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The 43rd Toronto International Festival of Authors runs September 22 to October 2, featuring over 200 events taking place live and in person at Harbourfront Centre. Whether you are a beloved reader of poetry, non-fiction or fiction, there is so much to see and do.

Even if you are an avid TIFA fan, there are new offers in store, so be sure to check out the tips below to make the most of our biggest Festival yet.

Get tickets

With conversations, performances, readings, masterclasses and much more happening throughout the 11 days, don’t miss this chance at hearing world-class authors share their love of storytelling. Get your tickets early so you don’t get caught up in the last-minute rush and lose out on attending any events. Buy tickets online or call the Harbourfront Centre box office at 416-973-4000 (choose option #1).

Box Office Hours:

In-person:
September 22–23: 12–9 pm
September 24 to October 2: 10:30am – 9pm
Satellite box offices will open at the Fleck Dance Theatre and Harbourfront Centre Theatre one hour before events begin at those locations.

Call Centre:
1–5pm daily

See it all with a TIFA pass

With each day packed with a dozen or more events, get yourself a day, weekend or all-access pass for the opportunity to see as many events as you can. Once you get your pass, all you have to do is stop by the box office to pick it up starting September 21, and the schedule becomes yours to explore. Get passes here.

Passes exclude access to masterclasses, TIFA Kids workshops, The Moth, the CCBC 2022 Awards Ceremony, walking tours and Freedom to Write and to Read: Standing with Salman Rushdie.

Take advantage of discounts

If you are planning within a tight budget, make sure you don’t miss out on important discounts. Students and youth (aged 25 and under) can attend TIFA events for only $12. Some exceptions do apply, so be sure to check the box office for details.

As well, if you are part of a book club or reading group, make a plan to visit the Festival together to make the most of the Book Club discount. Book clubs can save 25% on ticket prices when booking five or more tickets to the same event by calling the Harbourfront Centre Box Office 416-973-4000 (choose option 1).

Experience unique TIFA events

As Canada’s largest literary festival, we are thrilled to bring back favourite event series like Critical Conversations, The Re-Read, Masterclasses and Ask the Expert, as well as new formats like walking tours, exhibits and free readings. Additionally, the Festival features the second annual PEN Canada Graeme Gibson talk, The Moth, Theater of War: The Waste Land Project and Dreams in Vantablack: Film Screening. Don’t miss these events and more by browsing the full schedule here.

Find your way to Harbourfront Centre

Don’t get lost! Plan your way to Harbourfront Centre early so you know how to get here without any trouble. You can find directions for getting here by train, TTC, car and foot here.

Once you get to Harbourfront Centre, you can use the 2022 Festival map to find tents, venues and installations. Check out the map here.

Keep up-to-date on Festival news

Be the first to know what’s going on by following @FestofAuthors on:

Instagram
Twitter
Facebook

Or get information right to your inbox by signing up for our enews here.

Don’t forget to share your Festival experience on social media with #FestofAuthors22.

Explore the free activities and performances

There will be free events and activities taking place all over the Harbourfront Centre campus during #FestofAuthors22. From a pop-up coffee shop in the Marilyn Brewer Community Space to Stage in the Park readings, don’t miss the variety of free offerings throughout the 11 days. Browse free events here.

Check your email for your tickets

Once you have purchased tickets to one (or many more) of the events, keep a watchful eye on your email. All tickets will be sent via email. You will need your e-ticket to access the event. If you don’t see it in your inbox, be sure to check your spam or junk folder.

If you have any questions about tickets, reach out to Harbourfront Centre’s box office at 416-973-4000 or tickets@harbourfrontcentre.com.

Browse the reading list

From memoirs to YA, and thrillers to literary fiction, our official booksellers Rakuten Kobo and Indigo have you covered for all your Festival book needs. See the full list of #FestofAuthors22 books here.

