You really have to wonder how performance artist and sexual activist Louise Bak always manages to schedule the very best mix of the Toronto literary scene for her Box Salon series. The successful poet and CIUT "Sex City" host founded the event back in 1998, and a decade later it is still the most entertaining literary night out in Toronto. While many other reading series can be hit or miss, the Box is consistently fresh,......

The short story is an unfortunate middle child. Not romanticized like poetry, nor widely read like novels, the short story finds refuge in literary journals, the New Yorker, and writing contests. In fact, the Toronto Star, Broken Pencil, and Eye Weekly all have contests ready for your masterpiece. First, stalwart Toronto Star has its annual short story contest. The top prize includes $5,000 and tuition to the Humber School for Writers for Creative Writing.......

On Sunday afternoon, over 150 independent publishers, writers, artists and bloggers from across the continent will pack Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel for Canzine, Canada’s largest celebration of small press publishing and alternative culture. The affair is organized by Broken Pencil, a quarterly magazine devoted to mobilizing the scattered community of small-circulation art. This year, to coincide with the release of its Horror Issue and, well, Halloween in general, the theme is Indie Horror. That means the......

Hanging out in the city with Torontoist's Summer Reads. LitTO continues this week with a few summer reading picks. These are literally reading choices for the season, as we haven’t read them yet, but plan to take them to the cottage. Films and Poems by John Barlow, LyricalMyrical. John Barlow’s poems have a habit of looking at this crazy world, not agreeing with it, and finding their own peace and happiness. He has a......

Toronto’s DIY fashionistas, independent designers, eclectic personalities and thrift store scavengers get a chance to flaunt the city’s indie fashion credentials this Wednesday at the Cadillac Lounge. The latest issue of Broken Pencil, dedicated to the aesthetics, culture and history of indie chic (and haircuts!), just arrived in stores. To mark the launch, the arts magazine will be hosting an all out celebration of indie style, including its first ever Indie Style Fashion Contest. Party-goers......

You still have a few hours left, but Torontoist's Poetry Contest closes tonight! At the beginning of the new year, Torontoist launched a poetry contest to encourage the penning of new poems about our fair city. After judges Carly Beath, Stephen Cain, and Jay MillAr deliberate, we'll announce the winner plus five honourable mentions on April 10. We hope you've enjoyed our series of previously published Toronto poems, and look forward to presenting the winning......

This Monday night, January 22, head down to the Gladstone Hotel and join Broken Pencil Magazine founding editor and publisher (and journalist and author) Hal Niedzviecki as he hosts the self-professed “best games night in the city (on a Monday night anyway).” The occasion? Monday night marks the launch of BP’s newest issue, which is, fittingly, the games issue. There will be an assortment of classic board games, games of hide and seek, and, everyone's......

Emily Schultz, author of Joyland, former editor of Broken Pencil and This Magazine is looking for your pledges. No, this is not a PBS style pledge drive where you get a special gift when you show your support. I steal from just about everyone who crosses my path. But my fear is that someone, someday, will recognize a very familiar description, moment, or trait that has cropped up in my work. Well, Schultz wants......

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......

That's the question that Broken Pencil asks in its latest issue, which they're launching tonight, 7pm at the Toronto Free Gallery. The launch will also include a panel discussion on this very same question with art critic RM Vaughan, Shawn Micallef, Photo blogger Matt O'Sullivan and Brenda Goldstein. Goldstein, coincidentally, or not so coincidentally is also the curator of the Centre Cannot Hold show currently running at Toronto Free Gallery.......

Time to get out that cloning machine you've been keeping around. If the Halloween and IFOA festivities weren't enough to keep you swamped there's the Small Press Book Fair and if that's not enough for you there's Canzine at the Gladstone 1:00 pm, on Sunday. It's also the unofficial launch of the newly re-designed Broken Pencil. This year's theme, Burlesque. Indie Kids Gone Wild anyone? There'll be over 150 zines, readings, Darren O'Donnell and fifth......

Love it or hate it, LOLA, the 'free' visual arts mag that went belly up a couple of years back, was a boon for Toronto's visual arts scene. It got people talking, writing and going to see art. And unlike other publications (ahem, Canadian Art) didn't have to deal with institutional history, a national/international mandate, or pander to senior artists/board members/advertisers/etc. LOLA could stay local, stay fresh and stay true to its readership of local......