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......

The After Dark Film Festival! Happening all week! The only film festival where Uwe bloody Boll could have his film accepted! We talked about it here! Check it out! Another crowded week for festivals, though, and sometimes we have to wonder how even Toronto can support this many in a week. We’ve got the ImagiNATIVE Film Festival and Toronto Latin Film Festivals finishing up, the Student Shorts Film Festival and the Estonian Documentary Film......

The CNE adds "you are here" stickers to its guide maps. No, really. Apparently this is a news story. And you thought journalism was hard and required a degree or something. Missisauga sci-fi author Robert. J. Sawyer wins a Galaxy award at the China International Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival. The author of such excellent books as Far-Seer and Hominids said how science fiction is wonderful because it transcends language and culture and tyrannical......

There are things that go on in this city at night that are far weirder than the leather-clad teenagers on Queen West. Did you know that vampires stalk High Park? Or that Toronto Police Services crossed into another dimension to investigate a suspicious death? No? Then you should check out Karen Bennett’s Fantastic Toronto project. Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing drew our attention to Bennett's labour of love. Bennett, a writer, photographer, panelist, and......

Canstage's heavily-hyped season-ending production of The Rocky Horror Show has finally opened at the Bluma. Last season, they finished things off with "revolutionary" 60s musical Hair, and this year they have opted for one of the 70s' key "revolutionary" musicals. Fortunately for the audiences, Rocky is an infinitely superior show to Hair in almost every way: the songs are catchier, the characters more memorable, the plot more engaging and Canstage's production, helmed by Ted......

This weekend heralds the annual Fan Expo - the combination of the Canadian National Comic Book Expo, the Science Fiction Expo, the Festival of Fear, the Anime Expo and the Gaming Expo. It routinely drags in thousands upon thousands of nerds, geeks, fanboys, fangirls, people dressed up in Sailor Moon costumes, wannabe professionals, enthusiastic amateurs, real professionals, and bargain hunters. If you fall into one of these categories (and I fall into at least four......