WORDS: Join the Toronto Cyclists Union at CineCycle tonight for the launch party of Dandyhorse, a new Toronto-based urban cycling magazine. The magazine will feature articles about commuting, advocacy, couriers, safety, fashion, and anything else related to bikes, and the party will have DJs, a cash bar, cake, and—of course—lots of brand new magazines. CineCycle (behind 129 Spadina Avenue), 7:30 p.m., $5. MUSIC: Tonight's edition of the No Shame music series should be pretty......

Every Tuesday afternoon, Torontoist rounds up the city's literary news, including book deals, events, local sales, author happenings, and insider information from the book industry. The big news this week is that the literary community's beloved I.V. Lounge Reading Series is no more. Last Saturday series curator and host Alex Boyd announced on his blog that, due to the lounge closing for what could be a year-long renovation, the reading series is officially over. Acclaimed......

FILM: Parkdale MPP Cheri DiNovo is presenting a free screening of award-winning documentary Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion tonight at The Revue Cinema. After the screening, stick around for the feel-good Q & A of the year, featuring panelists from the Tibetan Joint Action Committee. It’s party time. The Revue Cinema (400 Roncesvalles Avenue), 7 p.m., FREE. WORDS: The popular Trampoline Hall Lecture Series happens again tonight, curated by Carl Wilson and hosted......

Why travel? Especially in a city like Toronto, where we can experience so many cultures just by walking through any of the dozens of ethnically-diverse neighbourhoods? What, at its essence, makes traveling to Italy different than drinking prosecco in Little Italy? What’s the difference, really, between hanging with the Dutch and eating Dutch chocolate ice cream? We travel, of course, so that we can experience the subtleties of a culture and immerse ourselves in......

PROTEST: Anti-Scientology group Anonymous is having another planned protest at the Church of Scientology today. If you haven't been to one before, hordes of people typically disguised by masks congregate outside the Scientology building and chant things like "Fuck Tom Cruise!" and encourage cars to honk their horns! Meanwhile, the staff at the Church of Scientology chill out in their foyer, have a potluck luncheon, and watch the festivities occur. We're not really sure......

MUSIC: The Edge 102.1's monthly new music showcase is on tonight at the Horseshoe Tavern. Tonight's line-up features upcoming Toronto indie bands Invasions, The Speakeasies, and The Rivals. The Horseshoe Tavern (370 Queen Street West), 8:30 p.m., FREE. DISCUSSION: Simpsons co-executive producer (and York University graduate) Joel Cohen is moderating a debate and discussion via live video chat at Future Shop tonight called "The Future of Computer Technology." The panelists are Microsoft IT Pro advisor......

Every Tuesday afternoon, Torontoist rounds up the city's literary news, including book deals, events, local sales, author happenings, and insider information from the book industry. Tomorrow the 3 Day Novel Contest comes to Toronto for a visit. Born in Vancouver, this literary institution has been a torturous rite-of-passage for brave writers every Labour Day weekend since 1977. Hundreds of writers from around the world now compete for the coveted top prize of publication. Celebrate the......

WORDS: Breaking Dawn, the final installment of author Stephenie Meyer's vampire/romance book series Twilight, is being released at midnight. A masquerade-themed party at Indigo this evening celebrates the book launch, with Breaking Dawn-inspired activities, music, and prizes for the best costume. Plus, you get to buy the book—which will certainly suck—as soon as it goes on sale at 12:01 a.m. Indigo Books (55 Bloor Street West), 8:00 p.m., FREE. SALE: Vintage boutique Marylou Flamingo is......

Every Tuesday afternoon, Torontoist rounds up the city's literary news, including book deals, events, local sales, author happenings, and insider information from the book industry. It would be an understatement to say that Toronto author Gil Adamson has had a pretty good year. Last Friday Adamson's first novel, The Outlander, was announced as the winner of The Relit Award, a prize that recognizes books by Canadian authors published by independent Canadian presses. Outlander has been......

