R.F. Kuang’s Ottawa Writers Festival appearances, from Babel to Taipei Story
R.F. Kuang has appeared at the Ottawa International Writers Festival three times since 2022, most recently for Taipei Story in September 2026.
Photo credit: Toby Madden, 2025. R.F. Kuang
R.F. Kuang has appeared at the Ottawa International Writers Festival three times in the festival’s current author archive: in 2022 for an event built around Babel, in 2023 for Yellowface, and in 2026 for Taipei Story. The visits fall at three different points in Kuang’s recent publishing career, from an Ottawa appearance within two months of Babel’s North American release to a Yellowface conversation held just before publication day and, most recently, a sold-out in-person event for Taipei Story.
For readers searching for Kuang’s Ottawa appearances, those three festival events are the clearest documented chronology. The festival archive does not list an additional Kuang appearance before 2022 or between the three confirmed dates.
2022: Babel and Strike Back The Empires
Kuang’s first appearance in the Ottawa International Writers Festival archive came on Oct. 21, 2022, at Christ Church Cathedral. The event, titled Strike Back The Empires, paired Kuang with J.M. Miro, author of Ordinary Monsters, and was hosted by Kate Heartfield.
Babel had been published less than two months earlier. Harper Voyager released the North American edition on Aug. 23, 2022, with the UK hardback following on Sept. 1. The festival paired the two recently published novels in one event rather than presenting Kuang in a standalone book conversation.
The event was primarily in person, although the festival offered a livestream option for ticket holders who could not attend. Viewers had to request a link, which the festival said would remain active for 48 hours. The 2022 event is not listed as a currently available video in the festival’s public archive.
2023: Yellowface arrived in Ottawa before publication day
Kuang returned to the festival on May 13, 2023, for Yellowface, this time in a dedicated event hosted by Ellen Chang-Richardson at St John the Evangelist on Somerset Street West.
William Morrow published Yellowface in North America on May 16, three days after the Ottawa event. Festival audiences were therefore hearing Kuang discuss the novel immediately before its official North American release.
The festival again made remote attendance possible, advertising livestream tickets by request alongside the in-person program. A current search of the festival’s video archive did not locate a Yellowface recording, so there is no verified public replay to point readers to now.
2026: Taipei Story and a formal streaming archive
Kuang’s third confirmed Ottawa International Writers Festival appearance took place Sept. 28, 2026, at Knox Presbyterian Church. Taipei Story had been published Sept. 8, and the Ottawa event followed less than three weeks later. Heartfield returned as host.
The festival presented the evening as a Special Presentation and listed it as both in person and streaming. In-person tickets sold out, while online access remained part of the event’s ticketing structure. Unlike the temporary livestream arrangement documented in 2022, the 2026 event now appears in the festival’s on-demand video catalogue, with access gated to viewers with the appropriate event ticket or an active festival streaming subscription.
Of Kuang’s three documented Ottawa festival appearances, Taipei Story is the only one currently verified in the festival’s on-demand archive. The festival’s public listing does not establish whether the archived video is an edited or complete recording, so it is safest to describe it simply as the on-demand event video.
Are there other R.F. Kuang appearances in Ottawa?
The Ottawa International Writers Festival’s own author archive currently identifies the 2022, 2023 and 2026 events as Kuang’s three appearances with the festival. Searches of other Ottawa literary venues and organizations did not turn up another significant public Kuang appearance that could be independently verified for this chronology. A 2026 listing from Ottawa’s Perfect Books, for example, refers to the same Taipei Story festival event rather than a separate bookstore appearance.
As of Oct. 4, 2026, the festival archive therefore gives three documented Kuang appearances in Ottawa: Babel in 2022, Yellowface in 2023 and Taipei Story in 2026. The three events span four years of the festival’s literary programming and three different books in Kuang’s recent publishing career.
