Cities burn in the aftermath of political breakdown and the future of society hangs in the balance in the apocalyptic novel from Tomas Hachard. Don’t miss this conversation exploring disturbing dystopias and finding hope for the future. In Hachard’s debut novel, City in Flames, long distance lovers attempt to navigate the usual passions and pitfalls […]
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They say behind every great man is a great woman … why then are the mothers of these great men so often relegated to the footnotes of history? In Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons, award-winning author Charlotte Gray shines a light on the lives of Sara Delano and Jennie Jerome, two very different women who worked […]
Two genre-bending novels that travel across time explore future worlds where ecological catastrophe, media manipulation, and political turmoil collide. Using past, present and future timelines, two expert storytellers paint unsettling visions of a future world devastated by climate crisis, a shifting political terrain and dominant AI. Thomas Wharton’s The Book of Rain follows three intertwining […]
Looking for your happily ever after/second-chance romance? Or curious about the hottest segment in publishing these days? Join bestselling authors Uzma Jalaluddin and Chantel Guertin to discuss their latest novels: Much Ado About Nada, a modern-day romance inspired by Jane Austen’s Persuasion (“It is, in a word, brilliant.” – The New York Times) and Two […]
Love triangles. Redemption arcs. Heroic sacrifices and final girls. A trope is a storytelling device or convention, a shortcut for describing situations the storyteller can reasonably assume the audience will recognize. When it comes to crafting stories, tropes are a writer’s best friend… or worst enemy. Join Wattpad WEBTOON Book Group authors Jessica Cunsolo and […]
Layered with lore and set against the backdrop of a postcard-perfect small town setting, debut novelist Michael Melgaard has crafted a suspense-packed story of a missing girl, family secrets and the niggling feeling that something isn’t quite right. Melgaard takes the stage to discuss his book and what compelled him to explore the dark underbelly of […]
A family teeters on the edge of breakdown against the dazzling backdrop of the Colombian mountains in Héctor Abad’s new novel, The Farm. Exploring themes of landscape and memory, trauma and hope, one of the greatest Latin American writers today reveals a snapshot of what happens when paradise is about to be lost. The story of […]
In the wake of a life-changing loss, one man’s life is irrevocably changed when he decides to follow his fascination with 1920s Paris all the way to the City of Light. With tremendous warmth and sincerity, A New Season by the award-winning author, Terry Fallis is a clarion call to follow the whims and wishes […]
Masters of the macabre Joel A. Sutherland and Jo Treggiari know a thing or two about thrills and chills! Join us for a haunting discussion of their new books, their deepest fears and all the things in the dark that send a shiver down your spine. In his latest, House of Ash and Bone, Sutherland […]
Canadian Literature encompasses the contributions of writers and poets of many different language origins. Bengali origin writers are no less significant in the expansive canon of CanLit. Many of whom, such as Bharati Mukherjee, are represented on the short and long lists of Canada’s major literary awards, including the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Griffin Poetry Prize […]
The Black Box session returns with a live taping of the Humber School for Writers Love & Defiance podcast. Author, filmmaker and Humber School for Writers Creative Director David Bezmozgis will speak with a Humber student who has lived an extraordinary life and turned that experience into art. Does one need to live boldly and […]
The internationally renowned Manga creator, Makoto Yukimura comes to Canada for the first time, offering a rare glimpse behind the scenes of the vivid, vicious world of Vinland Saga, the bestselling books that inspired the hugely popular Netflix adaptation. Spanning 13 volumes, Thorfinn’s quest to avenge his father and find peace in a new land […]
Ready your blade. Defeat the undead. Gideon the Ninth meets the Game of Thrones White Walkers in Bonesmith, a dark fantasy about a disgraced ghost-fighting warrior who must journey into a haunted wasteland. Join Nicki Pau Preto for a dive into her new book; where the dead roam unchecked, enemies must become allies, and a dark […]
Spanning India, Uganda, England and Canada, Janika Oza’s A History of Burning (“A remarkable debut” – The New York Times) explores how one act of survival reverberates across four generations of a family as well as the eternal search for home. Based on a true story, William Seto Ping’s Hollow Bamboo blends memoir, biography, fiction […]
Paranoia and sorrow, loneliness and exhaustion lie in the shadows of two new stories from seasoned and celebrated Canadian writers Marina Endicott and Anna Porter. In both novels, shadows from the past and pain from the present haunt the women at the centre of two stories rife with suspense, anxiety and revelation. Endicott’s The Observer […]
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? – The Summer Day, Mary Oliver Earlier this year, Charles Foran published Just Once, No More, a memoir four years in the making. It covered his relationship with his father and his slow, final decline; it examined the intricacies of who we were, who we become, and […]
Charting the drastic changes to a community over the course of a century, Michel Jean’s Kukum offers an intimate glimpse into the ancestral values of the Innu and the lives and loves of the people affected by the slow death of traditional ways. Grappling with the realities of loss of land, confinement, the lasting violence […]
Author and activist Astra Taylor tackles one of the most complex issues of the present moment – how do we find security when the foundations of society are designed to work against us? Through a genre-defying mixture of memoir, philosophy, social critique and political analysis, Taylor attempts to answer this question for the 2023 Massey […]
Experienced writers and novelists themselves, Carlos Fonseca and Karmele Jaio know there are many paths to becoming a writer. In their newest novels, Austral and My Father’s House, they explore two very different stories about the love of literature, the compulsion to write and the transformative power of stories as the great revealers of truth. […]
Multidisciplinary artist Vivek Shraya presents the journey of How To Fail As A Popstar, her funny, vulnerable and imaginative exploration of failure – from the inception of the one-person stage show in 2020, to publishing a book adaptation in 2021, to creating, writing and starring in the upcoming CBC Gem original series. Premiering this fall, […]
In Arc of Feeling: The History of the Swing, historian Javier Moscoso explains the swing has always been about transformation: as it holds us in its oscillating spell, the swing calls into question the world we know. Long before it entered the urban playgrounds of the 20th century, the swing was a ritual instrument of […]
And, oh, my life, my daughter, the far away sky is cold and very blue. In an expertly woven tale of familial love, betrayal and inheritance, three generations of women come face to face with the legacy left behind by publicly lauded, privately careless poet Phil McDaragh. Anne Enright’s The Wren, The Wren is a […]
Celebrated writer and two-time Giller Prize winner M.G. Vassanji brings his new novel to the stage in an unmissable discussion of what happens when religion, science and desire collide. Everything There Is follows Nurul Islam as his life with his wife and children and his work as a physicist are turned upside down. Dealing with […]
Discover the story of Yasuke, Japan’s first foreign-born samurai and only samurai of African descent, in Craig Shreve’s powerful novel The African Samurai. A magnificent reconstruction and moving study of a lost historical figure, The African Samurai is an enthralling narrative about the tensions between the East and the West and the making of modern […]
