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Join Neil Besner on June 6 at 6:30pm ET at Arts & Letters Club to celebrate the launch of his memoir, Fishing with Tardelli (ECW Press May 2022)!

Ricardo Sternberg, poet and retired professor at U of T, joins Neil Besner in a panel discussion about his memoir and their shared hometown, Rio de Janiero, hosted by Ruth Panofsky, professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. Enjoy performances by Brazilian musician, Carlos Augusto Cardozo Filho. Light refreshments will be provided. Book signing with sales by Type Books.

A literary meditation on memory, time, love, and loss, Fishing with Tardelli is a son’s meditation on four parental figures — mother, father, stepfather, and his Brazilian fishing companion — as he locates them on three home grounds: Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, and Montreal, and memory’s story about time.


Toronto Lit Up is a multi-year initiative, started in 2016 by the Toronto International Festival of Authors and the Toronto Arts Council, to spotlight Toronto writers and empower local artists with career-building opportunities. Between April 2016 and January 2022, Toronto Lit Up has produced 128 events that launched 152 books by 226 local authors. Toronto Lit Up book launches take place throughout the year at venues across the city. They are open to the public and free to attend. Click here for more information.

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Born in Montreal, Neil Besner grew up in Rio de Janeiro, has taught and travelled widely in Brazil, and is fluent in Portuguese. He taught Canadian literature at the University of Winnipeg for thirty years. He has written and edited books on Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro and Carol Shields, as well as numerous articles. His award-winning translation into English of a Brazilian biography of Elizabeth Bishop was a major source for the 2013 feature film Reaching for the Moon. An avid fisherman and an amateur musician, he spends 4 months each summer on Lake of the Woods in Northwestern Ontario.

Terri Favro is a novelist, essayist and storyteller who loves comic strips, superheroes, robots, migration stories and weird science. Her books include Sputnik’s Children (a Globe100 book, long-listed for CBC Canada Reads) and the popular science book Generation Robot: A Century of Science Fiction, Fact and Speculation. Publisher’s Weekly called her new novel The Sisters Sputnik “fast-moving and entertaining.” Terri is also an award-winning copywriter who has worked on campaigns for technologies that changed the world. Originally from Niagara wine country, Terri lives on Toronto’s east Danforth where she collaborates on graphic novels with her visual artist husband. Terri blogs at terrifavro.ca

Join Terri Favro on June 2 at 6:30pm ET at See-Scape Sci-Fi Bar & Gaming Cafe to celebrate the launch of her sci-fi novel, The Sisters Sputnik (ECW Press, May 2022)!

Hosted by author Eufemia Fantetti, the free Toronto Lit Up event will feature actors performing a dramatic reading from The Sisters Sputnik with Terri Favro. Attendees are encouraged to dress in cosplay as their favourite sci-fi or comic book character! Light refreshments will be provided. A cash bar will also be available.

In the sequel to Sputnik’s Children, The Sisters Sputnik takes ‘undocumented time immigrant’ Debbie Reynolds Biondi and her apprentice Unicorn Girl on a wild ride through alternate worlds, into a possible future where robots rule and humans are banished to the past. It’s an odyssey wrapped in a love story, set in a near-future of artificial people. You can get your copy of the book from Queen Books here.


Toronto Lit Up is a multi-year initiative, started in 2016 by the Toronto International Festival of Authors and the Toronto Arts Council, to spotlight Toronto writers and empower local artists with career-building opportunities. Between April 2016 and January 2022, Toronto Lit Up has produced 128 events that launched 152 books by 226 local authors. Toronto Lit Up book launches take place throughout the year at venues across the city. They are open to the public and free to attend. Click here for more information.

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Sonya Singh is a former entertainment reporter turned communications professional who has followed her dream of telling stories in front of the camera and now behind the scenes. Her debut novel, Sari, Not Sari, is an ode to her own personal dating experiences, during which she honed the art of writing the perfect break-up email/text. Sonya lives in Toronto. You can follow her at SonyaSinghBooks.com and on Instagram @SonyaSinghWrites.

Join Toronto Lit Up and Simon & Schuster Canada on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 at 6:30pm ET to celebrate the launch of Sonya Singh’s book Sari, Not Sari. The in-person event will take place at Arta Gallery, 14 Distillery Lane in Toronto.

Sari, Not Sari is a delightful debut rom-com that follows the adventures of a woman trying to connect with her South Asian roots and introduces readers to a memorable cast of characters in a veritable feast of food, family traditions and fun. You can get your copy of Sari, Not Sari from Queen Books here.


Toronto Lit Up is a multi-year initiative, started in 2016 by the Toronto International Festival of Authors and the Toronto Arts Council, to spotlight Toronto writers and empower local artists with career-building opportunities. Between April 2016 and January 2022, Toronto Lit Up has produced 128 events that launched 152 books by 226 local authors. Toronto Lit Up book launches take place throughout the year at venues across the city. They are open to the public and free to attend. Click here for more information.

       Simon & Schuster Canada logo   Queen Books logo

Originally from Alberta, A. M. Todd currently lives in Toronto. Her work has been published in Breath and Shadow, Kaleidoscope, Scare Street and After Dinner Conversation, and her short stories have won Honourable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest twice. She completed a Ph.D. in English literature at the University of Toronto. City of Sensors is her first novel.