The amount of events this week are bursting at the seams. Keep Toronto Reading is kicking it into full gear this month with various readings across library branches, Lit Lunches, and various One Book events. There are just too many to list here. Visit the KTR calendar to see all event details and plan out your literary excursions. And if you have any kids, you can join Gisèle from TVOKids for various library tours, as......

Photo by Sidereal The week is looking very light in anything literary around the city. If anything, you've got your three poems (no longer than three minutes each) in hand and will be heading down to Clinton's to show what you've got at the Art Bar's 9th annual Art Bar Discovery Night. Nancy Bullis will be guest hosting. For everyone else, be sure to help yourself to some free donuts to make up for......

Photo by moonwire from the Torontoist Flickr Pool The English Students' Union at the University of Toronto is hosting The Poetry Massacre tomorrow. Bring and perform your idea of a "bad" poem and ponder questions such as "what makes bad poetry?"; "can one enjoy a poem because of its 'bad-ness'?"; and "how do you perform a poem you despise?" Then if you're feeling kind of poetic yourself, you can start writing some poems for......

Photo by Stig Nygaard. The Art Bar returns tonight with its annual Audience Appreciation Night with readings by the Art Bards, live music, and free poetry chapbooks for all audience members by the Art Bar Team. Also returning for the new year is This Is Not A Reading Series. For the first event of the year, join Carl Wilson and Mark Kingwell for an on-stage discussion where they will be talking about love and......

Photo by Larsz Tonight the Art Bar poetry series will host its last event for 2007. Ending the year off with their annual Dead Poets Society night, this year's event will be hosted by David Clink and feature poets Ian Burgham, George Elliot Clarke, Karen Connelly, Barry Dempster, and more. Readers will cover poets such as A. R. Ammons, Margaret Avison, Cheng Sait Chia, Robert Herrick, Irving Layton, Dylan Thomas, and others. Reading series......

An overflowing pile of books by paolo_dlk from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. The summer months may have left us a little dehydrated, a little sun burnt, a little flaky, and a little wordless, but after a long break, LitTO is returning to inform you how this fall season will revitalize your sense of word wonder. Yesterday the longlist for the 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize was officially announced. A record of 108 books were submitted......

"Bookstore on Queen" by Trachsi from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Since August is perennially the quietest literary month, LitTO will take the rest of it off. We look forward to the fall launches, and are planning book reviews, author interviews, contests, and more coverage of lit news. Did you hear? In October, Open Book: Toronto will launch its first annual celebration of new books by Ontario publishers, with events and “special initiatives” geared to......

Michael Winter's next novel, The Architects Are Here, is set for serious serial hype on Facebook. Beginning today, Michael will make forty-seven posts with chapter summaries, commentary, and notes until the book’s publication in September. Each installment will include videos and photos of the people and places that inspired the novel's characters and settings. To access the serial, contact Michael with a friend request via The Wall at Penguin Canada's Facebook page, and you’ll be......

If last week’s key word on the literary scene was “big,” as in prizes, galas, festivals, sold-out readings, visiting writers, and BookExpo, we get back to normal-ish this week. In fact, we’ve not had such a low-key stretch since March. Fear not. The Scream Literary Festival is adding more information to their website every week. On July 3rd, the festival kicks off with readings by Dennis Lee and Souvankham Thammavongsa, films by Shapour Shahidi, and......

Sunday night at the Gladstone Art Bar will bring a special treat for all the music-loving craft addicts in Toronto when spins & needles, which has been running in Ottawa since 2005, rolls into town for its second event here. The crafting and DJ night starts at 8 p.m. and costs $8 before 10 p.m. and $10 after. Bring that sewing project that’s been sitting in the back of your closet or raid the......

Apologies for the lack of listings last week. The combination of the previous night’s Halloween party and an encroaching deadline on another project left little time for me to gather all the literary happenings in the city. Monday This Is Not A Reading Series presents Ben Schott (pictured), author of Schott’s Almanac. There will be a trivia pop quiz, surprise guests, and more – it’s a TINARS event, so you know it won’t be your......

No time…Must get back down to Harbourfront…IFOA in full swing…Here are some other literary events taking place this week…. Monday The Test Reading Series returns on Monday night, 7:30pm, with readings from Rob Read (that could be the best name for a writer I’ve ever heard) and Souvankham Thammavongsa. This night is also doubling for the launch of the new issue of Carousel, one of the best lit mags in the country – Mark Laliberte......

Here we go. The biggest week of the year for book lovers, the International Festival of Authors, is upon us. Torontoist will have extensive coverage of this year’s IFOA. For now, here are a few non-IFOA events taking place this week. Monday Tonight, you have the choice of heading over to the Smiling Buddha Bar – 961 College – for this week’s Freedom Readings, starting at 6pm (and free) or checking out Margaret MacMillan......

