Biblioasis

Booktoberfest: Biblioasis Bash in Toronto!
2025-10-01 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | The Supermarket, 268 Augusta Ave, Toronto, ON, M5T 2L9, Canada
Join us in Toronto as we celebrate with six of our authors and their 2025 releases! Mélikah Abdelmoumen (Baldwin, Styron, and Me), stephanie roberts (UNMET), Don Gillmor (On Oil), Ira Wells (On Book Banning), Elise Levine (Big of You: Stories), and Russell Smith (Self Care) will all be reading from their new books, along with an audience Q&A and discussion. Books will be available for sale and signing.
The event will take place at The Supermarket on Wednesday, October 1 at 7PM. More details here!
Get Baldwin, Styron, and Me here!
Get UNMET here!
Get On Oil here!
Get On Book Banning here!
Get Big of You here!
Get Self Care here!

Booktoberfest: Biblioasis Bash in Windsor!
2025-10-02 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | WindsorEats, 400 Erie St E Unit 3, Windsor, ON, N9A 3X4, Canada
Join us in Windsor as we celebrate with four of our authors and their 2025 releases! Mélikah Abdelmoumen (Baldwin, Styron, and Me), stephanie roberts (UNMET), Don Gillmor (On Oil), and Russell Smith (Self Care) will all be reading from their new books, along with an audience Q&A and discussion. Books will be available for sale and signing.
The event will take place at Windsor Eats on Thursday, October 2 at 7PM. More details here.
Get Baldwin, Styron, and Me here!
Get UNMET here!
Get On Oil here!
Get Self Care here!

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.

Precarious: Calgary Launch!
2025-10-08 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Edmonton) | Patricia A Whelan Performance Hall, Central Library 800 3 St. SE, Calgary, AB, Canada
Join us for an evening celebrating the launch of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers by Calgary-based author Marcello Di Cintio. Hosted by Paul Haavardsrud, this event is presented by Shelf Life Books in partnership with the Calgary Public Library.
The launch will take place on Wednesday, October 8 at 6PM. The event is free, but RSVP is required on Eventbrite.
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.

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.

Big of You: Baltimore Launch!
2025-10-16 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Bird in Hand, 11 E 33rd St, Baltimore, MD, 21218, United States
Come out and celebrate the launch of Elise Levine’s latest short story collection, Big of You! Elise will be joined in conversation by Dora Malech at Bird in Hand, and will be reading from the collection. The event will be hosted by Nate Brown. Books will be available for sale and signing from the Ivy Bookshop.
The launch will take place on Thursday, October 16 at 6PM.
Grab a copy of Big of You here!
ABOUT BIG OF YOU
In these nine stories, Elise Levine illuminates the aspirations of women and men (and one sassy millennia-old being) as they sift through the midden of their regrets, friendships, and marriages, and seek fresher ways of inhabiting older selves.
Two young women hitchhike around Europe, a lurid secret between them. A team in space is left reeling after a colleague’s unexpected death. Ambitious brothers take to the skies in an aerostat in 19th-century Paris. Big of You contains stories of real and fantastical life, each with its own distinctive voice and wild vocabulary.
At turns playful, blistering, unabashed, these stories examine the nuanced, kaleidoscopic dimensions of character, of people driven by ambition yet contending with the hauntings of the past. Spanning various settings and time periods, Big of You captures the everyday and the extraordinary in collisions soaring and earthy, exuberant and visceral.
ABOUT ELISE LEVINE
Elise Levine is the author, most recently, of Say This: Two Novellas, the story collection This Wicked Tongue, and the novel Blue Field. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Copper Nickel, Blackbird, The Walrus, and five times in Best Canadian Stories. She lives in Baltimore, where she teaches in the MA in Writing program at Johns Hopkins University.

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.

