Photo by raveneye | José. This week Toronto's favourite literary voyeur, Julie Wilson, relaunches her Seen Reading site, giving her very entertaining habit of spying on readers a whole new look. The biggest new feature is a podcast for every entry—lit geeks can listen to Julie while on transit, sitting beside someone who’s reading on transit, while listening to Julie talk about someone who’s reading on transit. As Julie herself said to Torontoist, "Very......

Photo by petite corneille. Torontoist's lit pick this week? On Thursday award-winning Winnipeg author Chandra Mayor is in town to launch her short story collection, All The Pretty Girls, at Toronto Women's Bookstore. The evening is a bonus triple bill, as Mayor will be joined by two local femme favourites—Debra Anderson (Code White), and Zoe Whittall (Bottle Rocket Hearts). Rumour has it Whittall will be reading from a draft of her latest, currently untitled......

Photo by micgormit from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. This week internationally acclaimed author Maggie Helwig launches her new novel Girls Fall Down (Coach House Books) at the Toronto Women's Bookstore (73 Harbord Street). Torontoist is always happy to see local writers using Toronto as a setting for novels, and Helwig doesn't disappoint. In her rendering, a biological outbreak on the TTC sends the city into a panic, as stricken citizens are collapsing in subways......

Photo by gp0256 from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. If great female writers is what you're after this week, you're in luck. Tonight you can catch the always entertaining and edgy poetry of Tara-Michelle Ziniuk (Emergency Contact) at The Art Bar Poetry Series. Rumour has it that she'll be publishing her next collection, tentatively titled Somewhere To Run From, with Tightrope Books in spring 2009. The writer, performer, and activist will be joined by Sharon......

Photo by Tom (hmm a rosa tint). Get ready for an overload of launches—spring has finally sprung in the book world. Things certainly start off right as tomorrow Coach House Books hosts their spring launch at Stones Place. As far as book parties go, Coach House has a real knack for showing revelers a real good time. The evening will feature performances by writers from their current catalogue, including Maggie Helwig, Claudia Dey, Jordan......

Photo by blimpa. A welcome literary sign of spring is National Poetry Month, a country-wide event that kicked off locally this morning with a shindig at Ben McNally Books featuring Poet Laureate for Canada, John Steffler. Until the end of April Toronto will see a wide variety of events and readings, each devoted to celebrating the cultural value of poetry. The first poetry event of note is this Wednesday's NicholBack, an ingeniously titled tribute......

The fantastic Ibi Kaslik is back with a follow-up to her stunning debut novel, Skinny (a book that cracked the New York Times best sellers list for two consecutive weeks earlier this year—no small feat for a young Canadian writer). Kaslik's latest offering, The Angel Riots (Penguin Books), is the fictional chronicle of two up-and-coming Montreal bands, and speculation has already surfaced that the author (who, while in high school, was in a band with......

Photo by Jonathan Ponce from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's a bit of a slow week on Toronto's literary event calendar, as most publishers are in the final, frantic phases of producing their new spring catalogues. Enjoy your rest now, because things are going to get real busy come April. Having said that, there are a few gems for book lovers to attend before the snow finally melts and a packed schedule of spring......

Panel from Emily Pohl-Weary and Willow Dawson's Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate #4, courtesy of Willow Dawson. Ten weeks of fantastic, free writing workshops have just been announced as part of the Parkdale Street Writers program. Coordinated by the multi-talented poet, YA author, and Kiss Machine founder Emily Pohl-Weary, the workshops start April 1 and are led by some kick-ass local writers and artists, including Mariko Tamaki, Willow Dawson, and Kristyn Dunnion. You don’t have......

Photo of Julie Wilson, courtesy of Julie Wilson. Julie Wilson has become a favourite in literary entertainment over the past few years. Since 2006, her popular blog Seen Reading has been keeping Toronto book geeks amused by tracking the city's public reading habits. The concept is both simple and ingenious—Wilson spots a stranger reading, guesses where they are in the book, transcribes the passage onto her blog, and then lets her imagination run wild.......

Detail of photo by the Frankfurt School from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.. This week is Freedom to Read Week, a national event that encourages Canadians to value their right to choose what they read, and to recognize the individuals who fight to protect that right. Celebrations against censorship are happening across the country—locally PEN Canada is presenting an evening of readings and performances to promote a new anthology, Writers Under Siege: Voices of Freedom......

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,......

