Colleen Coco Collins at the Antler River Poetry Series
2025-09-17 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | Landon Branch London Public Library, 167 Wortley Road, London, ON, Canada
Colleen Coco Collins, author of the poetry collection Sorry About the Fire, will be a guest reader at the Antler River Poetry Series! Coco will be joined by fellow poets Erín Moure and Chantel Neveu.
The event takes place at the Landon Branch of the London Public Library on Wednesday, September 17 at 7PM.
Grab Sorry About the Fire here!
ABOUT SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE
A CBC Books’ Poetry Collection to Watch for in Spring 2024 • 3rd Prize Alcuin Award for Book Design in Poetry
I wanted a good bewildering, / down deep, / as the keep of a castle.
With a voice as ungovernable and determined as Prometheus—who stole fire from Zeus only to face dire consequences—Colleen Coco Collins’ debut poems are daring dispatches from beyond the margins: light-filled flares sent up from the edge of language, sentience, land, and story. Drawing on all of her multidisciplinary enamorations and rendered through the triple vision of her Irish, French, and Odawa heritage, Sorry About the Fire introduces not just a poet, but a stunningly original sensibility.
ABOUT COLLEEN COCO COLLINS
Colleen Coco Collins [she/they] is an interdisciplinary artist of Irish, French, and Odawa descent, working in songwriting, performance, poetry and visual arts. She’s worked as a gallery director, in forestry, fossil preparation, and renovation; as an autism support worker, teacher, and women’s shelter counsellor. Her writing, music, and art practice centers on temporality, presumptions of sentience, subversion, rhythm, gesture, geographies, biophonies, frequencies, the ouroboric, the peripatetic, love and the polyglottic. Hailing from Antler River/Deshkan Ziibiing/London, Ontario, Coco has studied at universities in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, New Zealand, and Ireland. She lives litorally in rural Port Greville, Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia amidst crows, coyotes, grackles, bees, humpback, lichen and fox.

Ira Wells at Kingston Writers Fest: You Can't Read That!
2025-09-19 15:30 - 17:00 (America/Toronto) | Kingston Marriott, 285 King St E, Kingston, ON, K7L 3B1, Canada
Ira Wells, author of On Book Banning, will be speaking at the Kingston Writers Fest event “You Can’t Read That!” Ira will be joined by politics and culture critic David Moscrop in a robust discussion of public and private book banning. Is it wrong to embrace the books of people who do things we abhor? What is ‘equity-based weeding’? How can we know the true scope of book banning when according to a study by the American Library Association 82 to 97 percent of all library challenges go unreported? Do we have a national, communal history? If so, how can we best protect it?
The event will take place in the Limestone City Ballroom (Kingston Marriott) on Friday, September 19 at 3:30PM.
Tickets and more details here.
Grab a copy of On Book Banning here!
ABOUT ON BOOK BANNING
The freedom to read is under attack.
From the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome to today’s state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ+ literature, book bans arise from the impulse toward social control. In a survey of legal cases, literary controversies, and philosophical arguments, Ira Wells illustrates the historical opposition to the freedom to read and argues that today’s conservatives and progressives alike are warping our children’s relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright expurgation. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who will always insist upon reading for themselves.
ABOUT IRA WELLS
Ira Wells is a critic, essayist, and an associate professor at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, where he teaches in the Northrop Frye stream in literature and the humanities in the Vic One program. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Globe and Mail, Guardian, The New Republic, and many other venues. His most recent book is Norman Jewison: A Director’s Life. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children.

Steven Heighton's Sacred Rage: Kingston Writers Fest
2025-09-19 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Toronto) | Kingston Marriott, 285 King St E, Kingston, ON, K7L 3B1, Canada
Steven Heighton’s second posthumous story collection, Sacred Rage, will be included in the Kingston Writers Fest event, “Bushwacked by Inspiration: Short Stories.” Excerpts from Sacred Rage will be read by Sarah Tsiang, who will also be joined for the event by Catherine Bush, Deepa Rajagopalan, and Jamal Saeed in a discussion of writing short-form fiction, and its challenges and particular satisfactions.
The event will take place in the Rideau Room (Kingston Marriott) on Friday, September 19 at 7PM.
Tickets and more details here.
Grab Sacred Rage here!
ABOUT SACRED RAGE
“A writer only feels like a writer when in the act. And the will, I said, is never enough . . . Where does inspiration, that sacred rage, originate? Maybe it’s just a matter of stubbornly starting something new and writing your way into the slot.”—Steven Heighton
In the years before his unexpected death, Steven Heighton wrote to his longtime editor John Metcalf to say that he understood that the short story marked his most important contribution to literature, and that “after the novels, rereading and writing short stories again felt like returning home.” In the fifteen stories taken from across his four collections, Sacred Rage offers us Heighton as the moral explorer of the global suburbs, as chronicler of our innermost stories of love and fear, sleeping and waking, of a rebel “unabashedly devoted to the old pursuit,” as he once called it, “of truth and beauty.” These are stories of grace and the lack of it; of elegy and requiem; of hope and care in a world where these seem increasingly alien, stories by one of our most sharp-eyed and generous writers, whether you’re discovering them for the first time, or once again.
ABOUT STEVEN HEIGHTON
Steven Heighton (1961–2022) was a writer and musician. His twenty previous books include the novels Afterlands, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, and the bestselling The Shadow Boxer; the Writers’ Trust Hilary Weston Prize finalist memoir Reaching Mithymna: Among the Volunteers and Refugees on Lesvos; and The Waking Comes Late, winner of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry.

