The Filipino Canadian Book Festival was created with love by a small team of Filipinas in 2023, and has been dreamed up, organized, and brought to life by Dani Alcalde-Sidloski, Nathalie De Los Santos, Asia Alcalde-Sidloski and Dee de los Santos ever since.
In 2023, Nathalie went to the Liwanag Book Festival in Long Beach. She was impressed by how much love Jhoanna Belfor and her team put into the festival and wished for something like it in Canada. She expressed this idea to a founding member, Maria Bolaños, who she met at the festival. Nathalie and Maria are both authors who bonded over their love of words.
Maria was inspired by this and reached out to Dani, a Vancouver-based bookseller. The three connected and the dream began with the inaugural Filipino Canadian Book Festival in 2024. The first festival was a huge success, with over 500 attendees and reaching 28+ million people via media. On July 12-14, 2024 the festival celebrated Filipino culture and literary brilliance, and featured a keynote by award-winning author, Catherine Hernandez. There were book signings and panel talks with Fil-Can authors; family-friendly workshops; open mic readings to showcase both emerging and established literary talent; musical entertainment; a marketplace and book fair for Filipino local businesses and our partners.
Following the festival were book clubs and a Christmas children’s storytelling event Pasko! In 2025, in response to Lapu Lapu Day, the team shifted to grief-centered support than a full festival. Dani and Asia created the Place to Be Grief Library, a free, community library with books centered on grief, healing, and Filipino identity. The entire team worked on Gathering Our Breath: Remembering Lapu Lapu Day 2025, a self-funded, community anthology which spotlighted community members’ thoughts, prayers, responses, art, photos and writing in the wake of the tragedy.
In 2026, the festival returned on August 14-17, 2026. The festival featured 32 authors, artists and creatives from across Canada join us at the Museum of Vancouver and VS Creative Labs. The prolific and celebrated writer and scholar, Adrian De Leon was the keynote speaker. There were book signings and panel talks with Fil-Can authors; a Baybayin workshop with Sulat Collective, a local FilCan artisan marketplace, an opening show of musicians and performers, and an open mic to the community.
The team hopes to continue at a biannual frequency, and in the non-festival years do community events to learn directly from the community we serve.