St. John's Storytelling Festival: Elder Alex Saunders
Date: Oct 16
7:00 pm
- 8:00 pm
Where: Theatre
Storytelling Festival
Join us for an engaging storytelling session with Inuit Elder Alex Saunders, whose captivating storytelling is rooted in Inuit, Innu, and Labrador traditions. A Q&A will follow.
Tickets: $12 ( plus HST). Free for Rooms Members. Get your tickets online or by calling (709 )757-8090.
About the Speaker:
Alex Saunders, born in the original hamlet of Davis Inlet in 1940, is an Inuit Elder of mixed ancestry, with Innu and British Heritage. Though naturally gifted in storytelling, Alex only recently embraced his passion for writing. His work is dedicated to preserving the stories, traditions, and culture of the Inuit, while also offering insight into the adventurous spirit of Labrador’s Indigenous communities.
Alex was awarded the Lawrence Jackson Writers Award in 2017 for History of My Fishing Life. In 2016, he received the Northern Public Affairs Emerging Writers Award, and in 2020, he won the Percy Janes First Novel Award.
Events & Programs
This event has been cancelled due to illness. Tickets will be refunded. A new date will be announced when confirmed.
Have you ever wondered about the connections between creativity and neurodivergence, such as autism, ADHD, or dyslexia? From attention to detail to pattern recognition and language originality, neurodivergent artists can display talents that could be considered advantages.
Join us for a moderated panel discussion with Dr. Andreae Callanan and Dr. Kate Lahey, who will talk about how neurodivergent people express creativity in unique, unconventional ways.
Part of the discussion will address some challenges for neurodivergent artists during and following the creative process, such as executive functioning, sleep disturbances, and burnout. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions following the presentation.
Cost: $12 plus HST. Free for Rooms members. Register online or by calling (709) 757-8090.
About the Panelists:
Andreae Callanan holds a PhD in English from Memorial and serves as co-convener of the Research and Knowledge Exchange on Critical Disability Studies at the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Applied Health Research. Her debut poetry collection, The Debt (Biblioasis, 2021), was shortlisted for the E. J. Pratt Family Poetry Prize and was a runner-up in the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry. Andreae’s creative and critical writing has been published in Riddle Fence, The Walrus, Newfoundland Quarterly, Canadian Notes & Queries, Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, and in Best Canadian Essays 2026. She lives in St. John’s.
Dr. Kate Lahey holds a PhD from the University of Toronto, is the front person of the band Weary, and writes arts criticism. As a musician, writer, scholar, community organizer, and postdoctoral fellow at Memorial’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, her research centers on trauma-informed values such as healing, care, empathy, and social justice.