You have to be good to get a table at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF): applications are juried. Creators come from all over the world to sell their work, mingle with contemporaries, and spend a weekend in Toronto. While some big names (Pendleton Ward, Kate Beaton, Ryan North) drew fans in droves, there were [...]

Toronto Comic Arts Festival Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street) Saturday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. FREE This weekend, happy nerds will descend on the Toronto Reference Library for the fourth annual Toronto Comic Arts Festival. The free convention takes up residence at the Toronto Reference Library and hopes to give the public [...]

Dear Toronto talked with Wilson in 2009 about the Seen Reading project. Julie Wilson, author of the new book Seen Reading, is funny, articulate, and self-deprecating. She has a fondness for both witty anecdotes and bathroom humour: an ideal cocktail party guest or, you might think, a good person to sit beside on a long [...]

The Toronto Public Library just released its annual report on usage statistics, and surprise, surprise: by almost every meaningful metric, the system was busier in 2011 than it has ever been before. This happened in the very same year that political pressure forced the TPL to agree to shed the equivalent of 107 full-time jobs. [...]

How Beautiful We All Were… Portraits of Sixteen Canadian Poets by Shelly Grimson Miles Nadall JCC (750 Spadina Avenue) April 3–30; Monday to Friday 9 a.m.–9p.m., Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m.–7 p.m. Opening Reception: April 3, 7–9 p.m. FREE A young Michael Ondaatje lies outstretched on a bed of pebbles, shirtsleeves rolled up with the [...]

Every Saturday, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today. At the turn of the twentieth century, three young Canadians from the University of Toronto moved to New York to pursue literary careers that had seemed impossible at home. The attic apartment shared by [...]

Shortly after the Scott Pilgrim movie was released, in August 2010, Steven Dirckze, a Sheridan College student, set out with a few friends on a “Scott Pilgrimmage.” The idea was to visit all the locations used by Bryan Lee O’Malley in the original graphic novels. By carrying around the books for reference and by positioning [...]

Canada’s largest literary award, the Giller Prize, was handed out last night, but in another room across downtown from the Four Seasons, many of Toronto’s aspiring writers, book lovers, journalists, and university students gathered for quite a different evening. They came to see Joan Didion, the widely loved and widely read American author, who was [...]

Book awards season is upon us, and the biggest of them in Canada is the Giller Prize. A few minutes ago, at a press conference at the Four Seasons, the shortlisted books for this year’s prize were announced. They are: David Bezmozgis for his novel The Free World (HarperCollins) Lynn Coady for her novel The [...]

Canadians everywhere were shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of Jack Layton. The public outpouring of affection for the man and admiration for what he stood for was an extraordinary moment in our country’s history. What made it so unique was the melding of grief with optimism, the sense that we needed to celebrate [...]

WHERE: House of Lancaster (Bloor and Margueretta streets) WHEN: Saturday, 11:26 a.m. (top) and 11:45 a.m. (bottom) WHAT: Billed as “the largest poetry reading in history,” 100,000 Poets for Change takes place in venues across Toronto, and in countries around the world today. Toronto poets started with breakfast and readings at the House of Lancaster, [...]