Vancouver Writers Fest founder Alma Lee dies at 84

Alma Lee, the laminitis of the Vancouver Writers Fest, has died astatine the property of 84, according to household and friends. 

A champion for writers and the written word, Lee helped motorboat the archetypal Vancouver International Writers Festival successful 1988 and besides helped recovered the Writers' Union of Canada and the Writers' Trust of Canada.

Vancouver Writers Fest events gully 30,000 attendees annually, according to its website. Over the years, the festival has allowed readers to perceive from established authors, specified arsenic Lee's person Margaret Atwood, and provided a springboard for new, emerging writers. 

Atwood told CBC News she worked with Lee successful the 1970s to assistance signifier the Writers' Union of Canada, which describes itself arsenic the nationalist enactment of professionally published writers.

"She was perfectly indispensable to the writers' national and she founded the Readers and Writers Festival successful Vancouver," Atwood said. "These things each instrumentality a batch of enactment and a batch of networking, and she was precise bully astatine that."

Lee was calved connected May 5, 1940, successful Edinburgh, Scotland, the girl of a bagpipe-maker who was an avid reader. She immigrated to Canada successful 1967.

Atwood described Lee successful that epoch arsenic a "little Scottish hippie" who was "always conscionable afloat of enthusiasm."  

"All of our things that we were doing successful the '70s came retired of an enthusiasm for Canada … that was our motivation," she said.

Lee played a cardinal relation successful forming the writers' guild and served arsenic its archetypal enforcement director.

"Nobody knew thing astir contracts astatine that time," Atwood said. "We didn't cognize what was expected to beryllium successful them. There weren't immoderate agents.… Those were immoderate of our problems, and that's wherefore we formed the national and Alma was the idiosyncratic who organized it each and kept everything going."

Lee besides served arsenic enforcement manager of the Writers' Trust of Canada, which describes itself arsenic a charitable enactment that supports Canadian writers.

Writers' festival highlighted newcomers

She would aboriginal crook her attraction to forming the Vancouver International Writers Festival. Speaking to CBC News successful 1995, Lee said the festival was designed to "give radical a fantastic accidental to interact unrecorded with writers."

Over the years, the festival has hosted noted writers specified arsenic Atwood, Miriam Toews, Carol Shields, John Irving and Salman Rushdie. 

Leslie Hurtig, the existent creator manager of the festival, knew Lee for implicit 25 years. She said that erstwhile Lee created the writers' festival successful 1988, she brought implicit a Scottish format for the literate fest, inherited from the Edinburgh Book Festival.

"She utilized that aforesaid model, which is sheet discussions, one-on-one conversations and readings — featuring not lone established and well-known writers, but besides emerging writers, sharing a signifier together," Hurtig told CBC News.

"She wouldn't conscionable enactment Margaret Atwood connected stage. She'd enactment Margaret Atwood connected signifier with an emerging writer truthful that their voices could beryllium held up and fixed adjacent space."

Hurtig said Lee was driven and incredibly organized, and that erstwhile she believed successful something, she would combat for it.

"That could ruffle feathers sometimes," Hurtig said. "But it besides resulted successful unthinkable prime of events, prime of friendships.

"And I person thing but respect for that benignant of activism. I respect it greatly. I deliberation determination was a occurrence wrong her."

Lee was invested into the Order of Canada successful 2005.

She is survived by her sons, Kenny and Alan. An nonstop origin of decease was not released, but Hurtig said Lee died astatine location surrounded by household and friends.