In their books, Property and Runs in the Blood both Kate Cayley and Matthew J. Trafford write about queer experiences as they relate to chosen families. Join us as they talk about the various themes, such as the complexity of intimacy and interpersonal relationships, that surface when writing about family, chosen or otherwise. Moderated by […]
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Join Terese Mason Pierre and Chinelo Onwalu as they confront and expand society’s preconceived notions around Blackness, particularly as it relates to Canadians. Let’s dig into what that means, how that works, and where we go from here. Moderated by Zilla Jones Diaspora Dialogues (DD) supports emerging voices from across Canada to turn their craft […]
Patchen Barss is a Toronto-based science journalist, author, and speaker. His biography, The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius, was named one of the top science and technology books for 2024 by Kirkus Reviews, The Financial Times, and The Telegraph. It tells the story of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who would prove […]
Join Palestinian Canadian writer and filmmaker Ziyad Saadi and acclaimed Jordanian author and activist Fadi Zaghmout for a powerful conversation on masculinity, identity and the quiet revolutions of everyday life. Darkly funny, and full of surprises, Saadi’s Three Parties pays twisted homage to Virginia Woolf’s literary classic, Mrs. Dalloway – gleefully upending the western coming-out […]
Join Giller Prize-winning authors Souvankham Thammavongsa and Ian Williams for a rich conversation on intimacy, agency, loneliness, labour, and class. Thammavongsa’s Pick a Colour traces a single day in a nail salon, where Ning, a former boxer, contends with power, class, and invisibility, and explore the interior worlds of characters navigating systems that seek to […]
Step into two fraught periods of history, and join authors Nathan Harris and Patrick Tarr for a gripping conversation about survival, memory, and the haunting legacies of war. Harris’s Amity plunges readers into the perilous aftermath of the Civil War, following emancipated siblings Coleman and June as they attempt to reunite across the deserts of […]
Delve into two unforgettable stories of love and transformation with Alejandro Heredia and David Wright Faladé. Heredia’s spellbinding debut, Loca, follows Sal and Charo, two best friends from Santo Domingo, as they navigate migration, queerness, and chosen family in 1990s New York City. In contrast, The New Internationals transports readers to post-war Paris, where young […]
As a regular columnist for the Globe & Mail, Andrew Coyne is one of Canada’s most esteemed political thinkers, and is perfectly positioned to offer wisdom and insight into the threats facing Canada’s identity and sovereignty in 2025. In The Crisis of Canadian Democracy, he offers a powerful examination of the nation’s democratic institutions, the […]
From the gender pressures and injustices rife in 1920s Korea, to those that persist in modern day Korean society, Ann Y. K. Choi and Cho Nam-Joo offer up stories with deeply human portrayals of female resilience. Choi’s sweeping journey through historical Korea, All Things Under the Moon, follows one seemingly ordinary, uneducated young woman living […]
Step into history, love, and stories of resilience with authors Christine Estima and Martha Bátiz. Estima’s debut novel Letters to Kafka brings to life translator and resistance fighter Milena Jesenská, whose intense correspondence and fleeting romance with Franz Kafka reveal the struggles of a woman torn between love, marriage, and intellectual freedom in post-war Europe. […]
Sit down with Pulitzer-prize finalist Adam Haslett and four-time Giller Prize nominee Shani Mootoo for an illuminating talk on the power of storytelling to confront memory, reshape identity, and test the familial bonds that define who we are. In his latest novel, Mothers and Sons, Haslett follows Peter, a solitary immigration lawyer, and his estranged […]
Grab a slice of cake, a cup of tea, and spend the morning with Catherine Newman and Zeina Sleiman, whose new novels explore the bonds and fractures of family life. Wreck, Newman’s warm and witty follow-up to Sandwich, turns a sharp eye to marriage, parenting, and the absurdities of everyday life. Alongside her, Sleiman will […]
Join us for an event with award-winning Canadian poet Canisia Lubrin, as she reads from and reflects on her latest work, The World After Rain. In this radiant elegy for her mother, Lubrin invites us into a world transformed by storms – both personal and collective – where survival, community, and possibility emerge in luminous […]
Step into an event where stories cross borders, genres, and states of mind. Join two remarkable voices from across Asia and the diaspora, each reshaping how we think about memory, travel, and survival. Sheung-King’s Batshit Seven pushes the boundaries of surreal fiction, blending absurd humor with sharp explorations of youth and digital identity. Terao Tetsuya’s […]
What is CanLit? What is it to be a part of CanLit? Join authors Jinwoo Park and Nadia Staikos as they discuss their works and what it is to be a Canadian-based author who writes about characters in different countries and how their books and books like theirs contribute to the characterization of CanLit. Moderated […]
This panel features writers Sanita Fejzić and Jumoke Verissimo, whose works, Blissful State of Surrender and Circumtrauma, examine and parse the impact of war on identity and community in two different genres and two different forms. Moderated by Denise DaCosta Diaspora Dialogues (DD) supports emerging voices from across Canada to turn their craft into a […]
Grab a slice of cake, a cup of tea, and step into a dialogue between two powerful contemporary voices, exploring cultural inheritance and the universal search for meaning and connection. Fatma Aydemir and Jonas Hassen Khemiri will look deeply at family dynamics, generational memory, and the ties that bind us across time and place. In […]
Serhii Plokhy is one of our preeminent Cold War historians, with his book Chernobyl winning the Baillie Gifford Non-Fiction Prize and subject of a hugely successful television adaptation. His new book, The Nuclear Age is a sweeping history of the geopolitics that have defined the 20th century: the nuclear arms race – from the fallacy […]
In 2025, the second Presidency of Donald Trump has ripped up the rulebook of what we understand the United States of America to be, dismantling many of the institutions that have been the pillars of the country. He also has sought to rewrite and shape Americans’ understanding of the past. David Shribman has spent a […]
Brian Stewart was for decades one of the Canada’s most prominent television journalists and was acclaimed for his foreign coverage for the CBC. He interviewed many of the historic figures of his time, including Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher, Salman Rushdie, and Henry Kissinger. Now, for the first time, in On the Ground, he is sharing […]
Garth Risk Hallberg, author of the bestselling City of Fire, has edited The Uncollected Stories of Mavis Gallant, a new collection by one of Canada’s great writers. Gallant wrote over 100 short stories, many published in the New Yorker, her craft honed through her work as a journalist living in Montreal, New York and Paris. […]
While viewers were gripped by Succession on television, the real boardroom battle for control of the Rogers telecom family empire played out on the public stage with equally dramatic plot twists and revelations. The bestselling book, Rogers v. Rogers: The Battle for Control of Canada’s Telecom Empire by Alexandra Posadzki has now been adapted for […]
Join two of Canada’s notable Indigenous authors as they discuss their two non-fiction titles geared towards Indigenous education and healing in the community. Inuk artist Susan Aglukark dicusses her memoir, Kihiani: A Memoir of Healing, and her experience healing from a traumatic event and how music helped the process. From bestselling author of the Misewa […]
What do you do when your past comes back to haunt you? Hear from novelist and actor Richard Armitage as he discusses his latest thriller The Cut. Thirty years after his group of friends is involved in the murder of a classmate, Ben is a successful architect and seems to have everything under control – […]
