Torontoist apologizes for her failure to find words to tell you about Christopher Dewdney’s book length dinner reading of The Natural History (ECW Press) last Friday night at The Brickworks. We can tell you that the sold-out event was part of The Scream Literary Festival and that guests dined on delectable courses of locally grown foods—just go stab a cube of watermelon and a cube of havarti with a toothpick, roll the thing in......

Tonight, The Fifteenth Annual Scream Literary Festival launches its six-day festival with readings by Dennis Lee and Souvankham Thammavongsa at The Gladstone Ballroom. Performances by George Elliot Clarke, and robots belonging to Shapour Shahidi are also promised, and it sounds like audience members are invited to make art with weird, old science textbooks. This year's festival “considers the strange alchemy of poetry and science, through readings, panels, and performances.” On July 9th, the festival......

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......

Spring launch season slows this week, but finishes strongly with new poetry collections by national treasures bill bissett and David McFadden. Tomorrow night, help David celebrate his Selected Poems: Why Are You So Sad?, edited and introduced by Stuart Ross. Here’s Stuart, from the intro: "David's poetry, like David, is social. It's interested in people, and in trees, squirrels, dogs, and oceans. It's also social in that it wants to be read, and it......

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......

Torontoist’s Poetry Contest winners were announced last month, and thus far we’ve presented Matthew Tierney's "The Man who Knew from Cool" (Honourable Mention) and the winning poem, "Eaton's Effluviad," by Gregory Betts. We’d like to introduce you to another local poet, Jenny Sampirisi, whose poem, “Velocity,” also received an Honourable Mention. Jenny holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Windsor and is currently working with The Scream Literary Festival. Check out......

For the last 24 years, Annex Books, located at 1083 Bathurst Street (just south of Dupont), has been a bibliographic treasure-trove and a cherished part of Toronto’s literary landscape. Proprietor Janet Inksetter (pictured) has befriended writers, readers, collectors, and librarians for decades. Due to a volatile marketplace, Annex Books is closing its landmark bookshop but will continue its online business. Saturday is the last day that the shop will open its doors. And tomorrow,......

The Scream Literary Festival is back and we decided to highlight a few of the lit's festival choice events for your perusal: 1) Tonight's opening gala at the Gladstone features GG award winner Dionne Brand and Euoniac Christian Bok among others. Free. 2) Poet Lisa Robertson reads her new collection The Men over a four course meal at L'Espress Bar Mercurio, Friday July 7th, 7:00pm. $60 with dinner. 3) The Scream Gala is at Hugh's......

As the Boy Reporter reported last week, The Scream Literary Festival is in our parks and hearts right now. Though a lot of good reads are still to come, roving Torontoist contributor Stephanie Silverman pokes us with this review of last Saturday night at the Press Club: I went to this event expecting nothing. Or at least, a whole lot of well-executed nothing that would result in a big spontaneous something. Barring that, I......

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. There's a special Scream edition of literary art installation Murmur in......