If you prefer ebook and audiobooks, you can browse Kobo’s online catalogue at any time here. If hardcover and paperbacks are more your style, be sure to drop by the Marilyn Brewer Community Space inside Harbourfront Centre to pick up books at the Indigo Bookstore.

Have a question? See if it is answered on our FAQ page.

Browse the full #FestofAuthors22 schedule here.

On July 26, 2022, the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) announced that 21 new books have been selected to be part of the latest season of Toronto Lit Up, a joint initiative with Toronto Arts Council that spotlights Toronto writers and provide career-building opportunities through book launch celebrations. The latest Toronto Lit Up season will take place between July 2022 and March 2023, and feature new works of fiction and non-fiction for adults and young people, poetry, memoir and drama, by debut and established Toronto authors.

The authors and new books selected for the new Toronto Lit Up season are:

• Didier Leclair, Toronto, I Love You (translated to English by Elaine Kennedy) (Mawenzi House)
• Pamela Mordecai, de Book of Joseph (Mawenzi House)
• Curtis Carmichael, Butterflies in the Trenches: The Hood, an Epic Bike Ride, and Finding Inspiration (Synergy)
• Sophie Jai, Wild Fires (HarperCollins Canada)
• Khashayar Mohammadi, WJD (Gordon Hill)
• Emily Saso, Nine Dash Line (Freehand Books)
• Diane Borsato with illustrations by Kelsey Oseid, Mushrooming: The Joy of the Quiet Hunt – An Illustrated Guide to the Fascinating, the Delicious, the Deadly and the Strange (Douglas & McIntyre)
• Tanya Turton, Jade Is a Twisted Green (Dundurn Press)
• Nancy Lam, The Loyal Daughter (At Bay Press)
• Robert Priest, If I Didn’t Love the River (ECW Press)
• Daniel Scott Tysdal, The End Is in the Middle: MAD fold-in poems (Icehouse Poetry)
• Sam Shelstad, Citizens of Light (TouchWood Editions)
• Danee Wilson, Murder at San Miguel (Radiant Press)
• S.K. Ali, Love from Mecca to Medina (Simon & Schuster Canada)
• Jon S. Dellandrea, The Great Canadian Art Fraud Case: The Group of Seven & Tom Thomson Forgeries (Goose Lane Editions)
• Elaine Kachala, Superpower? The Wearable-Tech Revolution (Orca Book Publishers)
• Chris MacDonald, The Things I Came Here With: A Memoir (ECW Press)
• Elizabeth Gillian Muir, An Unrecognized Contribution: Women and Their Work in 19th-Century Toronto (Dundurn Press)
• Natasha Adiyana Morris, The Negroes Are Congregating (Playwrights Canada Press)
• George Elliott Clarke, Canticles III (MMXXII) (Guernica Editions)
• Brooke Lockyer, Burr (Nightwood Editions)

Book launch events will take place at venues throughout Toronto. Event dates and details will be posted throughout the season at FestivalofAuthors.ca/Toronto-Lit-Up. As always, Toronto Lit Up events are open to the public and free to attend.

“Toronto Lit Up continues to provide invaluable opportunities for Toronto writers to enjoy well-deserved time in the spotlight, along with the resources to celebrate and promote their publishing accomplishments. Toronto Arts Council is pleased to partner with TIFA as we applaud twenty-one accomplished authors participating this season, reflecting a wealth of diverse and compelling stories” – Claire Hopkinson, Director & CEO, Toronto Arts Council and Toronto Arts Foundation

“It’s an honour for us to continue to celebrate local Toronto authors and be a part of showcasing the diversity of the city’s vibrant literary landscape. We are particularly delighted that many of this season’s launches are scheduled to be in-person after many, many months of virtual launches. Congratulations to all the authors launching new books this year. We look forward to receiving – and greatly encourage – new submissions when the next call opens this fall.” – Ayesha Chatterjee, Toronto Lit Up committee member.

