Pull up a chair and join Jess Janz for a Tea and Talk about her book, The Table Where We Meet. After starting Dinner with Strangers, organized meals where people can meet new people, Janz felt inspired to share what she had learned from guests, from funny stories to vulnerable moments. In this conversation, she’ll […]
Read more »
The Toronto Poetry Slam returns with a high-energy spectacle of original content to leave you feeling inspired! Since 2005, TPS has featured some of Canada’s best and most engaging spoken word artists and next generation stars. Presented in partnership with Toronto Poetry Project, this hit slam is a competition in two rounds with multiple contestants, […]
You’re in for a bloody good time with Craig DiLouie and Emily A. Weedon, as they discuss their classic stories of slashers and vampires. DiLouie’s The Summer Fun Massacre follows a Texas deputy investigating a new massacre at a summer camp where a deadly tragedy occurred nine years earlier and his connection to the case. […]
A century ago, the idea of a Canadian literary canon — and who might belong in it — looked very different. Women have moved from the margins of Canadian publishing to become many of its most celebrated and widely read voices, but that transformation has not happened equally for everyone. Who has been published, reviewed, […]
Enter the haunted house with Jessica Hamilton and Sophia Hannan as they discuss their thrilling stories where something is lurking just behind every door. In Hamilton’s The Woods, a grieving mother moves her family into a secluded house in the forest, only to discover that something ancient and malevolent may be lurking among the trees. […]
History is never simply a record of what happened: it is shaped by who was there to document it, whose accounts were preserved, and whose experiences were considered worth remembering. Women writers today are widening that lens, recovering lives and perspectives pushed to the margins and challenging assumed versions of the past. Panelists will explore […]
Murder. Romance. Dragons. Domestic suspense. Women aren’t just writing genre fiction — they are driving some of the biggest publishing phenomena in the world. From crime and thrillers to romance, romantasy, horror and speculative fiction, women writers and readers have transformed genres once dismissed as formulaic or frivolous into cultural and commercial powerhouses. But why […]
Home is more than a commodity; it is the foundation of our lives and communities. In Housing Inc.: A Global Takeover and Our Fight for Home, the 2026 CBC Massey Lecture, Leilani Farha examines how homes around the world have increasingly been treated as financial assets, with devastating consequences for affordability and access. Farha explores […]
Younger women writers are entering a world in which traditional boundaries — between literary and commercial, page and screen, fiction and memoir, writer and creator — are increasingly porous, while questions of representation, appropriation, authenticity and access have become more complicated, not less. Panelists look at the stories their generation wants to tell, the assumptions […]
In association with Humber Polytechnic’s Professional Book Publishing program https://humber.ca/explore-programs/programs/professional-book-publishing How does book publishing work? Why do some books get published and not others? How can I make my manuscript more attractive to publishers? What happens after a book is accepted? How do books get marketed in 2026? Do I need an agent? (And what […]
As the days grow shorter and the air cools, it’s time to slow down, turn inward, and take stock. This 90-minute workshop blends grounding yoga with journaling using prompts inspired by our festival programme. Led in a welcoming, mixed-ability environment, the session draws on the long tradition of autumn as a season for storytelling, quiet […]
Join bestselling historical fiction author Paula McLain for a conversation on her latest novel, Skylark. Set in Paris, the story follows two characters from different time periods, whose lives run parallel and intertwine. Alouette is fighting for art and justice for women in 1664, while Kristof is a medical student 1939, trying to navigate life […]
Andrew Sean Greer shot to success with his Pulitzer Prize winning novel Less and its bestselling sequel, Less is Lost. His latest novel, Villa Coco sees a young American arriving in Tuscany expecting to catalogue art and instead finds himself swept into the eccentric world of an unforgettable Baronessa becoming the all-purpose assistant to a […]
Join Chloe Dalton and Melissa Harrison in conversation to discuss their books celebrating the lifechanging influence of the nature world. Dalton’s Raising Hare has been an award-winning bestseller in the UK and North America. It chronicles her journey rescuing a baby hare and the bond the unlikely pair builds as she nurses it back to […]
Join author Damian Barr as he talks about art, class, queer history, love and the forgotten lives that inspired his novel, The Two Roberts. Based on a true story, the book follows Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun, two Scottish artists in the 1930s who kept their relationship private while being in the very public art […]
Political upheaval and personal identity collide in this compelling conversation between two daring novelists. In Gigi L. Leung’s Everyday Movement (translated by Jennifer Feeley), two university roommates and their circle of friends navigate their normal lives while also living through Hong Kong’s 2019 protests, confronting questions of identity, democracy, and belonging. In Intan Paramaditha’s Night […]
When the lives we’ve built no longer fit, what happens when we decide to break free? In Cheong Ye’s Orange and Bread Knife (translated by Slin Jung), a young teacher undergoes an experimental procedure that frees her from the guilt and emotional regulation that have shaped her life, but not without consequences. In Jenny Jackson’s […]
Art, ambition and the women erased from history take centre stage in this conversation between Jill Dawson and Camille de Peretti. In Portrait of an Unknown Woman, de Peretti imagines the life of the mysterious woman in Gustav Klimt’s famous portrait, her lost loves, descendants, and secrets. In Pixie, Dawson brings to life Pamela “Pixie” […]
When worlds are turned upside down what happens when the stories we leave behind take on lives of their own? Join Portia Elan, Huang Chong-Kai, and Jeremy Tiang as they discuss their speculative fiction novels. Told through different perspectives, Huang’s The Formosa Exchange (translated by Tiang) chronicles the lives of Taiwanese and Cuban residents who […]
Myth, magic and unreal expectations collide as Bar Fridman-Tell and Lindsay Wong discuss their genre-melding novels set around folklore and the supernatural. Loosely based on Welsh mythology, Fridman-Tell’s Honeysuckle follows Daye, a girl literally made from flowers as a friend for Rory, and their changing relationship as the seasons change and Rory grows up. Wong’s […]
Do things go bump in the night and it’s not your TBR pile falling over? Does nothing makes you happy than the thrill of the chill? Or the gratifyingly glorious goriness of a great horror novel? Not to forget the frightfully fantastic fear of ghouls and ghost stories! Then you should be celebrating Halloween at […]
Join two of modern literature’s most daring voices for an electrifying conversation on the mechanics of obsession and the weight of family legacies. In Floodlines Saleem Haddad’s sweeping, tension-filled novel set between London and Baghdad, domestic intimacy becomes a pressure cooker of family drama, hidden histories, and queer identity. Meanwhile, award-winning Canadian playwright, Jordan Tannahill’s […]