Richard Kelly Kemick at Fog Lit Festival
2025-09-25 | BMO Theatre, 112 Princess Street, Saint John, NB, E2L 1K4, Canada
Join Richard Kelly Kemick, author of Hello, Horse, at the Fog Lit Festival, where he’ll be hosting the Opening Reception & Literary Trivia!
The event will take place on Thursday, September 25 at 7PM.
More details here.
Get Hello, Horse here!
ABOUT HELLO, HORSE
Taut, stylish stories take on big moral questions from surprising perspectives.
A teenager’s job mucking stalls at a dog track takes a strange turn when his co-worker finds a new religion at odds with winning streaks. Two brothers set out in search of fame upon the frozen waters of a subarctic lake. After her mother’s death, a high school student tries to make rent by winning the Unitarian Church’s Annual Young Writer’s Short Story Competition. An incarcerated man considers the nature of justice between shifts with his fellow inmates at Nations at War, the ultimate live-action experience for tourists eager to learn about the Canadian Civil War.
Spanning states and provinces, and featuring an apocalypse, a coterie of ghosts, nuns on ice, and an above-average number of dogs, the stories in Hello, Horse consider the mirage of authenticity and the impact of decisions we make—for better and for worse.
ABOUT RICHARD KELLY KEMICK
Richard Kelly Kemick is an award-winning poet, journalist, and fiction writer. His limited series podcast, Natural Life, is an intimate and unexpectedly honest documentary on his cousin, who is serving a life sentence without parole in Michigan. Richard is also the author of I Am Herod (also on audiobook), which takes readers undercover at one of the world’s largest religious events, and Caribou Run, a collection of poetry. He is the recipient of multiple awards including two National Magazine Awards and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s 2019 Award for Best Short Story. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Colleen Coco Collins at the Fredericton Poetry Weekend
2025-10-05 | UNB Fredericton, Fredericton, NB, E3B 5A3, Canada
Catch Colleen Coco Collins, author of the poetry collection Sorry About the Fire, at the Fredericton Poetry Weekend! Book available for sale by Westminster Bookmark.
The all-day event takes place at UNB’s Memorial Hall on Sunday, October 5.
Grab Sorry About the Fire here!
ABOUT SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE
A CBC Books’ Poetry Collection to Watch for in Spring 2024 • 3rd Prize Alcuin Award for Book Design in Poetry
I wanted a good bewildering, / down deep, / as the keep of a castle.
With a voice as ungovernable and determined as Prometheus—who stole fire from Zeus only to face dire consequences—Colleen Coco Collins’ debut poems are daring dispatches from beyond the margins: light-filled flares sent up from the edge of language, sentience, land, and story. Drawing on all of her multidisciplinary enamorations and rendered through the triple vision of her Irish, French, and Odawa heritage, Sorry About the Fire introduces not just a poet, but a stunningly original sensibility.
ABOUT COLLEEN COCO COLLINS
Colleen Coco Collins [she/they] is an interdisciplinary artist of Irish, French, and Odawa descent, working in songwriting, performance, poetry and visual arts. She’s worked as a gallery director, in forestry, fossil preparation, and renovation; as an autism support worker, teacher, and women’s shelter counsellor. Her writing, music, and art practice centers on temporality, presumptions of sentience, subversion, rhythm, gesture, geographies, biophonies, frequencies, the ouroboric, the peripatetic, love and the polyglottic. Hailing from Antler River/Deshkan Ziibiing/London, Ontario, Coco has studied at universities in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, New Zealand, and Ireland. She lives litorally in rural Port Greville, Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia amidst crows, coyotes, grackles, bees, humpback, lichen and fox.