We're a month away from Labour Day weekend, and that means it’s almost time for this year’s 3 Day Novel Contest. What is the 3 Day Novel Contest, you ask? Well, it’s exactly as horrifying as it sounds. It’s Vancouver’s answer to NaNoWriMo, except instead of having to hammer out 1,000 words a day for an entire month, you get it all over with in 72 frantic, hysterical hours, during which contestants spew out an......

Every Tuesday afternoon, Torontoist rounds up the city's literary news, including book deals, events, local sales, author happenings, and insider information from the book industry. The 25th annual Hillside Music Festival happens in Guelph this weekend and Toronto's Coach House Books will be along for the ride. The indie press will be packing up some of its authors and bringing them to the site, allowing attendees to catch some lit alongside great musical acts like......

Friday WORDS: The new season of the Toronto Poetry Slam kicks off Friday. Amateurs sign up half an hour before the show, and are given a chance to showcase their talents. Afterward, there will be a performance from musician Mark Berube and The Patriotic Few. For more information, check out the Toronto Poetry Slam website. The Drake Hotel Underground (1150 Queen Street West), 8 p.m. (sign-up at 7:30 p.m.), $5. MUSIC: Local musician Jennifer Castle......

WORDS: Dr. Steven B. Shubert is an Egyptologist. At U of T tonight, he will be giving a lecture called "The Greeks Rule! How the Greeks Shaped Our Perception of Ancient Egypt." The lecture is presented by The Society For the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, and explores the study of ancient Egypt as provided by Greek sources such as Herotodus, Diodorus, and Manetho. 323-4 Bancroft Avenue, 7:00 p.m., FREE for members of the SSEA,......

Every Tuesday afternoon, Torontoist rounds up the city's literary news, including book deals, events, local sales, author happenings, and insider information from the book industry. The Toronto Poetry Slam is back this Friday at the Drake Underground, featuring the music of Mark Berube and the Patriotic Few. Produced and hosted by the very talented Dave Silverberg, The Slam is decidedly one of Toronto's more interesting and energetic poetry nights. Friday marks the start of a......

FILM: Tonight, as part of Yonge and Dundas Square's summer film screenings, Baz Luhrmann's version of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet will be showing. Spoiler alert: sad ending, apparently. Also, definitely check out the official website for the film, ostensibly made in 1996. Yonge and Dundas Square, 9:00 p.m., FREE. SPORTS: Over at BMO Field, Argentinian footballers Independiente are in town to play Toronto FC in an exhibition match. Can't find tickets (and don't feel......

MUSIC: It's a slow night for music in Toronto, unless you're a fan of some band called "Led Zeppelin." If this is the case, you should head over to the Molson Amphitheatre, where singer Robert Plant will inevitably play mostly new songs with vocalist Alison Krauss, and Zeppelin fans will regret having paid the outlandish $40 to sit on the Amphitheatre's lawn. With T Bone Burnett. Molson Amphitheatre (909 Lakeshore Road West), 7:30 p.m. $39.50–$99.50.......

Every Tuesday afternoon, Torontoist rounds up the city's literary news, including book deals, events, local sales, author happenings, and insider information from the book industry. The brilliantly self-deprecating humourist David Sedaris is coming to Canada to promote the release of what has been descibed as an older and wiser essay collection, When You Are Engulfed in Flames. The Toronto events on his Canadian mini-tour happen Thursday and Friday at the Manulife Centre Indigo and Ben......

Every Tuesday afternoon, Torontoist rounds up the city's literary news, including book deals, events, local sales, author happenings, and insider information from the book industry. The Scream Literary Festival is hitting Toronto in a big way—there are a number of great events about town that book lovers will want to catch. Torontoist's picks this week include Thursday's Scream Alumni Night, featuring an amazing line-up of Ken Babstock, Priscila Uppal, Kevin Connolly, Stuart Ross, and the......