This is an extended season of Toronto Lit Up, which takes into account that many book launches were delayed during the past two years as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

All submissions were reviewed by the Toronto Lit Up Committee, composed of Ayesha Chatterjee (past president, League of Canadian Poets), Alison Jones (Quill and Quire) and Hazel Millar (Literary Press Group).

Toronto Lit Up is produced with the support of the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council.

ABOUT TORONTO LIT UP

Toronto Lit Up is a multi-year initiative, started in 2016 by the Toronto International Festival of Authors and Toronto Arts Council, to spotlight Toronto writers and empower local artists with career-building opportunities. Between April 2016 and June 2022, Toronto Lit Up has presented 137 events to launch 161 books by 236 Toronto authors. Launches are always open to the public and free to attend.

See Events

Learn More

We had a virtual sit down with Gap Riot Press Co-founder Kate Siklosi to discuss the local small press scene. She introduced us to new authors, explains the significance of Canadian writers and shares her future hopes for the industry.

As the co-founding editor of Gap Riot Press, what sparked your interest in entering the world of small press publishing? Why is it important and what did you hope to achieve when you set out on this endeavour?

Gap Riot started, as the best things always do, in conversation. In the early months of 2017, Dani Spinosa and I were discussing how too often, writers of formal or experimental poetry in Canada (including ourselves) had to go through a white man to publish a chapbook. So, we wanted to change that up a little and provide a space for writers to publish experimental, formal, political, feminist, and/or genre-blurring poetry that wasn’t governed by a dude. We sought out to break down cliques and barriers in the poetic community, and open more spaces for people to practice the poetry we love, with the hopes of bringing a community together in collective action in this work.

So, after months and months of batting the idea of starting a press around, we got one massive push from the late, great, incomparable, and dearly missed poet extraordinaire Priscila Uppal, who wanted a run of chapbooks made for the poems in her SummerWorks play, What Linda Said. We did those and then three more chapbooks by the most incredible first season we could have asked for: Adeena Karasick, Margaret Christakos, and Canisia Lubrin. And with the support of all these beautiful and fierce wimmin, we grew and grew into the unstoppable Gap Riot Press.

We’re always learning, and always challenging ourselves and others. Gap Riot was born out of the need for shouty, unapologetic, collective amplification. And, as white wimmin, we’re trying to do that in a way that decenters ourselves; for us, this work is about uplifting other voices and giving space to folks to try stuff on and play.

What exciting projects can we expect next from Gap Riot Press?

We just released our fifth season of chapbooks in the early summer featuring the luminous Terese Mason Pierre, Ashley Hynd, Zoey Morris, and Franco Cortese. We have some really awesome titles already lined up for our fall season, which will be out sometime in October or November. And, we’re thinking about the idea of an experimental poetry anthology, which will be fun!

We’re also looking to lean more into the creative, hands-on aspect of creating. But, we generally try to do something different each season, whether it’s a plantable excerpt of poetry, a wax-sealed ribbon, etc. Time doesn’t always allow us to add the most hands-on touch to our work that some small presses like The Blasted Tree and Puddles of Sky Press do, but we’d love to do more of that to make each publication that much more special, and really lean into that hand-to-object care we so love about small press publishing.

What has been the biggest surprise or learning experience you’ve encountered while running Gap Riot Press?

That the learning never stops! This is an ongoing project. We’re lucky in that Dani and I are best friends, and basically the same person, so we work really well together without much structure or headaches. But it’s tough work, especially with both of us working full-time, demanding jobs, and sometimes there’s a struggle to find balance and stay sane. Also, the small things: we learned this past season that our new website shop had a bit of a learning curve to it and so we weren’t charging the right amount of shipping, for example. We’re always learning, in big ways and small.

What is your process for selected authors?

We don’t have a formal selection process per se; our mantra lately is “burn it down, but make it fashion”—we seek to publish work that ignites, dismantles, unsettles, and does it with style. We get a lot of submissions, so we select work that moves us the most, that is necessary, urgent, responsive, and beautiful all the same.

