Join Massy Books, McClelland & Stewart, the Museum of Vancouver, Bronwen Tate, and Billy-Ray Belcourt, for the launch of an idea of an entire life on September 23 at 7pm!
We ask that you assess your proximity to privilege and register via donation if you're able. Books will be for sale at the event, with a book signing to follow.
Date: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Time: 7:00pm–8:00pm
Tickets: Free RSVP
Venue: Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut St, Vancouver, BC
Wheelchair accessible
Gender-neutral washroom
Scent-free space
Masks recommended but not required
Please note that photos or video may be captured at this event and used for promotional or reporting purposes. If you do not wish to be photographed, please let organizers know.
If tickets are sold out and you would like to be added to the waitlist, please email info@massybooks.com
About the Book:
In The Idea of An Entire Life
In The Idea of An Entire Life, Belcourt delivers an intimate examination of twenty-first-century anguish, love, queerness, and political possibility. Through lyric verse, sonnets, fieldnotes, and fragments, the poems, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes slyly humorous, are always finely crafted, putting to use the autobiographical and philosophical style that has come to define Belcourt’s body of work. By its close, the collection makes the urgent argument that we are each our own little statues of grief and awe.
About the Author:
Billy-ray Belcourt
Billy-ray Belcourt (he/him) is from the Driftpile Cree Nation in northwest Alberta. He won the Griffin Poetry Prize for his debut collection This Wound is a World. He has twice been nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award—once in poetry for the debut and in non-fiction for his memoir, A History of My Brief Body. Both his works of fiction, A Minor Chorus and Coexistence, were national bestsellers. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia.
About the Moderator:
Bronwen Tate
Bronwen Tate is the author of the poetry collection The Silk the Moths Ignore. She is an Associate Professor of Teaching and Undergraduate Chair in the School of Creative Writing at UBC in Vancouver. A Practical Guide to Teaching Creative Writing: Supporting Inclusive Pedagogy, a collaboration with John Vigna, is forthcoming with Bloomsbury Academic in Spring 2026.