This Saturday, Pride Toronto has teamed up with The Word On The Street for the second annual Proud Voices Reading Series. It's a talent-packed day-long celebration of queer writers, showcasing the best of Canada's literary skill by bringing both established veterans and emerging authors to the James Canning Gardens Stage (Gloucester and Dundonald). The series starts at 3:00 p.m. and features back-to-back readings by a variety of authors, including the award-winning Ivan E. Coyote, celebrated......

Every Saturday morning Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today. Photo of Toronto's Peter Pan Statue, City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1231, Item 716. Those words are inscribed at the base of the Peter Pan statue that stands in the square, now known as Glenn Gould Park, at Avenue Road and St. Clair Avenue. When, in the 1920s, city officials decided to......

Photo by room929 from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. In a literary twist on the current Sex and the City craze, this week the Victory Cafe plays host to Text and the City, a spotlight on four female writers as part of the Fictionista Reading Series. Shari Lapeña, Dede Crane, Linda Leith, and Laura Lush will each grace the upstairs stage this Thursday starting at 7:00 p.m., and we're told that unlike their Sex and......

Photo by king_frankenstein. Graphic novel and comic book geeks rejoice—this is your week! Tonight acclaimed Norwegian cartoonist Jason comes to Toronto to launch his new work Pocket Full of Rain. Popular Annex comic shop The Beguiling will be hosting this free event at its neighbour, The Central (603 Markham Street), tonight at 8:00 p.m. Not only that, but next Wednesday The Beguiling will also partner with The Toronto Public Library and The Merril Collection......

Back in the 1960s, if you were female and wanted to be a journalist, you would have had to content yourself with getting coffee for the “real” reporters (i.e. men), making copies (for men), and maybe (if you were lucky) doing research work and writing (which men would read). Barbara Walters changed that, paving the way for everyone from Diane Sawyer and Christiane Amanpour to Meredith Vieira and Katie Couric. She was in Toronto last......

Photo by kygp. Tonight the seven finalists for the prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize will be reading at the MacMillan Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the reading are completely sold out, so instead you'll have to settle for a copy of the anthology to get close to the nominees. The Canadian shortlist includes David McFadden and Nicole Brossard, and can be found here. The winners, who each receive $50,000, will be announced on Wednesday......

Pack up your poetry chapbooks and start flirting with your local copy shop boy/girl—the Toronto Small Press Book Fair is upon us once again. The spring fair will be held at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre, 750 Spadina Avenue on Saturday June 7 from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. In this time of scant profits for major newspapers and magazines, getting a small magazine off the ground is a challenging enterprise. The phrase......

Photo of Emily Schultz from her website. The 21st annual Trillium Book Award shortlist was announced last Friday morning. The six English-language finalists include Barbara Gowdy's Helpless, Gil Adamson’s The Outlander, Robert Hough’s The Culprits, and Dennis Lee’s Yesno. Local indie poet (and Torontoist fave) Emily Schultz is up for the $10,000 English language poetry prize for her collection Songs for the Dancing Chicken. All the nominees will come together for a free public......

Photo detail of Shary Boyle's Ouroboros, courtesy of Conundrum Press. This week artist Shary Boyle will be making an appearance at David Mirvish Books to promote her recent Conundrum Press release, Otherworld Uprising. The book, which features full-colour reproductions of Boyle’s recent series of porcelain figurines, also includes a fiction contribution from Toronto's Sheila Heti (who has been getting some stateside press recently for collecting the presidential dreams of Americans). Boyle will be signing......

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......

TYPE's new home on the Danforth. Photo by Val Dodge. You know your avenues have been gentrified when a chi-chi bookstore moves into the neighbourhood. Such is the fate of the Danforth strip, now home to the latest branch of Toronto retailers TYPE Books, the third location to crop up since the store first opened its doors in 2006. The inaugural Queen West location (right across the street from Trinity-Bellwoods) made a name for......

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......