Caroline Adderson at Greenwood Storyfest: Writing Worksop
2025-10-11 14:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Stephen F. Shaar Community Centre, 394 rue Main, Hudson, QC, Canada
Caroline Adderson, author of A Way to Be Happy, will be leading a writing workshop at the Greenwood StoryFest! The workshop is for adults wishing to learn more about how to create believable characters in their stories. She will be sharing her insight into aspects of characters to highlight in terms of descriptions, development, and dialogue, and working with participants to create three-dimensional characters of their own.
The event will take place on Saturday, October 11 at 2PM.
Tickets and more details here.
Grab a copy of A Way to Be Happy here!
ABOUT A WAY TO BE HAPPY
Longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize • A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024 • A CBC Best Fiction Book of the Year
Short stories about disparate characters consider what it means to find happiness.
On New Year’s Eve, a pair of addicts robs a string of high-end parties in order to fund their own recovery. A recently separated woman relocates to a small northern town, where she receives a life-changing visitation, and a Russian hitman, suffering from a mysterious lung ailment, retrieves long-buried memories of his past. In the nineteenth century, a disparate group of women coalesce in the attempt to aid a young girl in her escape from a hospital for the insane. These are but some of the remarkable characters who populate these stories, all of them grappling with conflicts ranging from mundane to extraordinary. Caroline Adderson’s A Way to Be Happy considers what it means to find happiness—and how often it comes through the grace of others.
ABOUT CAROLINE ADDERSON
Caroline Adderson is the author of five novels (A Russian Sister, Ellen in Pieces, The Sky Is Falling, Sitting Practice, and A History of Forgetting), two previous collections of short stories (Pleased to Meet You and Bad Imaginings), as well as many books for young readers. Her award nominations include the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rogers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. The recipient of three BC Book Prizes, three CBC Literary Awards, and the Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement, Caroline lives and writes in Vancouver.

Caroline Adderson at Greenwood Storyfest
2025-10-12 13:30 (America/New_York) | Stephen F. Shaar Community Centre, 394 rue Main, Hudson, QC, Canada
Caroline Adderson will be appearing at the Greenwood Storyfest to speak about her latest collection of short stories, A Way to Be Happy!
The event will take place on Sunday, October 12 at 1:30 PM.
Tickets and more details here.
Grab a copy of A Way to Be Happy here!
ABOUT A WAY TO BE HAPPY
Longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize • A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024 • A CBC Best Fiction Book of the Year
Short stories about disparate characters consider what it means to find happiness.
On New Year’s Eve, a pair of addicts robs a string of high-end parties in order to fund their own recovery. A recently separated woman relocates to a small northern town, where she receives a life-changing visitation, and a Russian hitman, suffering from a mysterious lung ailment, retrieves long-buried memories of his past. In the nineteenth century, a disparate group of women coalesce in the attempt to aid a young girl in her escape from a hospital for the insane. These are but some of the remarkable characters who populate these stories, all of them grappling with conflicts ranging from mundane to extraordinary. Caroline Adderson’s A Way to Be Happy considers what it means to find happiness—and how often it comes through the grace of others.
ABOUT CAROLINE ADDERSON
Caroline Adderson is the author of five novels (A Russian Sister, Ellen in Pieces, The Sky Is Falling, Sitting Practice, and A History of Forgetting), two previous collections of short stories (Pleased to Meet You and Bad Imaginings), as well as many books for young readers. Her award nominations include the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rogers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. The recipient of three BC Book Prizes, three CBC Literary Awards, and the Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement, Caroline lives and writes in Vancouver.

Precarious: Marcello Di Cintio at Edmonton LitFest
2025-10-16 07:00 - 08:30 (America/Edmonton) | Muttart Theatre, Stanley A Milner Library, 7 Sir Winston Churchill Sq NW, Edmonton, AB, T5J 2V5, Canada
Marcello Di Cintio, author of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers, will be appearing at the Edmonton LitFest! Marcello in conversation with LitFest board treasurer Danielle Paradis to talk about his latest book. Books will be available courtesy of Audrey’s Books.
The event will take place at the Muttart Theatre on Thursday, October 16 at 7PM.
Tickets and more details here.
Grab a copy of Precarious here!
ABOUT PRECARIOUS
A series of profiles of foreign workers illuminates the precarity of global systems of migrant labor and the vulnerability of their most disenfranchised agents.
In 2023, after weeks of investigation, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomoyo Obokata came to a scathing conclusion: Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” Workers complained of excessive hours and unpaid overtime; of being forced to perform dangerous tasks or ones not specified in their contracts; of being physically abused, intimidated, and sexually harassed; and of overcrowded, unsanitary living conditions that deprived them of their privacy and dignity.
In Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers, Marcello Di Cintio ranges across the country speaking to those who have come from elsewhere to till our fields, bathe our elderly, and serve us our Double Doubles, uncovering stories of tremendous perseverance, resilience, and humanity, but also of precarity and vulnerability. He shows that vast swathes of our economy depend on the work of people we don’t see, while expanding our awareness of what migrant work now entails, and revealing that our mistreatment of the most vulnerable among us diminishes our own dignity.
ABOUT MARCELLO DI CINTIO
Marcello Di Cintio is the author of six books, including Walls: Travels Along the Barricades, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense, and Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers. He has also written for the Globe and Mail, The Walrus, The International New York Times, and Canadian Geographic, among others. He lives in Calgary.

