Every Tuesday afternoon, Torontoist rounds up the city's literary news, including book deals, events, local sales, author happenings, and insider information from the book industry. The Scream Literary Festival is hitting Toronto in a big way—there are a number of great events about town that book lovers will want to catch. Torontoist's picks this week include Thursday's Scream Alumni Night, featuring an amazing line-up of Ken Babstock, Priscila Uppal, Kevin Connolly, Stuart Ross, and the......

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,......

Over the past little while, Torontoist has been quietly absorbed in The Alphabet Game: a bpNichol reader. Edited by Darren Wershler-Henry and Lori Emerson, The Alphabet Game is an essential anthology for any reader of bpNichol, and is a great starting point for those who have yet to discover his work. Nichol, who is probably most well-known for his concrete and visual poetry, had achieved many things before dying at the age of 44. He......

Will people ever appreciate the fine architecture or heritage value of such widely-detested buildings as Robarts Library or the Sheraton Centre? If history is any guide, they will—but only if the buildings manage to survive our collective hatred (or apathy) for another 40 years or so. As the Star's Christopher Hume has written on several occasions, buildings are most at risk of demolition when they are 40–60 years old. That's when their architectural styles are......

Ok, so we're starting to get the message that we need to act on this whole "we're killing the planet" thing, and fast. But amongst all the noise about how much trouble we've gotten ourselves into, it's sometimes hard to hear the solutions and see the positive ideas. Enter GreenTOpia, the third installment in Coach House Books' uTOpia series, which is being released at a party this weekend into our eagerly outstretched arms. As we......

"Coach House Alley" by chelseagirl We're in the middle of the fall book launch season, and this week we can look forward to some promising new titles being put out by publishing houses such as Coach House Books, Pedlar Press, Quattro Books, Seraphim Editions, Type Books, and plenty of others. The IFOA continues for another strong week with its massive literary buffet of events. The festival will officially conclude on Saturday evening with readings......

So, what’s scarier: a zombie infestation or the melting of the polar ice caps? This is an urgent and legitimate question! And later this week, Toronto cineastes can compare and contrast, for just as the After Dark Festival winds down, the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival springs up. Running from October 24 to 28, Planet in Focus is the most acclaimed film festival of its environmentally-minded ilk. This year, to......

Photo by Word Freak So, the shortlist for the Giller Prize is out. And whether you think it's rigged or based on talent, we still have to wonder: who's it going to be? Aside from that, the 28th International Festival of Authors officially kicks off tomorrow evening with a PEN Canada benefit event, featuring Margaret Atwood in conversation with Ian Rankin. And if you don't have any tickets, well, you're out of luck, as......

The late Paul Haines’ Secret Carnival Workers was launched at the end of last month, the occasion marked with a concert by his daughter, Emily (his other daughter is television journalist Avery Haines). Torontoist has been mulling over the book, comprised of poetry, fiction, jazz journalism and album liner notes, since then. This is not a book to be devoured quickly. It can be dense at times, but also immensely rewarding and full of......

The immediate instinct when reading Human Resources is to see the poems as rants against the pervading office mentality of faster-harder-cheaper. Toronto poet Rachel Zolf shows adept skill at parroting corporate language in order to highlight the flawed cogs of internal memos and style guides. Each section of her text is flanked by familiar rhetoric: writing “persuasive body copy” requires the writer to “start selling on the first line” and “burn out meaning”; writing for......

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......

A big congratulations goes out to Toronto-based press House of Anansi for publishing this year’s ReLit short story winner, Bill Gaston’s Gargoyles. The ReLit award is set up to give well deserved attention to books produced by the independent presses throughout Canada. House of Anansi’s winning entry is joined a number of its other publications on the poetry and novel short list. (Also nominated for the long list was Torontoist’s very own Sharon Harris for......

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......

Torontoist apologizes for erroneously predicting The End of The Internet (alas, we are still here) back in April, but organizer Louis Calabro insists that The End is truly nigh tonight. We think he might really mean it this time. If headliner Christian Bök can’t do it, no poet can. Christian is the author of two outstanding poetry collections from Coach House Books: the 'pataphysical encyclopedia, Crystallography, and the best-selling Griffin award-winning Eunoia, which employs only......

