Welcome to FOLD in the News!
This is the monthly round up of the Festival of Literary Diversity’s media coverage.
FOLD director Jael Richardson on a decade at the helm (Quill & Quire)
January 29, 2025
As founder and executive director of the Festival of Literary Diversity, Jael Richardson has had to oversee a lot of unexpected disruptions during the festival’s first decade – not least of which was the FOLD’s complete pivot to an all-virtual event in 2020. In only six weeks, Richardson and her team shifted the 25 in-person events planned for the festival to an all-Zoom, online-only lineup.
That nimble response to an abrupt change in circumstances is characteristic of how Richardson sees her role – and that of the FOLD itself – in the larger Canadian book industry. And that unexpected shift to an all-virtual platform led the festival to embrace the identity it currently has as a multi-modal festival.
How It Started: Back in March 2016, around the time of the first Festival of Literary Diversity, Jael also appeared in Quill & Quire. Read about how the FOLD was started.
“A Decade of Change” Canadian Reading Challenge Highlights Diverse Voices (CBC North by North West)
January 19, 2025
Jael Richardson, founder and executive director of the FOLD, talks about the 2025 Reading Challenge on CBC North by Northwest. Under the FOLD’s 10th anniversary theme of “A Decade of Change,” this year’s Reading Challenge highlights twelve books by Canadian authors, published in the last decade that have shaped the way Canadians read.
Stuck in a reading rut? Here’s how to get out (CBC All in a Weekend)
January 18, 2025
If reading more or expanding the types of books you choose is on your list of things to do this year, we’ve got someone who can help. Jael Richardson, founder and director of the Festival of Literacy Diversity tells us about the 12-month reading challenge they’ve put together featuring Canadian authors from a wide range of genres and cultural backgrounds.
