Monday morning, amidst a first-rate buffet of coffee, chocolate chip cookies, and fresh orange juice at the Four Seasons Hotel, a disheveled group of journalists and bankers gathered to hear the shortlist announced for the 14th annual Scotiabank Giller Prize. Only the second year that the final contenders were culled from an initial longlist of 15 books, this annum the task fell to the jury of staunch decipherers David Bergen, Camilla Gibb and Lorna......

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.......

An overflowing pile of books by paolo_dlk from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. The summer months may have left us a little dehydrated, a little sun burnt, a little flaky, and a little wordless, but after a long break, LitTO is returning to inform you how this fall season will revitalize your sense of word wonder. Yesterday the longlist for the 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize was officially announced. A record of 108 books were submitted......

A big congratulations goes out to Toronto-based press House of Anansi for publishing this year’s ReLit short story winner, Bill Gaston’s Gargoyles. The ReLit award is set up to give well deserved attention to books produced by the independent presses throughout Canada. House of Anansi’s winning entry is joined a number of its other publications on the poetry and novel short list. (Also nominated for the long list was Torontoist’s very own Sharon Harris for......

If you’d like weekly emails full of Toronto literary listings, sign up at Patchy Squirrel, a new offering from Stuart Ross and Dani Couture. Stuart launches a new collection of poetry, I Cut My Finger (Anvil Press) with Kate Sutherland's All In Together Girls (fiction from Thistledown Press) Sunday, April 22, 8 p.m. at Clintons Tavern (back room), 693 Bloor West. For a monthly overview of the Toronto scene and beyond, Word: Canada’s Magazine for......

Award-winning Toronto author (and emergency physician) Vincent Lam will give his first public reading since winning the Scotiabank Giller Prize this Wednesday as Diaspora Dialogues teams up with the Harbourfront Centre’s International Reading series. Diaspora Dialogues, which is about to enter its third year, is joining forces with Harbourfront's International Readings series to host a slew of events in 2007, including a mini-festival in June right before Book Expo. While the chance to hear Vincent......

If film buffs get the TIFF, art buffs get the Queen West Art Crawl, and hockey buffs get the NHL playoffs, then literary types get the IFOA. This year's fest packs in dozens of authors and into 10 days worth of readings, panel discussions, interviews and parties. Yes, once in a while literary types put down their books and drink. Torontoist lists the five events that piqued our interest in chronological order. 1) Mark Z.......

So, the shortlist for the new and improved Scotiabank Giller Prize was announced this morning. TOist will cut to the chase: Joseph Boyden wuz robbed. Not only could we not put Three-Day Road down, the novel also straddles the literary and commercial quite nicely (it was Isabel Allende’s pick for this major book club, fer Pete's sake). While delighted that David Bergen made the cut, TOist worries that the literary establishment may once again have......