Precarious: Marcello Di Cintio at Calgary Wordfest
2025-10-18 19:30 - 21:00 (America/Edmonton) | Memorial Park Library, Festival Hub, 2nd Flr, 1221 2 St SW, Calgary, AB, Canada
Marcello Di Cintio, author of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers, will be appearing at Calgary Wordfest for the panel “Othering & Empathy.” Marcello will be joined by fellow writers Linden MacIntyre and Saeed Teebi, and host Christina Frangou for a discussion on empathy. What more life-affirming way to spend your Saturday night than walking a mile in someone else’s shoes? Come grow your mind and heart with these deeply thoughtful authors. Book will be available from Owl’s Nest Books.
The event will take place at the Memorial Park Library 2nd Floor on Saturday, October 18 at 7:30PM.
More details here.
Grab a copy of Precarious here!
ABOUT PRECARIOUS
A series of profiles of foreign workers illuminates the precarity of global systems of migrant labor and the vulnerability of their most disenfranchised agents.
In 2023, after weeks of investigation, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomoyo Obokata came to a scathing conclusion: Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” Workers complained of excessive hours and unpaid overtime; of being forced to perform dangerous tasks or ones not specified in their contracts; of being physically abused, intimidated, and sexually harassed; and of overcrowded, unsanitary living conditions that deprived them of their privacy and dignity.
In Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers, Marcello Di Cintio ranges across the country speaking to those who have come from elsewhere to till our fields, bathe our elderly, and serve us our Double Doubles, uncovering stories of tremendous perseverance, resilience, and humanity, but also of precarity and vulnerability. He shows that vast swathes of our economy depend on the work of people we don’t see, while expanding our awareness of what migrant work now entails, and revealing that our mistreatment of the most vulnerable among us diminishes our own dignity.
ABOUT MARCELLO DI CINTIO
Marcello Di Cintio is the author of six books, including Walls: Travels Along the Barricades, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense, and Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers. He has also written for the Globe and Mail, The Walrus, The International New York Times, and Canadian Geographic, among others. He lives in Calgary.

Marcello Di Cintio and Don Gillmor at Vancouver Writers Fest
2025-10-24 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Performance Works, 1218 Cartwright Street, Vancouver, BC, V6H 3R9, Canada
Marcello Di Cintio, author of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers, and Don Gillmor, author of On Oil, will be appearing at Vancouver Writers Fest for the panel “The Costs of Exploitation and Sustainability.” Marcello and Don, joined by fellow author Vince Beisar and moderator David Beers, will be in conversation to analyze the heavy human and environmental costs of abusive resource extraction, and illuminate a better path forward.
The event will take place at Performance Works on Friday, October 24 at 10am.
More details here.
Grab a copy of Precarious here, and On Oil here!
ABOUT PRECARIOUS
A series of profiles of foreign workers illuminates the precarity of global systems of migrant labor and the vulnerability of their most disenfranchised agents.
In 2023, after weeks of investigation, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomoyo Obokata came to a scathing conclusion: Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” Workers complained of excessive hours and unpaid overtime; of being forced to perform dangerous tasks or ones not specified in their contracts; of being physically abused, intimidated, and sexually harassed; and of overcrowded, unsanitary living conditions that deprived them of their privacy and dignity.
In Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers, Marcello Di Cintio ranges across the country speaking to those who have come from elsewhere to till our fields, bathe our elderly, and serve us our Double Doubles, uncovering stories of tremendous perseverance, resilience, and humanity, but also of precarity and vulnerability. He shows that vast swathes of our economy depend on the work of people we don’t see, while expanding our awareness of what migrant work now entails, and revealing that our mistreatment of the most vulnerable among us diminishes our own dignity.
ABOUT MARCELLO DI CINTIO
Marcello Di Cintio is the author of six books, including Walls: Travels Along the Barricades, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense, and Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers. He has also written for the Globe and Mail, The Walrus, The International New York Times, and Canadian Geographic, among others. He lives in Calgary.
ABOUT ON OIL
A journalist, and former roughneck, considers our long, complex, tortured relationship with oil.
Oil has dominated our lives for the last century. It has given us warmth, progress, and life-threatening pollution. It has been a gift and is now a threat. It has started wars, ended wars, and infiltrated governments—in some cases, effectively become the government. And now oil’s enduring mythology is facing a messy, complicated twilight.
In On Oil, Don Gillmor, who worked as a roughneck on oil rigs during the seventies oil boom in Alberta, looks at how the industry has changed over the decades and illustrates the ways our dependence on oil has led to regulatory capture, in Canada and elsewhere, and contributed to armed conflict and war across the world. Gillmor documents the myriad ways that oil companies have misdirected environmental action and misinformed the public about climate concerns and illuminates where we went wrong—and how we might yet change course.
ABOUT DON GILLMOR
Don Gillmor is the author of To the River, which won the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction. He is the author of three novels, Long Change, Mount Pleasant, and Kanata, a two-volume history of Canada, Canada: A People’s History, and nine books for children, two of which were nominated for the Governor General’s Award. He was a senior editor at The Walrus, and his journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, The Walrus, Saturday Night, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star. He has won twelve National Magazine Awards and numerous other honours. He lives in Toronto.

