Tonight, DRAFT Reading Series presents its season finale with an impressive list of writers: George Elliot Clarke, Flavia Cosma, Phyllis Gottlieb, Pasha Malla, Merle Nudelman, and Ottawa's rob mclennan. Please go buy rob a beer for us: he's a tireless promoter/publisher of Canadian poetry, a prolific poet himself, and a wonderful soul. He keeps an always interesting blog of reviews and articles about books, writers, and events across the country. Honour him with multiple beverages,......

Toronto is one of the most important centres of African music outside of Africa itself, according to cultural heritage organization Music Africa. Besides pointing out that Toronto has more African music on the radio than any other North American city and hosts the largest annual music festival of its kind (Afrofest), the site also has these flattering words to say: Probably the most remarkable development over these last few years is how groups have combined......

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.......

When Feist returned to Toronto a couple of years ago she brought back a little bit of France to Toronto. This weekend another Torontonian comes home and brings back a little more of the Continent back to T.O.. Born in Toronto, Gonzales lived in Berlin and Paris like musical collaborators Feist and Peaches. Teaming up with Peaches, Gonz gained notoriety for his over-the-top live shows. In the studio he's part of the reason for Feist's......

Last summer, Chris Earle's one man show Democrats Abroad was Torontoist's favourite out of the zillions of Summerworks shows we saw in three days. Our brain came close to exploding that weekend, but fortunately it didn't, and we survived long enough to sing the praises of Chris Earle. And fortunately for all of you who missed the clever, creepy, and hilarious Democrats Abroad the first time around, you can catch the remount at the Factory......

Calling Beat, Breaks and Culture the Toronto Electronic Music Festival is a bit of a pickle. Supposing the ‘electronic’ refers to the "computer generated visual performance, film and video" and "live Canadian and international electronic artists," there’s still a real gap between the ‘electronic artist’ tag and the highlights Platinum Pied Pipers. Featuring Detroit’s finest rapper/producer Jay Dee, the PPPipers, along with Jean Grae, graffiti art and the film Freestyle, represent the festival’s strong......