One of Toronto’s largest poetry showcases returns for a fourth Festival appearance. This high-energy slam is a presentation in two parts: a performance by award-winning Nova Scotia author and artist Andre Fenton, along with a competition between some of Toronto’s most engaging spoken-word artists. The host for the evening is Ian Keteku. Lean in and […]
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Canadian lawyer Catherine McKenzie and award-winning journalist Katrina Onstad tackle the concept of identity, the ways it can be taken away, and the redefining of oneself, in their suspenseful new novels, You Can’t Catch Me and Stay Where I Can See You. Lift the curtain on these page-turning stories in this rousing double interview. Interviewer: Marissa Stapley English […]
Authors in candid, live conversation reflect on the topics that matter most during this unprecedented time. In this presentation, authors and experts unpack the complexity of the November 3 US election, from the political to the absurd, identifying what’s at stake for our southern neighbours and for the rest of the world. Tune in each […]
Arts curator and producer Timea Wharton-Suri interviews Canadian choreographer and founder of MAYDAY dance company, Mélanie Demers, about finding inspiration in storytelling and literature. In this pre-recorded interview, Demers will discuss her creative process, and how the book Sapiens, by Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari, inspired the choreographic language demonstrated in her work Animal Triste […]
Award-winning American scientist and scientific writer Ainissa Ramirez will take us on a clever and engaging study of the ways humans and the matter around us have transformed and continue to shape one another. This fresh new look at technology and innovation is further explained in Ramirez’s second book, The Alchemy of Us. Interviewer: Ziya […]
Investigate the many ways of losing someone and opportunities to move forward from past broken relationships, in this conversation between two acclaimed authors. Spanish writer and art historian Marta Orriols delivers a darkly funny yet piercingly honest portrayal of grief in Learning to Talk to Plants, while Canadian non-binary writer and poet John Elizabeth Stintzi […]
The Black Box session returns with a live-streaming of Humber School for Writers’ Love & Defiance podcast. Author, filmmaker and Humber School for Writers 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 unconventionally to write? […]
Join Toronto International Festival of Authors Director Roland Gulliver for what is sure to be an entertaining conversation with London-based crime writer and Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers band member, Mark Billingham. The former actor and stand-up comedian has sold over 6million books in 20 years, and is best known for his Detective Thorne series that […]
The TIFA/Humber Creative Writing Masterclass Series is a partnership between the Humber School for Writers and the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Launching in the Fall or 2020 as part of the Festival’s digital slate, the series will provide an exclusive array of virtual writing masterclasses for the Festival’s audience. Classes will be led by […]
Oncology nurse and counsellor Janie Brown discusses life’s big questions on grief, loss and death with award-winning TV and film producer Liz Levine. Both authors made their writing debuts this year, with Brown’s Radical Acts of Love, accounting her conversations with the dying throughout her career; and with Levine’s Nobody Talks About Anything but the […]
In partnership with Writers’ Trust of Canada, we have created a series of dialogues exploring the last 75 years of writing in Canada. Each session brings you a contemporary writer in conversation with an important work of fiction or theatre that has offered a key moment of definition, change or challenge. Together, we get to […]
Keeping in touch, both figuratively and physically, is a challenge during times of isolation; while physical touch – and what we touch – is now a source of fear and anxiety for many. The Dutch phrase “skin hunger” has come to prominence in recent months, encapsulating these feelings. TIFA is proud to present Skin Hunger: […]
The Toronto Writers Collective (TWC) empowers the voices and illuminates the undiscovered strength in Toronto’s most vulnerable and disenfranchised communities. We have worked with TWC and A.F. Moritz, Toronto’s sixth Poet Laureate, to create a special video installation at Union Station capturing the strength and depth of TWC’s latest anthologies: Front Lines: Bent, Not Broken […]
Toronto’s best comic artists took to Instagram in a collaborative jam on a unified theme: Bringing a New World Into Focus. A single-story panel planted the seed from which a larger story grew. Audiences could follow the hashtag #InSequenceComicJam to get the series delivered straight to their Instagram feed. Featured artists that took part: Paris […]
Join Australian-Irani author and Stella Prize finalist Shokoofeh Azar in conversation with American Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ayah Akhtar to discuss the unbreakable connections between family members and the homelands that bond them, as set forward in their latest books. Set in Iran shortly after the Islamic Revolution, Shokoofeh’s first English novel, The Enlightenment of the […]
Relive Toronto’s literary history through the iconic poets and songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s. This special musical event is hosted by Toronto’s fifth Poet Laureate, the internationally acclaimed novelist and poet Anne Michaels, and features singer/songwriter david sereda, with Colleen Allen, Ken Whiteley and Tyler Wagler.
Authors in candid, live conversation reflect on the topics that matter most during this unprecedented time. In this panel discussion, Nathan Law, Jonathan Manthorpe and Margaret McCuaig-Johnston will discuss China’s rise as a global power, and new approaches for navigating our contrasting government systems, histories and cultures with success. Tune in each day of the […]
Join us for a highly anticipated opening night conversation between Canadian literary icon Margaret Atwood and TIFA Director Roland Gulliver. Atwood will unpack the successes of her recent works and longtime favourites (The Handmaids Tale, The Testaments), as well as her uncanny ability to predict future events. Audiences will also glean a sneak peek into […]
Meet two rising voices in international literature, award-winning Canadian author, poet, activist and psychotherapist Farzana Doctor, and one of Mexico’s most thrilling and accomplished young writers, Fernanda Melchor. Doctor’s Seven documents a woman’s investigation into inheritance and how resistance can test the balance between modern and traditional customs. Melchor’s Hurricane Season (her first novel to […]
Life Through Language: CanLit to Bengali Meet the authors writing in languages that represent unique communities from around the world and across the local neighbourhoods of Toronto. This event will introduce you to several writers who have recently taken initiative to translate Canadian literature into Bengali. Saeed Jadid, Tasmina Khan, Sujit Kusum Paul, Dr. Dilip […]
Celebrate the launch of two new anthologies from the Toronto Writers Collective (TWC): Front Lines: Bent Not Broken and Front Lines: Until the Woods Run Pure. The books feature the work of marginalized and vulnerable voices in Toronto who participate in the TWC’s ongoing writing workshops. The event will feature readings from a selection of […]
Canadian authors Kate Pullinger and Helen Humphreys will discuss how bearing witness, homelessness and the long-term effects of trauma translate, as demonstrated in their latest novels, both set in the mid-twentieth century. In Forrest Green, Governor General Award-winning author Pullinger presents a man on the run from himself, first as a young golden boy and […]