Results tagged “davidbezmozgis”

It is forgivable to forget that Toronto is the prevailing backdrop to the stories and poems collected in the anthology TOK: Writing the New Toronto. The anthology itself is not exactly about Toronto—devoid of any superficialities of Toronto pride and a "what Toronto means to me" mentality—choosing instead to showcase a continually shape-shifting Toronto.

We bet few of you have been to the Toronto Archives. We didn’t even know where it was until last night, when we attended theToronto Book Awards. But stepping into the foyer to be greeted by a room covered in photos and maps of our city’s history, it struck us at just how fitting it is to hold the ceremony here -- books honoured for their fluent portraits of Toronto stories in a building that houses the same.

- Shameless mag launch, with performances by Republic of Safety and Cougar Party. "Screenings of horror shorts and scenes from horror classics by Filmmaker/Video DJ James King, on-site makeovers by our team of professional special-effects makeup artists, prizes and more," all taking place on Sunday at the rapidly swankifying Gladstone hotel.

) short-story wunderkind was shut out of the hometown prize last year but went on to get nods elsewhere, winning pretty much every other literary award around, including the most recent Toronto Book Award. Since both authors happen to be relative outsiders in the small-ish Canadian publishing community, it begs the question, Could the Gillers be one big popularity contest, like a grown-up junior high? Say it ain’t so, Jack.

Smog alerts, humidity, heat, makes you want to just sit in the park doesn't it? And wouldn't your evening picnic be a little nicer with some of Toronto's best writers? It's the basic premise for the Scream Literary Festival, what started as a one night reading in High Park has now expanded into a nearly two week long fest that stretches across the city.

The Year that Was: We won't presume to have seen it all, or read it all, or eaten it all. And so, a digested list of good things that happened in and around the GTA and the universe this year. Okay, in and around this year.

Meanwhile, Torontoist's favourite new author, David Bezmozgis, was denied the Giller, but shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. Another G, and a prize total of around the same G's, so Bezmozgis shouldn't be too displeased. When we heard him read at the Ashkenaz festival a few weeks back, he seemed an entirely affable fellow (not at all like that Jonathan Goldstein, whose profanity-laced reading caused two long in the tooth and short in the hearing bubbes to run for the exits). And Natasha and Other Stories was one of the best books of recent vintage. So Torontoist is going to support D-Bez in this upcoming election.