Filipino-Canadian Book Festival Returns in August 2026 with Keynote Adrian De Leon

Vancouver, BC — After taking a year to rest, reflect, and dream, the Filipino-Canadian Book Festival is returning in 2026 for a weekend of literature, storytelling, and community.

Taking place August 14–17, 2026 at the Museum of Vancouver and VS Creative Labs, the festival will bring together close to 30 authors across panels, workshops, a marketplace, and community programming. Presented in partnership with Iron Dog Books, this year’s festival will feature acclaimed writer and public historian Adrian De Leon as keynote speaker.

Born in Manila and raised in Scarborough, Adrian De Leon is the author of several books, including Bundok: A Hinterland History of Filipino America (2023), Balikbayan: A Revenant History of the Filipino Homeland (2026), and Notes from a Wayward Son: A Memoir (2026). A prolific writer, historian, and scholar, De Leon’s work has helped shape urgent conversations around Filipino history, diaspora, migration, memory, and belonging. He currently teaches American and Philippine histories at New York University.

This year’s theme, “Writing Our Diaspora: Literature Across Generations,” invites audiences to consider diaspora as something living, expansive, and ever-changing — shaped across generations, geographies, languages, and communities.

While rooted in Filipino/a/x stories, the festival continues to grow as an intercultural space where communities can gather around interconnected experiences of immigration, intergenerational memory and trauma, and the importance of finding community in IBPOC-prioritized spaces.

“After our year away, we’re returning with so much gratitude, care, and excitement,” says the Filipino-Canadian Book Festival team. “This year’s theme asks us to think about what we inherit, what we carry, and what we create together. We are honoured to welcome such an incredible group of writers, artists, and community members into this space.”

The festival’s 2026 visual identity is created by Mar Cortez, a Vancouver-based multidisciplinary artist whose work explores Filipino folklore and pre-colonial history through a contemporary lens.

In Cortez’s artwork, diaspora becomes a place where stories accumulate, overlap, and continue. Gestural forms inspired by Baybayin move through the composition like a living script — a visual echo of migration, memory, and the many ways stories are carried across time. Layered with regional textile patterns, land and sea references, circular forms, and the bangka, the artwork honours the distinct roots of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao while allowing them to intersect, blend, and become something new.

At the heart of the piece is the malunggay leaf. Used in folk medicine and everyday nourishment, malunggay becomes a metaphor for the stories that sustain us: the knowledge passed down through families, the care that travels across generations, and the healing that comes from remembering where we come from. Like literature, it feeds us through time.

Alongside in-person panels, workshops, and marketplace programming, the 2026 festival will also include virtual panels and a children’s storytelling event in December, extending the festival’s commitment to accessibility, intergenerational connection, and community-building beyond the main festival weekend.

Further venue and programming details will be announced online through the Museum of Vancouver’s website and social media. Audiences are encouraged to stay tuned on the Filipino-Canadian Book Festival’s website and social media for author announcements, schedule details, and additional community programming.

The Filipino-Canadian Book Festival gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, whose funding has made the return of the festival possible and helped bring this celebration of literature, storytelling, and community to life.

For updates, follow the Filipino-Canadian Book Festival online at @filcanbookfest and www.filcanbookfest.com

Media kit can be found here.

Media Contact:

Domenic De Los Santos

Communications Specialist, Filipino-Canadian Book Festival

domenicdls@gmail.com

About the Filipino-Canadian Book Festival

The Filipino-Canadian Book Festival is a literary and community gathering dedicated to celebrating Filipino/a/x and Filipino-Canadian writers, artists, storytellers, and readers. Rooted in literature, cultural memory, and community care, the festival creates space for conversations around diaspora, identity, migration, history, creativity, and the stories that connect us across generations.