Ira Wells at Vancouver Writers Fest: On Book Banning and Censorship
2025-10-24 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Revue Stage, 1601 Johnston St, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Ira Wells, author of On Book Banning, will be speaking at the Vancouver Writers Fest event “On Book Banning and ” Ira will be joined by politics and culture critic David Moscrop in a robust discussion of public and private book banning. Is it wrong to embrace the books of people who do things we abhor? What is ‘equity-based weeding’? How can we know the true scope of book banning when according to a study by the American Library Association 82 to 97 percent of all library challenges go unreported? Do we have a national, communal history? If so, how can we best protect it?
The event will take place at the Revue Stage on Friday, October 24 at 10AM.
Tickets and more details here.
Grab a copy of On Book Banning here!
ABOUT ON BOOK BANNING
The freedom to read is under attack.
From the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome to today’s state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ+ literature, book bans arise from the impulse toward social control. In a survey of legal cases, literary controversies, and philosophical arguments, Ira Wells illustrates the historical opposition to the freedom to read and argues that today’s conservatives and progressives alike are warping our children’s relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright expurgation. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who will always insist upon reading for themselves.
ABOUT IRA WELLS
Ira Wells is a critic, essayist, and an associate professor at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, where he teaches in the Northrop Frye stream in literature and the humanities in the Vic One program. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Globe and Mail, Guardian, The New Republic, and many other venues. His most recent book is Norman Jewison: A Director’s Life. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children.

Elaine Feeney at Vancouver Writers Fest: The Conversations
2025-10-24 13:00 - 15:00 (America/Vancouver) | Performance Works, 1218 Cartwright Street, Vancouver, BC, V6H 3R9, Canada
Irish author Elaine Feeney (Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way) will be appearing at the Vancouver Writers Fest for the panel “The Conversations.” Elaine will be joined by fellow authors Ian Williams and Jack Wang, as moderator Tara McGuire conducts back-to-back interviews with these authors of some of the most anticipated novels of the season. Come for the dialogue, and you’re sure to leave with all three of these must-read books in hand.
The event will take place at Performance Works on Friday, October 24 at 1PM.
Tickets and more details here.
Order Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way here!
ABOUT LET ME GO MAD IN MY OWN WAY
An Observer, Irish Times, and Sunday Times Ireland Preview Selection
Claire O’Connor is a promising writer who left the family’s struggling farmstead in western Ireland for London, swearing never to return. But after the unexpected death of her mother, she is racked with grief, and when her father is diagnosed with cancer, she decides to return home to care for him, destroying everything she’d so carefully built up in the process. The pandemic follows, and Claire falls into a comfortable routine, one increasingly shaped by a growing obsession: the lives of the 20-something trad wives she discovers on social media. When Tom, her lost London love, unexpectedly shows up the next town over, her anxieties and obsessions collide, the resulting conflict forcing Claire and her brothers to finally deal with their family’s historic trauma—a trauma whose evidence is carved into the beams of the family home and the stone floors upon which their ancestors bled.
Ranging through recent Irish history, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way is Elaine Feeney’s most ambitious novel to date, a work of literary and cultural exorcism and a profound exploration of family, history, violence, and hope.
ABOUT ELAINE FEENEY
Elaine Feeney is a writer from the west of Ireland. Her 2020 debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award and won the Kate O’Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize, and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. Feeney has published three collections of poetry including The Radio Was Gospel and Rise, and her short story “Sojourn” was included in The Art of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories, edited by Sinéad Gleeson. Her work appears widely in The Moth, The Paris Review, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Feeney lectures at the University of Galway.

