Zalika Reid-Benta (right) presented her novel River Mumma to the Morrin Centre audience on the last day of the Imagination Writers’ Festival on April 14. She said she wrote the book during the pandemic to give herself something to do. The novel tells the story of Alicia, who is sent on a quest by a Jamaican water deity. Reid-Benta said she writes books for her younger self, who was drawn to fantastic and magical realism. She explained to the audience at the Imagination Writers’ Festival that while trying to write a high fantasy novel, she stopped midsentence and wrote the first two chapters of River Mumma – a quest-like adventure story set in Toronto. (SE) (Photo by Sarah Elworthy)