Photo by Marc Lostracco. In upcoming months, Toronto's summer temperatures will once again strain the power grid, and the demand for more power means more power generation—and consequently, more pollution. For Ontario customers wishing to utilize renewable energy sources, there are currently only two options: expensively retrofit your property to generate some of its own electricity, or sign up with Bullfrog Power. For many condo owners and apartment dwellers, neither of those options have......

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......

Starting your art collection? Start small. At OCAD's sixth annual Whodunit? Mystery Art Sale on Saturday, you'll have over 800 pieces to choose from—all 5½" x 7½", all $75.00. Buy your favourite, then turn it over to reveal the name of artist. Depending on your luck and sleuthing skill, you could end up with a big-name bargain: in addition to the usual Canadian artists and OCAD alumni, faculty and students, this year's special contributors......

These days, everyone and their grandmother has a celebrity gossip blog. Perez Hilton became a millionaire by outing Lance Bass and defacing paparazzi photos, while TMZ.com (named for the Thirty Mile Zone surrounding Hollywood) came out of nowhere in 2005 and almost instantaneously became the top site to see celebrities behaving badly. Sassafraz may be the closest we have to The Ivy, yet it's not stocked with a phalanx of paps, and celebrities can usually......

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......

As back-to-school fast approaches, excitement builds for one thing: the announcing of prestigious book awards. Congratulations go out to Toronto writer Michael Redhill for having his second book Consolation nominated for the Man Booker Prize. Redhill’s book is being hailed as regaining the oomph Canadian historical fiction has been lacking lately. The work, which was chosen as one of Torontoist's favourite books of the last year, is alternately gorgeous and revealing. It weaves together two......

Welcome to Torontoist's new weekly Lit. Listings of all things bookish, wordy, and between the covers. We want to highlight the "lit" in Toronto's literary scene: as you, dear reader, may have noticed, a lot of writing about writing is dull, and could be improved with a bit of light. We are living in a time when major newspapers are folding their books sections, and even alternative weeklies forget their literary pages once in......

In a time when Al Gore is predicting that global warming is the coming of the apocalypse, people are looking for creative ways to maintain a sustainable ecosystem without giving up their consumerist lifestyles. Toronto’s first Green Living Show will inspire ways to do just that. The Green Living Show is this weekend, April 27-29, at the Direct Energy Centre at the Exhibition grounds. It boasts eco-fashion shows, organic cooking demonstrations, a wildflower garden, the......

Past Griffin Award recipient Christian Bök once stated, "The Griffin is the poetry award that can drastically change a poet’s life." Christian isn't exaggerating: the $100,000 prize, shared by two winners, is one of the largest poetry awards in the world. In a 2000 speech, Scott Griffin, founder of The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry, explained, "the poetry prize had to be of sufficient size to make a statement that declared that poets......

The tiny island nation of Grenada, one more piece of paradise in the Caribbean, is probably best known as the site of one of the more absurd military interventions in U.S. history (itself subsequently dramatized in an equally ludicrous film starring Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge). Grenada’s new claim to fame might be equally ignoble. A number of interested parties including the Grenadian government, a Barbados-based developer, and the Toronto-based Four Seasons Hotel and Resorts Limited,......

There was an unexpected windfall for Green P as a major dump of snow, along with high winds and freezing rain, turned much of the GTA into a parking lot during the evening commute yesterday. Apart from the traffic mayhem, fallen trees and power outages have also been a problem throughout the city. It sure looks pretty, though. The Toronto District School Board will meet with provincial officials today after trustees rejected a recommendation......

While trolling Craigslist, we came across an intriguing apartment listing. Does your heart belong to the Annex -- home to sushiterias, frat houses, and highbrow cultural elite like Margaret Atwood and Adrienne Clarkson? Move to the neighbourhood, and you too could be closer to a Giller Prize win. And in the heart of this stylish mecca, we found this beautiful apartment. It's a ground-floor palace in an old heritage building, with two bedrooms, hardwood......

For every prestigious award shows there will be people who complain that the prize is rigged. The Gillers, Canada's most prestigious literary award, is no stranger to this. In its 13 year history the prize has been criticized for its bias towards larger publishers, to Ontario authors and any number of other shortcomings. Geist magazine columnist Stephen Henighan throws another log angrily onto that fire with his latest missive that accuses the prize of a......

In an effort to provide better service to its customers, the Toronto Public Library has changed the hours of operation for most of its 99 branches. The new hours, which can be found on the TPL website, are effective as of today. Most of the larger branches are now open at 9AM, while some community branches have had a significant change in the hours they are open, so be sure to check the new hours......

