On Friday, Oct. 17, Ted Barris helps kick-off the annual Edmonton LitFest. It’s his first time as a participant in the annual festival of non-fiction writing. The festival has not only invited Ted to join as a featured non-fiction writer, but also to host the opening night at the Alberta Aviation Museum. That evening beginning at 6, Ted will work as MC and help fellow non-fiction writer Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail officially launch her book Polar Winds. The two well-known aviation writers will engage each other in conversation about their respective books. Ted’s book – The Great Escape: A Canadian Story – has been on the bestsellers lists for a year. It explores events leading up to the night of March 24, 1944, when eighty Commonwealth airmen crawled through a 360-foot-long tunnel, code-named “Harry” to escape from Stalag Luft III, a German POW compound near Sagan, Poland. The event became known as “The Great Escape.” What audiences who’ve seen/heard Ted Barris present this story have learned is that “The Great Escape” was in many ways “made in Canada.”

Ted Barris is an author, journalist and broadcaster. As well as hosting appearances on CBC Radio and regular contributions to the National Post and Legion, Air Force and Zoomer magazine, he is a full-time professor of journalism and broadcasting at Centennial College in Toronto. He has authored 17 published, non-fiction books.

In 2011 he received the Canadian Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Commendation and in 2012 the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. On June 2, The Great Escape: A Canadian Story received the 2014 Libris Best Non-Fiction Book Award.