You joined us last year for Small Press, Big Ideas: Roundtable to discuss the strengths and challenges of the small press scene. Since then, have you noticed any major shifts, growth and or new challenges? How would you describe these strengths and challenges in today’s pandemic world?

When it comes to small press, there is always growth! That’s been one of the most amazing things for me to experience while putting together the small press map of Canada for this year’s festival, is seeing how much the community continues to grow year after year with new people, new ideas, new modes of production. It’s awesome and inspiring to see.

In terms of the pandemic, we’ve seen a spectrum of effects across the small presses we’ve been in contact with—some are experiencing a lot of growth and success, others have reported incredible loss. One of the biggest drawbacks has been the absence of small press markets across the country, which a lot of presses rely on for sales and exposure. Fortunately, for us, it’s been mostly smooth sailing. People have been mostly staying home, and wanting to read books, so our most recent season was incredibly successful. We sell most of our work online these days anyway, and promote through social media. We also had an online launch for our fifth season, which worked out beautifully because one of our authors is American, so we could include them in the launch. While we miss in-person launches and readings and markets so much, we’re also trying to think about the upsides and possibilities of the virtual world, creative-wise and accessibility-wise, now that we’re in it for the foreseeable future.

Why do you feel it’s important to focus on Canadian poets?

Is it that important?! I’m somewhat kidding—it is, and I get why you’re asking this question, but historically, small press began with pretty small communities and geographic locations, which is great. But one of the awesome things to happen over the last decade, in particular, is the rise of a global community of small presses. Folks like Petra Schulze-Wollgast (psw) in Germany, and Joakim Norling in Sweden, to name just a few, are helping to grow and sustain this global community with their small presses. So, while we have such a rich history of small press in Canada, and while we of course like to support Canadian writers and publish mostly Canadian writers, we also like to connect and tap into that larger community of writers across the globe.

Any other independent publishers you admire, want to work with?

There is such a wealth of inspiring presses that it’s hard to limit those we admire to only a few. Honestly, if you run a small press, we automatically admire you because we know dang well that this is hard, exhausting, beautiful, sustaining work that you/we are doing only because we love it and can’t imagine not doing it.

To name a few, though: internationally, we’ve been blown away by the works coming out of Petra Shulze-Wollgast (psw), Timglaset, and Penteract Press, among others. On home soil, we take a lot of influence from bill bissett and his work with Blew Ointment Press; he fought relentlessly for the right to create and sustain communities through uncensored publishing and we owe a lot of our work today to his efforts. We’re also continually astounded at the ingenious creativity of The Blasted Tree, the gorgeous works of Baseline Press, and of course the indefatigable Rob Mclennan and his above/ground press, who has been a tireless mentor, connector, and community-builder for small presses and poets across Canada and beyond.

What are your hopes for the future in regards to Gap Riot Press and the publishing community at large?

MORE WIMMIN RUNNING THINGS. We love how many wimmin and women and womyn and femmes and nbs and queer friends are starting their own presses and publishing some really beautiful, urgent, and necessary voices and works. We need more of that. We can never have enough of that! And in terms of Gap Riot, we hope to just continue breaking, dismantling, burning down and building up to make more room for others to come in, play, experiment, fail, try again and grow.

You can reach Gap Riot Press online at gapriotpress.com, where you’ll find their shop, archives of work, and their online Season Five Launch Party. You can also connect on Twitter @gapriotpress.

 

Kate Siklosi lives, writes, and thinks in Toronto. Her criticism has been featured in various journals and magazines including Canadian Literature, JAST, The Walrus, and The Puritan. She has published five chapbooks of poetry, and her work has also been featured in various magazines and small press publications across North America, Europe, and the UK. She is the co-founding editor of Gap Riot Press, a feminist experimental poetry small press.