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The Literati: Free Books, Teen Screams, and Small Press Wins Sweet Prize
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 very busy Emily Schultz. Things kick off at 8:00 p.m. at Supermarket (268 Augusta Avenue).
In a pay-what-you-can Scream Youth event, Torontoist fave and creator of the popular (and recently revamped) Seen Reading blog, Julie Wilson, will be hosting a youth-centred workshop designed to get kids and teens collaborating on a creative project. Toronto poet,Shannon Bramer (whose most recent chapbook, Fishings, was created in collaboration with her three-year-old daughter) will also be there to read from her work. Everything happens on Saturday at 4:30 p.m at Tinto, Parkdale’s latest literary hotspot.
In book award news, last week Coach House was awarded the Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in the category of arts organization. Administered by the Ontario Arts Council and recognizing “outstanding achievement and contribution to arts and culture in Ontario,” the award comes with a hefty $50,000 cheque. What are the good folks at Coach House going to do with the newly-acquired cash? Quillblog reports that Editor Alana Wilcox let them know the press will spend the booty by “fixing/replacing the Magical Sleeper Chair, a thank-you party for the authors, a series of new broadsides, reprinting several low-on-stock titles and, sexiest of all, paying some bills. And we’re going to have a big thank-you sale on the website. Also, we bought a lot of cinnamon rolls this afternoon. And ate them all.” The resulting giant three-for-two thank-you sale ends on July 4, so get on over to their site and stock up on some great titles.
Finally, The MiniBook Expo for Bloggers is on now. The online event is a chance for Canadian publishers to give away some books in exchange for a little publicity. Would-be reviewers rummage through the MiniBook Expo blog, see a book they like and claim it, and the publisher sends along the book at no cost. The one rule is that you either blog about or send the site a review of the book to post within a month of receiving it—but hey, everyone’s a critic, right? Get on over to the site for more details.
Photo by only alice.