Photo of d’bi.young.anitafrika and her son, Moon, courtesy of Women’s Press. Last week’s literary listings featured a number of events celebrating one man (Michael Redhill, who is likely exhausted and has since gone back to Narbonne, France) and One Book (Consolation). This week the obvious literary picks are two very talented, very different women. Recent winner of the Toronto Arts Council Foundation Emerging Artist award and one of Canada’s most celebrated young performers, d’bi.young.anitafrika......

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......

Next Monday, February 4, Keep Toronto Reading will launch its One Book program at the Toronto Reference Library. There will be performances by Soprano Mary Lou Fallis, who will sing popular songs from the 1850s, and Ross Manson who will perform two dramatic readings from Consolation. The event will be hosted by Tina Srebotnjak, who will interview Michael Redhill, author of Consolation. You can check out all One Book events here. As part of Keep......

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......

Photo courtesy of WordFest. This Thursday the Toronto Reference Library will host a LongPen event with Margaret Atwood—inventor of the device—who will interview BBC personality and author Kate Mosse (not the model), who will be in Sussex, England. Conducted via video conferencing, Mosse will read from her newest work, Sepulchre, and answer audience questions, and will be able to sign books with the LongPen. Mosse's book will be available through Nicholas Hoare Books at......

Photo by 826 Chicago Today, TINARS will present Dave Eggers, founder of McSweeney's, to launch the paperback edition of his book, What Is the What. Here in Toronto for one day only, Eggers' book, written as a "novelized autobiography" about Sudanese war refugee Valentino Achak Deng, will be complemented with a multimedia presentation during the event. Also don't forget that Taddle Creek will be having their tenth anniversary party tomorrow. They'll be celebrating with the......

Next week, Taddle Creek, a Toronto-based literary magazine that publishes Toronto authors exclusively, will be celebrating their tenth anniversary. Expected to release a "giant-sized" Christmas 2007 Issue, the 72-page magazine has writing from Alex Boyd, Emily Schultz, Camilla Gibb, Stuart Ross, and many, many others, for the simple price of $4.95. The anniversary party will be at the Gladstone Hotel on November 28th, with readings, music by the Eradicators, door prizes, and maybe cake.......

Photo courtesy of TYPE TYPE Books is expanding! Building on the success of their Queen Street West location, TYPE Books will be opening a second store in Forest Hill Village. Located at 394 Spadina Road, the store will be smaller than the one on Queen, but you can definitely expect a carefully curated "best of the best" approach to book selection, with the characterized and personalized sections that TYPE Books is known to offer. Aesthetically,......

It's going to be a busy couple of weeks in Toronto, and you may have a tough time deciding just what bookish thing to attend. If anything, Torontoist recommends you check out this year's second Toronto Small Press Book Fair this Saturday. The twice-yearly event features a variety of micro to medium-sized presses offering zines, books, chapbooks, journals, hand-made crafts, and many other wonderful things. And if you've got any time and energy left......

Photo by ilkrender. The Toronto Reference Library will be celebrating the big 30 this Friday, and you're invited to its open house birthday party. Beginning at 10:30 a.m. with Breakfast Television host Kevin Frankish, Mayor David Miller, and architects Raymond and Ajon Moriyama, the event includes poetry readings, music, artist demonstrations, library tours, workshops, etc. The library will also launch Your Stories, a collection of personal narratives about the library's role in the lives......

"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......

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......

Photo by EIFF. Next week on October 17th, the International Festival of Authors will kick off its 28th year since its inception in 1980 at the Premiere Dance Theatre (207 Queens Quay West). Incorporating some of the best contemporary world literature, the festival is comprised of eleven days and nights of readings, interviews, round-table discussions, lectures, and book signings—not to mention special event readings by Scotiabank Giller Prize and Governor General’s Literary Awards finalists.......

"March of the Penguins" by BrynJ. This week's LitTO is chock full of reading events, mainly from the Factory Theatre's national-made-local reading series. In collaboration with several play development centres situated throughout the country, the Factory Theatre's Trans-Canada Edition presents new playwrights and their plays from British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Quebec, Manitoba, and the Maritimes. All reading events are free and will take place from October 3–6, with varying times. On Wednesday, Penguin Group......

"Skeletons Out for a Walk" by emcnamee. There is a lot of madness to look forward to this week. Nuit Blanche madness (covered very soon by Torontoist), book sale madness, and literary events madness spread throughout the city. Torontoist will give you the lowdown on everything we can this week so you can sort it all out in your head. To settle down pre-Nuit Blanche jitters, you can check out the Art Aloud: Scotiabank......