The International Visitors (IV) Programme, in association with the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA), is pleased to announce that author and publisher Errol Sharpe of Fernwood Publishing will be the tenth recipient of the Ivy Award. Given annually to an individual who has made a substantial contribution to Canadian publishing, Errol Sharpe will receive the Ivy Award during the International Visitors (IV) Keynote & Ivy Award event taking place on October 25 at 11am (ET). The free event, which is open to the public and members of the book industry, will also feature Keynote Speaker First Lady of Iceland Eliza Reid. This event takes place during the 42^nd edition of the Toronto International Festival of Authors, running from October 21 to 31, 2021.

“On behalf of the IV Committee, I’d like to extend our congratulations to Errol Sharpe who was selected by the jury for his decades long commitment to publishing irresistible books, for his commitment to Canadian authors and his determination to publish them while in a challenging and ever-shifting publishing landscape. We are so pleased to see Errol’s work at Fernwood recognized with the Ivy Award,” said Carolyn Forde, IV Programme Chair, and Partner, Senior Literary Agent, International Rights Director, President, PACLA (Professional Association of Canadian Literary Agents).

The Ivy Award jury is composed of: Nurjehan Aziz (Publisher, Mawenzi House), Roland Gulliver (Director, Toronto International Festival of Authors), Alison Jones (Publisher, Quill & Quire), Itah Sadu (Author and Co-owner, A Different Booklist), and Kyle Wyatt (Editor-in-Chief, Literary Review of Canada). Past Ivy Award recipients include: Nurjehan Aziz (2020), Anne Collins (2019), Brian Lam (2018), Phyllis Bruce (2017), Linda McKnight (2016), David Kent (2015), Dean Cooke (2014), Louise Dennys (2013), and Scott McIntyre (2012).

Errol Sharpe is a publisher at Fernwood Publishing. He holds an MA in Atlantic Canada Studies from Saint Mary’s University. He is the author of A People’s History of Prince Edward Island (1976) and a co-author of In Pursuit of Justice: Just Us! Coffee Roasters Co-op and the Fair Trade Movement (2014), and Milton Acorn: The People’s Poet with Kent Martin (Fernwood Publishing, 2015). He has authored chapters in a number of books, including “Cloistering Criticism: or Breaking Bonds?”in 21ˢͭ Century Socialism: Reinventing the Project, Henry Ventmeyer, ed. (2011), and “A Precarious Niche: Canadian Owned English Language Publishing in Canada” in Studies in Political Economy, Vol. 100, #1 (2019).