What started off as a magazine about education issues in Canada has gone on over the years to serve as a springboard for dozens of Canada's best journalists: people like Naomi Klein, Rick Salutin, Stan Persky, Margaret Atwood and others. Well Torontoist is happy to wish This Magazine a happy 40th birthday and wish them many more years of publication success. Come celebrate with the gang at This magazine Wednesday at the Gladstone Hotel, starting......

Hmm, maybe the CBC finally came to its senses and realized that reality shows like the Dragon's Den and the One are about as good an idea as "Nuts and Gum". Well, the Ceeb has agreed to develop tv movies and mini-series based on works of Canadian literature. Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride, Mordecai Richler's St. Urbain's Horseman and Barney's Version and Douglas Coupland's jPod are some of the books on deck for adaptation. Chances......

In a bizarre and tragic scene yesterday, former Toronto Blue Jay (and current New York Yankee) pitcher Cory Lidle perished after flying his plane into an apartment building in New York. The United States heads to the United Nations hoping for a UN resolution that will impose sanctions on North Korea. And North Korea threatens retaliation if Japan goes ahead and imposes sanctions in response to last weekend’s nuclear test. And George W. Bush denies......

We love Word on the Street but we always find there's way too much to do. So we've scoured the WOTS program and picked out the three things that you should try to hit up this Sunday at Queen's Park. Best of all, the whole event is free. 1) Margaret Atwood and the Long Pen (The Long Pen Tent, reading at 11am, signing all-day) Hear the grand dame of CanLit read from her new book.......

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......

Margaret Atwood is signing books, actually she's using her newly developed machine to sign books. It seems that Atwood is sick and tired of doing endless book tours and signing countless books, so she's invented a machine that allows her to remotely sign books. Torontoist sympathizes with Atwood, who is approaching 70, and would find whirlwind publicity tours tiresome after the 30+ books she's done. Frankly, if the invention let's Atwood spend more time writing......

Descanter Mark sends us this post about the literary mag's swish fundraiser tonight: Descant Magazine has been bringing out the literary noise for the past 36 years with a commitment to publishing new and emerging writers, and visual artists, alongside such established names as Barbara Gowdy, Alberto Manguel and Edward Burtynsky. And now Descant is throwing a party to celebrate its writers and readers. The Descant Book Ball 2 takes place TONIGHT at Sorauren Studios......

Toronto writer Sheila Heti waxes romantic about The Arcade Fire in the new issue of Walrus magazine. Her contribution to the summer "Love Letters" feature is addressed to Régine and makes reference to digging tunnels, naming babies and other activities held sacred by Montreal’s finest. The note, affectionately signed ‘W’, could or could not be inspired by the Fire’s spring show at the Danforth Music Hall. The magazine is on newsstands now and also features......

Thanks to Gawker, we feel better about the time we fell asleep during Copenhagen. Apparently, we're not alone. Authoress and inventoress Margaret Atwood also finds time to fall asleep on cultural evenings out. But only after first boring the audience with her own speechery. Seen anyone fall asleep in public lately? Do let us know.......

Last week we waded through the digital bookshelves to unearth for you two like livres. Today, we see that the publisher of one of said books, Anansi, has gone loopy on us. Not that you shouldn't enter their excellent 'NOT the Usual Suspects' Contest. You should always enter any contest that involves coercing Margaret Atwood into participaing in a line-up. We just hope that the signed copies she provides for the contest won't be courtesy......

Toronto's very own Margaret Atwood has made the list of nominees for the worst named award ever! The Man Booker International Prize will be awarded every two years to an author writing in English or whose works have been widely translated into English. The award was created after criticism that the annual Man Booker prize was only awarded to authors in the UK and the Commonwealth. Torontoist wishes that the wealthy backers of the awards......

We haven't bothered with our Seven critique in recent weeks because the tabloid-stepchild of the Globe's Friday paper hasn't warranted much criticism of late. But this week Globe Seven does a bang up job. The Sleepy McKellar cover shot ranks second only to StrutMag's awesome pimped-out McKellar photo spread (think Don McKellar pretending he's Dov Charney!) of issues past. What's more, we get a Monday Report shot of Margaret Atwood inventing the character of a......

Torontoist has heard that end of year lists are generally tedious and irrelevant. Torontoist acknowledges the point. But Torontoist also only burst on the scene a couple of months ago and would like to take this moment to salute nine plays we liked in 2004. They weren’t necessarily the best plays, per se, but we liked them is all. The Handmaid’s Tale (Canadian Opera Company) You can call it an opera if you so desire,......