Elaine Feeney at Ottawa Writers Fest: Now and Then
2025-10-26 16:00 - 18:00 (America/Toronto) | Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington Street, Ottawa, ON, K1A 0N4, Canada
Elaine Feeney (Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way) will be appearing at the Ottawa Writers Fest for the panel “Now and Then.” Elaine will be joined by fellow Irish novelist Eimear McBride in a conversation hosted by Ottawa’s Poet Laureate, David O’Meara.
The event will take place at Library and Archives Canada on Sunday, October 26 at 4PM.
Tickets and more details here.
Order Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way here!
ABOUT LET ME GO MAD IN MY OWN WAY
An Observer, Irish Times, and Sunday Times Ireland Preview Selection
Claire O’Connor is a promising writer who left the family’s struggling farmstead in western Ireland for London, swearing never to return. But after the unexpected death of her mother, she is racked with grief, and when her father is diagnosed with cancer, she decides to return home to care for him, destroying everything she’d so carefully built up in the process. The pandemic follows, and Claire falls into a comfortable routine, one increasingly shaped by a growing obsession: the lives of the 20-something trad wives she discovers on social media. When Tom, her lost London love, unexpectedly shows up the next town over, her anxieties and obsessions collide, the resulting conflict forcing Claire and her brothers to finally deal with their family’s historic trauma—a trauma whose evidence is carved into the beams of the family home and the stone floors upon which their ancestors bled.
Ranging through recent Irish history, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way is Elaine Feeney’s most ambitious novel to date, a work of literary and cultural exorcism and a profound exploration of family, history, violence, and hope.
ABOUT ELAINE FEENEY
Elaine Feeney is a writer from the west of Ireland. Her 2020 debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award and won the Kate O’Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize, and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. Feeney has published three collections of poetry including The Radio Was Gospel and Rise, and her short story “Sojourn” was included in The Art of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories, edited by Sinéad Gleeson. Her work appears widely in The Moth, The Paris Review, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Feeney lectures at the University of Galway.

Elaine Feeney at Sacred Heart University
2025-10-28 15:30 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Sacred Heart University, 5401 Park Ave, Fairfield, CT, 06825, United States
Elaine Feeney (Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way) will be reading at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut.
The event will take place in the Martire Center Loris Forum on Tuesday, October 28 at 3:30PM.
More details here.
Order Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way here!
ABOUT LET ME GO MAD IN MY OWN WAY
An Observer, Irish Times, and Sunday Times Ireland Preview Selection
Claire O’Connor is a promising writer who left the family’s struggling farmstead in western Ireland for London, swearing never to return. But after the unexpected death of her mother, she is racked with grief, and when her father is diagnosed with cancer, she decides to return home to care for him, destroying everything she’d so carefully built up in the process. The pandemic follows, and Claire falls into a comfortable routine, one increasingly shaped by a growing obsession: the lives of the 20-something trad wives she discovers on social media. When Tom, her lost London love, unexpectedly shows up the next town over, her anxieties and obsessions collide, the resulting conflict forcing Claire and her brothers to finally deal with their family’s historic trauma—a trauma whose evidence is carved into the beams of the family home and the stone floors upon which their ancestors bled.
Ranging through recent Irish history, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way is Elaine Feeney’s most ambitious novel to date, a work of literary and cultural exorcism and a profound exploration of family, history, violence, and hope.
ABOUT ELAINE FEENEY
Elaine Feeney is a writer from the west of Ireland. Her 2020 debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award and won the Kate O’Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize, and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. Feeney has published three collections of poetry including The Radio Was Gospel and Rise, and her short story “Sojourn” was included in The Art of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories, edited by Sinéad Gleeson. Her work appears widely in The Moth, The Paris Review, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Feeney lectures at the University of Galway.

Mélikah Abdelmoumen at Wild Writers Festival: Telling Other People’s Stories
2025-11-08 13:30 - 15:00 (America/Toronto) | Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
Mélikah Abdelmoumen, author of Baldwin, Styron, and Me (trans. by Catherine Khordoc) will be at Wild Writers Literary Festival, for the discussion “Telling Other People’s Stories.” Mélikah will be joined in conversation by Sadiqa de Meijer, with moderator Lara El Mekaui, to explore the power and responsibility that come with telling stories that are not our own.
Through their thoughtful and nuanced work, they examine the complexities of voice, identity, and empathy, challenging assumptions about belonging and representation. Don’t miss this engaging conversation about how sharing “other people’s stories” can foster understanding, connection, and a reimagined sense of community
The even will take place on Saturday, November 8 at 1:30PM.
Tickets and more details here.
Grab Baldwin, Styron, and Me here!
ABOUT BALDWIN, STYRON, AND ME
An unlikely literary friendship from the past sheds light on the radicalization of public debate around identity, race, and censorship.
In 1961, James Baldwin spent several months in William Styron’s guest house. The two wrote during the day, then spent evenings confiding in each other and talking about race in America. During one of those conversations, Baldwin is said to have convinced his friend to write, in first person, the story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner. The Confessions of Nat Turner was published to critical acclaim, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968, and also creating outrage in part of the African American community.
Decades later, the controversy around cultural appropriation, identity, and the rights and responsibilities of the writer still resonates. In Baldwin, Styron, and Me, Mélikah Abdelmoumen considers the writers’ surprising yet vital friendship from her standpoint as a racialized woman torn by the often unidimensional versions of her identity put forth by today’s politics and media. Considering questions of identity, race, equity, and the often contentious public debates about these topics, Abdelmoumen works to create a space where the answers are found by first learning how to listen—even in disagreement.
ABOUT MELIKAH ABDELMOUMEN
Mélikah Abdelmoumen was born in Chicoutimi in 1972. She lived in Lyon, France, from 2005 to 2017. She holds a PhD in literary studies from the Université de Montréal and has published many articles, short stories, novels, and essays, including Les désastrées (2013), Douze ans en France (2018), and Petite-Ville (2024). She worked as an editor with the Groupe Ville-Marie Littérature in Montreal until 2021. She was the editor-in-chief of Lettres québécoises, a Québec literary magazine, from 2021 to 2024. Baldwin, Styron, and Me is her tenth book (and the first to be translated).

