL?

Founded in 2005, the San Miguel Writers’ Conference & Literary Festival takes place in the picturesque city of San Miguel De Allende in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. Fuelled by its mission to “celebrate the art of writing and reading and forge literary connections across Mexico, The U.S., and Canada,” the conference brings together hundreds of attendees each year from around the world to celebrate literature from across the Americas, combining faculty-led writing workshops with literary panels and keynotes to create a hotspot for community and creativity between authors, readers, and book workers.

Through part-time San Miguel resident and festival speaker Merilyn Simonds, the Giller Prize began an official partnership with the conference in 2020 when it sent Ian Williams to San Miguel to promote his Giller-winning book, Reproduction. Over the past seven years, the Giller has sent several prize winners and finalists to the festival to participate in a dedicated “Giller Spotlight” event, furthering the Giller’s mission to “[champion] the very best of Canadian storytelling” on an international stage.

THE AMERICAS READ: CANADA

Preceded by a scrumptious “Canadian Comida” organized by Merilyn, one of the first events I was able to attend was The Americas Read: Canada, the first of three editions of The Americas Read that gives established and emerging authors from Canada, the U.S., and Mexico the opportunity to share their work with the public. Nine different Canadians gave readings, including fiction writers Lulu Keating from the Yukon, Montreal-native Howard Shrier, and Antolina Ortiz, a Mexican-Canadian author living in Montreal who gave her first-ever public reading in English!

However, what made this event particularly exciting were the writers who were able to share from their upcoming work: 

• Bestselling historical fiction writer Sandra Gulland previewed her forthcoming YA novel about a falconer in Elizabethan England.
• Giller-longlisted writer and translator Wayne Grady previewed his upcoming story collection, The Cartel and Other Cover Stories. 
• Jess Gibson previewed her fiction debut, the story collection The Good Eye, which will be published by Knopf Canada this May!

EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL

Next up was the bestselling author from Merville, BC, Emily St. John Mandel. While she’s  known mostly for her critically acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven, Emily’s also the author of five other novels including The Glass Hotel, which was shortlisted for the Giller Prize in 2020 (and even made it onto Barack Obama’s list of favourite books of 2020).

In a career-spanning interview with author and conference Program Director Danielle Trussoni, Emily spoke eloquently about combining genres in literary fiction, the challenges of balancing family life with a writing career, and her experiences and perspective as a Canadian living in America during the current political moment. This last point was particularly important as it tied into a discussion of Emily’s upcoming novel, Exit Party, which takes place in a near future during the aftermath of a U.S. civil war.

GILLER SPOTLIGHT: SOUVANKHAM THAMMAVONGSA

Following a lively panel discussion that included Emily and Souvankham, Souvankham Thammavongsa took the stage as the conference’s latest Giller Spotlight speaker. Souvankham is a prolific writer across a variety of genres including poetry, essays, and fiction, but is best known for her two full-length, Giller Prize-winning fiction works: 2020’s How to Pronounce Knife, and 2025’s Pick A Colour.

Souvankham’s interviewer was Mark Wunderlich, a poet and executive director of the Bennington Writing Seminars. Beginning with Pick a Colour (including an especially insightful discussion of Souvankham’s experience training as a boxer to better understand her main character), the conversation quickly transitioned into a broader discussion of Souvankham’s writing practice that covered the influence of poetry on her fiction and the inspiration behind her many viral essays (such as “The Poison that Tastes Like Home” about her relationship with her mother). Souvankham also gave a sneak peek of her upcoming story collection, Crush – a collection of stories inspired by different crushes from Souvankham’s own life.

MARGARET ATWOOD

Up until the week of the conference, there was some uncertainty around who the closing keynote speaker would be after Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was unable to attend the festival due to a personal matter. After Chimamanda’s replacement, Ayana Mathis, also had to cancel due to a sudden emergency, literary icon and conference angel patron Margaret Atwood came to the rescue!

When you’ve written The Handmaid’s Tale and a myriad of other classics, you don’t really need an introduction. But it’s important here to note Atwood’s significance to the Giller in particular: She’s a former member of the Giller’s advisory council, a four-time prize juror, won the prize in 1996 for Alias Grace, and has been nominated another three times for Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and The Testaments (2019).

As sharp and profound as ever, what struck me the most about this conversation was how loose, hilarious, and revealing Atwood was throughout the evening: partly because the conversation focused on her memoir The Book of Lives, and partly because she was interviewed by Merilyn Simonds, her friend of over 40 years. Some of the highlights of the discussion included:

• A mishap involving Atwood’s husband Graeme Gibson getting stuck on the roof of their Pelee Island cottage.
• A recounting of Atwood’s first-ever book launch for The Edible Woman in the men’s underwear and sock department at a Hudson’s Bay in Edmonton.
• A description of a legal battle that took place over season 1 of The Handmaid’s Tale involving a “wizard” who objected to the show using a pagan pendant he made without his permission (yes, really).

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Reaching the end of the festival was tough for a lot of reasons: I connected with so many wonderful Canadian writers and readers, was wowed by every speaker I heard, and had grown very used to the warmth of Mexico in February. But above all, I left with a sense of excitement for the bright future of Canadian literature – and its current place on the international stage as a diverse, entertaining, and insightful collection of work that continues to push boundaries and inspire readers from around the world. A massive thanks to everyone at the San Miguel Writers’ Conference & Literary Festival for all that you do to support the literary community and Canadian writing!

Save the date! Next year’s conference will take place February 10-14, 2027, with early bird pricing available until March 30, 2026. Visit sanmiguelwritersconference.org to learn more.