Toronto Lit Up Book Launches

About the Programme

Meet local authors and join them in celebrating the launch of new books! The Toronto International Festival of Authors has partnered with the Toronto Arts Council (TAC) on Toronto Lit Up: a multi-year initiative designed to spotlight local writers and empower them with career-building opportunities.

Toronto Lit Up book launches are open to the public and free to attend. They take place throughout the year at venues across the city, however, since the spring of 2020, book launches have been delivered digitally in response to government and community safety measures against Covid-19.

Winter/Spring 2021 Selections

We are pleased to announce the following new books by Torontonians will be featured during the winter/spring 2021 season of Toronto Lit Up, taking place between January and June:

Sajidah Ali (S.K. Ali), Misfit in Love (Simon & Schuster)
Sami Alwani, The Pleasure of the Text (Conundrum Press)
Dwayne De Rosario and Brendan Dunlop, DeRo: My Life (ECW Press)
Anna Porter, Deceptions: A Helen Marsh Novel (ECW Press)
Liselle Sambury, Blood Like Magic (Simon & Schuster)
Jacob Scheier, Is This Scary? (ECW Press)
Marissa Stapley, Lucky (Simon & Schuster)
Ash Winters, Run Riot: Ninety Poems in Ninety Days (Caitlin Press)

You can check out upcoming Toronto Lit Up book launches here.

Selection Committee

The Toronto Lit Up committee is made up of Ayesha Chatterjee (past president, League of Canadian Poets), Alison Jones (Quill and Quire) and Hazel Millar (Literary Press Group).

Programme Details

Note: Summer/Fall 2021 submissions are now closed. Check back soon for details about the next submission period.

Toronto Lit Up supports events in a variety of formats that are delivered safely and in compliance with the guidelines of Toronto Public Health. Publishers can submit proposals for book launch events that include readings, interviews, panels, and/or performances in other disciplines. The author whose book is being launched will receive a C$200 honorarium from Toronto Lit Up. Toronto Lit Up encourages publishers to include honorarium fees for any additional artists (performers, interviewers, hosts, etc.) in your event fee proposal.

All submissions will be reviewed and adjudicated by the Toronto Lit Up Committee. Decisions by the committee are final.

Eligibility

As a programme funded by the Toronto Arts Council (TAC), Toronto Lit Up is designed to represent the residents of the City of Toronto and its equity priority groups, which include those who identify as persons of colour, deaf persons, persons with disabilities and persons living with mental illness, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQIAP, as well as other historically underserved writers. Self-published authors who identify with one or more of TAC’s equity priority groups and are members of The Writers Union of Canada are also welcome to apply.

Toronto Lit Up will feature works from various genres. The committee will be looking to include published works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, prose, short story, graphic novels, children’s literature and/or young adult literature as well as cookbooks, gardening books, sports-related stories, satire and much more. Publishers can submit more than one author for committee consideration for this programme.

Authors must meet ALL of the following criteria:

Must be a resident of the city of Toronto, living in the city for at least eight (8) months of the year.
Must have been a Toronto resident for at least one (1) year prior to the launch date.
The book publication date must be within three (3) months of the anticipated launch event date.

What to include with your submission?

Author name
Author bio
Book title
Genre
Publisher
Book summary
Publication date
Advanced readers copy/manuscript in PDF format (sent to TorontoLitUp@FestivalofAuthors.ca)
Anticipated event details (e.g., type and format of event, tentative venue, dates and time)

How to Submit

Submissions are now closed. Check back soon for details about the next submission period.