For over forty years, Toronto’s Coach House Books has consistently offered stellar choices in all things literature. With a catalogue that includes writers such as Anne Michaels, Di Brandt, Steve McCaffery, Michael Ondaatje and bpNichol, one can't go wrong by supporting this local press. This season’s list of new releases continues the tradition of awesomeness. Tonight, Coach House will launch their five spring titles with a party and reading from all five authors. The new......

The good news: tonight, there are three great literary events happening in our fair city. The bad news: you’re going to have to choose. Mark Truscott’s Test Reading Series presents Reg Johanson and Jordan Scott at Mercer Union, A Centre for Contemporary Art (37 Lisgar Street) tonight at 7:30 p.m. Reg Johanson has traveled from East Vancouver for tonight’s performance. His first book, Courage, My Love was published by Line Books last year. Reg’s critical......

How is National Poetry Month treating you? On the second week of celebration, Torontoist is beginning to buckle a little under the strain of too much fun, but it warms our hearts to witness the large number of bookish events offered this April. We are happy to announce the winners of our poetry contest as part of the nationwide festivities. Back in January, Torontoist launched a Toronto poetry contest to encourage the writing of......

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......

"I’m going to Pakistan in November to share Q&A with young theatre artists during a festival celebrating Punjabi culture. I arrive on November 17. Look for more posts then." —Darren O’Donnell Thus begins Darren's account of his time spent presenting his interactive theatre work in rural Pakistan and in Mumbai, India. Video Show for the People of Pakistan and India is a collection of footage from his journey, and will be shown at The Centre......

Reading Toronto states "the city is a book with 100,000 million poems." Torontoist is aware of many poems that have been written by Toronto poets, but thinks there is ample room in the GTA for a few more (maybe a million-or-two would improve the present un-poetic monstrosity that is Dundas Square). We're also curious to know where new poems are being written: During TTC commutes? On the picturesque grounds of Casa Loma? Under the......

Toronto writer Tanya Chapman’s debut novel, King, was recently released by Coach House Books. She’s an accomplished writer – her short story "Spring The Chick?" won This Magazine’s prestigious short story competition and she’s had two short films produced. Torontoist recently finished King and had the chance to ask Chapman about her work.......

When Coach House Books launched uTOpia: Towards a New Toronto last year we were absolutely, positively thrilled. The book brought together a group of people in love with the city and its potential. A year later, we're just days away from the launch of the State of the Arts, the sequel to that fine volume. With many of the same contributors as the first volume, we know that Coach House will pull off a fine......

One of our favourite things about Coach House Books' uTOpia book was this map by Marlena Zuber. Well, just for kicks, we've made a Google Map of it. The book is still available through Coach House or fine bookstores around town, and an eagerly-anticipated sequel is being released this Sunday at the Gladstone. Finally, high quality prints of the map are available from the artist.......

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......

Coach House books had a huge fall season with books like uTOpia and the City Man. The spring season is a more poetic affair including a Thorstein Veblen inspired book by John Paul Fiorentino. There are also novels and new work by writers such as Darren O'Donnell and a translated work from two-time GG winner Nicole Brossard. Coach House Books launches their spring titles tonight, 8pm at Revival (783 College).......

The folks at Coach House Books can't get enough of the Gladstone. Not only did they hold their packed book launch for uTOpia at the historic hotel (did you see our marshmallow architectural models?) they've decided to hold a scavenger hunt this weekend as part of this year's Come Up To My Room alternative design fest. The gauntlet gets thrown down at 2:00 on Sunday afternoon in the Gladstone ballroom. Teams will then spend the......

Are you tired of hearing about the adventures of Frodo and Gyllenhaal? A change of pace is yours today, by way of the Coach House Books 40th anniversary reading and 'virtual tour' at Harbourfront. Authors include Karen Hines, Andrew Kaufman, Anne Michaels, Darren O’Donnell, Michael Ondaatje and others. Don't tell the movie stars.......