Fire Weather, Life + Work: A Conversation with John Vaillant

100 Years in the Making | This event is organized in support of ECU 100, Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s centennial anniversary.

Please join us for an evening of insight and conversation with acclaimed writer and journalist John Vaillant. In this public talk, he will explore themes of ecological design, climate action, and environmental storytelling—urgent topics shaping our collective future. In conversation with Interim Dean of the Audain Faculty of Art, Amory Abbott, Vaillant will also reflect on the role that art and art education play in addressing pressing environmental issues, from climate change and ecological crisis to the growing impact of wildfire events.

EVENT DETAILS
Location: Reliance Theatre, Emily Carr University of Art + Design
Date: October 22, 2025
Time: 7:00pm to 8:00pm

BIO

John Vaillant is an author and freelance writer based in Vancouver, BC whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and The Guardian, among others. His journalism, fiction, and non-fiction explore collisions between human ambition and the natural world.

His latest book is the 2024 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in General Nonfiction, Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World (Knopf, 2023), a stunning account of a colossal wildfire and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind. In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry and America’s biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world. With masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillant takes us ona riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America’s oil industry and the birth of climate science, to the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern forest fires, and into lives forever changed by these disasters. Vaillant’s urgent work is a book for—and from—our new century of fire, which has only just begun.

ABOUT EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN
Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECU) is where creativity meets practice. As Canada’s leading art and design university, ECU offers hands-on, practice-based learning that equips students to experiment, take risks and drive innovation.

Since 1925, ECU has championed bold ideas and emerging talent through a close-knit, interdisciplinary environment that connects students with award-winning faculty, cutting-edge facilities, studio spaces and real-world opportunities. Based in Vancouver, ECU serves more than 2,400 undergraduate and graduate students, with thousands more engaged through continuing studies.

As we celebrate a century of creative leadership, we continue to ask what art and design can make possible. 100 years in the making, we are shaping what comes next.

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