The week starts off with another instalment of Pussy Pen, an evening of readings and performance focusing on women, trans, and queer perspectives. It takes place at Tango and Crews, 508 Church St, beginning at 8pm. Free. Tuesday’s Wildsound script reading series features Face to Face, a TV pilot script written by Christina Ray and Mark De Angelis. The event is moderated by Pamela Sinha. It starts at 7pm at the Stealth Lounge, 22......

Excuse me for the lateness of this week’s listing. I’m still on Nuit Blanche time. And yes, I made it until 7am. This is an absolutely fantastic week for word nerds. And check this – if one of your friends is more into sports, you can bring them to a literary event disguised as a boxing match. For a boxing fan like me, it doesn't get any better. Tomorrow at noon, there’s a special launch......

Everyone sufficiently recovered from Word on the Street? Over 200,000 people braved the wind and rain and descended upon Queen’s Park for a celebration of books. I have a book hangover, thus the lateness of this week’s listings. Tomorrow night, This Is Not A Reading Series goes Hollywood! Journalist and filmmaker Bruce Yaccato launches Screen Legends, a chronicle of the “Canadian film pioneers who helped build the Hollywood we know today.” Joining Bruce will be......

The last 10 days have been a great time to be a film nut, but now Christmas comes early for book nerds as over the next few weeks two of the biggest events of the year take place, starting with next Sunday’s Word on the Street, which will be followed by the start of the International Festival of Authors in mid-October. A few events taking place today. Poet Lorette C. Luzajic launches her first book,......

Ok, so the city is in the grip of full-blown festival mania. Red carpets, Gala screenings, and celebrity sightings are all great, but so are poetry readings, right? Right? Anyone??? Tonight at 8pm, head north to Zemra Lounge – 778 St. Clair W. – for this month’s installment of the Diamond Cherry reading series. Stephen Humphries and former director of the Art Bar, Allan Briesmster (The Other Seasons), will be reading. It’s free, and you......

For those of you who didn’t attend on Wednesday night, the news coming out of the Pontiac Quarterly is that founder Damian Rogers is leaving the poetry/prose/arts/music night. Liz Clayton is taking over organizing and hosting duties, with her first edition slated for October. Watch for falling haikus: As Ron posted about on Friday, 50 poets, including George Elliot Clarke and Stuart Ross, will be invading Dundas Square today from noon until midnight. If you......

This week’s listings come at you one day late but better than ever. Ok, maybe not better than ever. More like as adequate as before. The Super Pen Pals Secret Reading Society gathers tonight at the Victory Café – 581 Markham – but it’s not a secret anymore as I’ve just told you it’s happening. I might get in trouble for spilling the beans but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. There are some......

This week Torontoist presents extended literary event listings – you get till Sunday the 27th at no additional cost – as I’m out of town until the end of August. Tonight, Jerry Schaefer presents The Flash Fiction Comedy Jam, which is apparently flash fiction read by a bunch of Toronto comics. Intriguing. Additionally, there’ll be a “live writing contest” and an appearance by storyteller Mark Jenkins. It takes place at Bad Dog Theatre – 138......

A couple of Sunday night events to kick-off or end your week, depending on how you see it. Gypsy Eyes, who is all over the place this week, hosts Last Call Poets at the Cadillac Lounge – 1296 Queen W. – tonight at 8pm. Admission is $7. Depending on how long Last Call Poets runs, you may be able to make it over to the Gladstone – 1214 Queen W. – for Haunted Fishtank poetry......

The Diamond Cherry Reading Series – run by local poets and small-press publishers Devon Gallant and Julie Cameron Gray – kicks-off the week with performances by audio poet Hilary Peach (Poems Only Dogs Can Hear) and singer/songwriter/poet Nik Beat. The series takes place each month at the Zemra Lounge – 778 St. Clair West – and starts at 8pm. It’s free, too, so you have no excuse not to go. On Monday, head down to......

Put Up Your Dukes Before I get to this week’s listings, here’s an upcoming event that might interest some of you. First it was German director Uwe Boll challenging movie critics to fight him in Vancouver, now author Craig Davidson (author of last year’s criminally underrated collection, Rust and Bone) will fight willing pugilists at the Toronto launch of his forthcoming novel, The Fighter. The date of the bout is yet to be determined,......

Torontoist notices that the City's BikeWeek celebration seems to stretch a little longer each year. The 2006 edition officially stretches from May 29 to June 11, almost two weeks, and if you include the fact that many of the events started well before the 29th you could almost rename the event BikeMonth. But we digress. The first large event is Monday's Breakfast and Lunchtime cycling fest at City Hall which will include a group......

"Rock 'n' Roll novelist" Kevin Hainey (of Toronto) brings zinester Andrew Mall (of Chicago) and poet Jessica Manack (of Pittsburgh) to the Gladstone Hotel (of Toronto) for a Saturday night reading in the Art Bar. The Perpetual Motion Roadshow is "an indie press touring circuit, an unholy combination of a vaudevillian variety show and a punk rock tour." And it's also PWYC. And at 8pm (of EST). There will also be a "puppet-packing satirist"......