Mélikah Abdelmoumen at Wild Writers Festival: The Literary Brunch
2025-11-09 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Toronto) | Grey Silo Golf Course, 2001 University Ave E, Waterloo, ON, N2K 4K4, Canada
Mélikah Abdelmoumen, author of Baldwin, Styron, and Me (trans. by Catherine Khordoc) will be at Wild Writers Literary Festival, for their “Literary Brunch!” Mélikah will be joined by fellow writers Vinh Nguyen and Susan Swan, with moderator Sarah Scott, discuss their latest works, writing process, and lives as writers. Intimate, casual, and engaging—an ideal way to spend a Sunday morning.
The Wild Writers Brunch Buffet Includes:

Scrambled Eggs with Chives
Bacon and sausage
Hash Browns
Cinnamon French Toast
Seasonal Fresh Fruit
Freshly Baked Assorted Breakfast Pastries
Chilled Assorted Juices
Coffee & Tea

The event will take place on Sunday, November 9 at 10AM, with brunch served at 10:15.
Tickets and more details here.
Grab Baldwin, Styron, and Me here!
ABOUT BALDWIN, STYRON, AND ME
An unlikely literary friendship from the past sheds light on the radicalization of public debate around identity, race, and censorship.
In 1961, James Baldwin spent several months in William Styron’s guest house. The two wrote during the day, then spent evenings confiding in each other and talking about race in America. During one of those conversations, Baldwin is said to have convinced his friend to write, in first person, the story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner. The Confessions of Nat Turner was published to critical acclaim, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968, and also creating outrage in part of the African American community.
Decades later, the controversy around cultural appropriation, identity, and the rights and responsibilities of the writer still resonates. In Baldwin, Styron, and Me, Mélikah Abdelmoumen considers the writers’ surprising yet vital friendship from her standpoint as a racialized woman torn by the often unidimensional versions of her identity put forth by today’s politics and media. Considering questions of identity, race, equity, and the often contentious public debates about these topics, Abdelmoumen works to create a space where the answers are found by first learning how to listen—even in disagreement.
ABOUT MELIKAH ABDELMOUMEN
Mélikah Abdelmoumen was born in Chicoutimi in 1972. She lived in Lyon, France, from 2005 to 2017. She holds a PhD in literary studies from the Université de Montréal and has published many articles, short stories, novels, and essays, including Les désastrées (2013), Douze ans en France (2018), and Petite-Ville (2024). She worked as an editor with the Groupe Ville-Marie Littérature in Montreal until 2021. She was the editor-in-chief of Lettres québécoises, a Québec literary magazine, from 2021 to 2024. Baldwin, Styron, and Me is her tenth book (and the first to be translated).

Robyn Sarah at Ottawa VerseFest
2026-03-24 20:30 - 22:00 (America/Toronto) | Club Saw, 67 Nicholas Street, Ottawa, ON, K1A 0K7, Canada
VerseFest Presents
Robyn Sarah, author of We’re Somewhere Else Now: Poems 2016–2024, will be appearing at Ottawa’s VerseFest on Tuesday, March 24. She’ll be joined by fellow poets David Galvaude and Melissa Powless Day, in an event hosted by Chloé LaDuchesse.
The event will take place at Club Saw at 8:30PM EST. Tickets are available for purchase here.
Grab a copy of We’re Somewhere Else Now here!
ABOUT WE’RE SOMEWHERE ELSE NOW
In her first collection of new poems in a decade, Robyn Sarah chronicles the pandemic years with quiet wisdom and her flair for meshing the familiar with the numinous.
We’re Somewhere Else Now moves with ease from the particular to the abstract. These are poems of grief and unexpected change, of quiet awe at the human experience. Each poem is a window for the reader to look into, “lit room to lit room,” tracking desultory days of isolation and uncertainty, while also highlighting reasons to pay attention: playing with a grandchild, the rarity of a leap year, the calls of birds.
ABOUT ROBYN SARAH
Poet, writer, literary editor, and musician, Robyn Sarah has lived in Montreal since early childhood. Her writing began to appear in Canadian literary magazines in the 1970s while she completed studies at McGill University and the Conservatoire de musique du Québec. Her tenth poetry collection, My Shoes Are Killing Me, won the Governor General’s Award in 2015. As well, she has published two collections of short stories, a book of essays on poetry, and a memoir, Music, Late and Soon (2021), that interweaves her youth as a professional-track clarinetist with her return at fifty-nine (after a lapse of thirty-five years) to the piano teacher who was her life mentor. From 2010 until 2020 she served as poetry editor for Cormorant Books.

Caroline Adderson at the BOOKED! Fernie Writers' Series
2026-05-07 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | Fernie Heritage Library, 492 3 Ave, Fernie, BC, V0B 1M0, Canada
Caroline Adderson, author of the short story collection A Way to Be Happy, is appearing as the last writer in the BOOKED! Fernie Writers’ Series 25/26 season. Caroline will be speaking in conversation with local author Angie Abdou.
The event is free to attend, and will take place on Thursday, May 26 2026 at 7PM PDT. The event is 19+ event in accordance with their liquor license.
More details and registration here.
Order a copy of A Way to Be Happy here!
ABOUT A WAY TO BE HAPPY
Longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize • A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024 • A CBC Best Fiction Book of the Year
On New Year’s Eve, a pair of addicts robs a string of high-end parties in order to fund their own recovery. A recently separated woman relocates to a small northern town, where she receives a life-changing visitation, and a Russian hitman, suffering from a mysterious lung ailment, retrieves long-buried memories of his past. In the nineteenth century, a disparate group of women coalesce in the attempt to aid a young girl in her escape from a hospital for the insane. These are but some of the remarkable characters who populate these stories, all of them grappling with conflicts ranging from mundane to extraordinary. Caroline Adderson’s A Way to Be Happy considers what it means to find happiness—and how often it comes through the grace of others.
ABOUT CAROLINE ADDERSON
Caroline Adderson is the author of five novels (A Russian Sister, Ellen in Pieces, The Sky Is Falling, Sitting Practice, and A History of Forgetting), two previous collections of short stories (Pleased to Meet You and Bad Imaginings), as well as many books for young readers. Her award nominations include the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rogers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. The recipient of three BC Book Prizes, three CBC Literary Awards, and the Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement, Caroline lives and writes in Vancouver.

Don Gillmor at TIFA: Uncovering Hidden Fractures
2026-06-06 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Toronto) | Victoria College Chapel, 91 Charles St W, Toronto, ON, M5S 2C7, Canada
Don Gillmor, author of Cherry Beach, will be appearing at TIFA for the panel ‘Uncovering Hidden Fractures’. Don will be joined by Lilja Sigurðardóttir for a conversation on building atmosphere in modern crime fiction. The event will be moderated by Steven Beattie, and a book signing will follow.
The event will take place on Saturday, June 6 at 2PM. A festival pass is required.
More details here.
Get Cherry Beach here!
ABOUT CHERRY BEACH
A brutal murder exposes secret real estate deals, a corrupt police force, and the dark heart of a city simmering with unrest.
When two girls are found murdered in a rundown Toronto highrise, Jamieson Abel and his partner are first on the scene. Abel is a law school dropout turned police detective chronically at odds with his colleagues and perpetually on the brink of being terminated, and Davis is the department’s only female officer of colour. Both understand their being partnered as a form of banishment, but when the details of the murder go public at the start of an excruciatingly hot summer, they find themselves thrust into the centre of a front page investigation that will bring to a head the city’s long history of shady real estate deals and racist disenfranchisement.
Intricately plotted and brilliantly layered, Cherry Beach is a gripping literary crime novel that examines class, race, and corruption in the most multicultural city in the world.
ABOUT DON GILLMOR
Don Gillmor is the author of To the River, which won the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction. He is the author of five novels, Cherry Beach, Breaking and Entering, Long Change, Mount Pleasant, and Kanata; a two-volume history of Canada, Canada: A People’s History; and nine books for children, two of which were nominated for the Governor General’s Award. He was a senior editor at The Walrus, and his journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, Saturday Night, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star. He has won twelve National Magazine Awards and numerous other honours. He lives in Toronto.