"Lit Up Lunch" at Indigo with Alex Pugsley and Russell Smith
2025-10-20 12:00 - 14:00 (America/Toronto) | Indigo Bay & Bloor, 55 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON, M4W 1A5, Canada
Biblioasis authors Alex Pugsley (Aubrey McKee, The Education of Aubrey McKee) and Russell Smith (Self Care) will be in conversation together at the Indigo on Bay and Bloor in Toronto! The conversation also features author Jean Marc Ah-Sen, and will be hosted by Emily Weedon.
The event will take place on Monday, October 20 at 11:30PM.
Tickets and more details here.
Get Self Care here!
Get Aubrey McKee and The Education of Aubrey McKee here!
ABOUT SELF CARE
Between writing a weekly column for The Hype Report and managing her mood stabilizers, Gloria navigates a series of quasi-relationships while commiserating with her best friend about dating apps and dick pics, married men and questionable boundaries. But when she makes a glib pass at Daryn, a stranger on a subway platform crowded with young anti-immigration protesters, and finds him waiting for her outside her health club a couple of days later, a surprising curiosity leads her not to consider a restraining order, but to talk to him.
Claiming she wants to interview him for an article on the incel movement, Gloria meets Daryn for coffee and soon invites him back to her apartment—where his earnestness and painfully restrained desire inspire her to dominate him sexually. As their physical relationship intensifies, so does their emotional connection, and Gloria can’t shake the sense that she’s headed in a dangerous direction.
An electric examination of sex and love, self-loathing, and twenty-first century loneliness, Self Care is a devastating novel about women and men, what they want and what they say they want, and the violent tension between the two.
ABOUT RUSSELL SMITH
Russell Smith is the author of twelve previous books of fiction, nonfiction, and translation. His fiction has been nominated for every major Canadian award, including the Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Amazon First Novel Award. A journalist and cultural commentator, his nonfiction has appeared in the New York Review of Books, the Globe and Mail, The Walrus, and elsewhere. An acquiring editor at Dundurn Press, Smith lives in Toronto.
ABOUT AUBREY MCKEE
From basement rec rooms to midnight railway tracks, Action Transfers to Smarties boxes crammed with joints, from Paul McCartney on the kitchen radio to their furious teenaged cover of The Ramones, Aubrey McKee and his familiars navigate late adolescence amidst the old-monied decadence of Halifax. An arcana of oddball angels, Alex Pugsley’s long-awaited debut novel follows rich-kid drug dealers and junior tennis brats, émigré heart surgeons and small-time thugs, renegade private school girls and runaway children as they try to make sense of the city into which they’ve been born. Part coming-of-age-story, part social chronicle, and part study of the myths that define our growing up, Aubrey McKee introduces a breathtakingly original new voice.
ABOUT THE EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE
Longlisted for the 2024 Toronto Book Awards • A Toronto Star Most Anticipated Spring Title • A 49th Shelf Can’t Miss Title for Spring
The scene is Toronto, the early 1990s, and at a house party Aubrey McKee falls in love with a bewitching stranger who talks him into stealing a piece of cake. This woman—a poet named Gudrun Peel—rapidly becomes the person for whom he would do anything at all. Together, Aubrey and Gudrun make a life of delirious idiosyncrasy. Surrounded by friends, frenemies, lovers, and rivals in the underground arts scene, the possibilities of their destiny remain radically open. But as their relationship deepens, and their creative and professional lives stumble, stall, and then suddenly blow up, Aubrey and Gudrun struggle against their own inexperience . . . as well as each other.
The much-anticipated follow-up to Alex Pugsley’s Aubrey McKee, The Education of Aubrey McKee is a campus novel in which the city of Toronto is the institute of higher education and the setting for a glittering story about the incandescence of ﬁrst love.
ABOUT ALEX PUGSLEY
Alex Pugsley is the author of the novels Aubrey McKee and The Education of Aubrey McKee, as well as the short story collection Shimmer. Following the publication of Aubrey McKee, he was named one of CBC’s Writers to Watch. He has been nominated for Canadian Comedy Awards, Gemini Awards, Hot Doc Awards, National Magazine Awards, and is a winner of the Writers’ Trust Journey Prize. His feature film Dirty Singles is available on Apple TV and Prime Video. His next novel, Silver Lake, the third book in a series about Aubrey McKee, is forthcoming from Biblioasis.

Big of You: Washington DC Launch!
2025-10-21 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Lost City Books, 2467 18th St NW, Washington, DC, 20009, United States
Come out and celebrate the launch of Elise Levine’s latest short story collection, Big of You! Elise will be joined in conversation by Jeannie Vanasco at Lost City Bookstore, and will be reading from the collection. The event will be hosted by Philip Dean Walker. Books will be available for sale and signing.
The launch will take place on Tuesday, October 21 at 7PM.
More details here.
Grab a copy of Big of You here!
ABOUT BIG OF YOU
In these nine stories, Elise Levine illuminates the aspirations of women and men (and one sassy millennia-old being) as they sift through the midden of their regrets, friendships, and marriages, and seek fresher ways of inhabiting older selves.
Two young women hitchhike around Europe, a lurid secret between them. A team in space is left reeling after a colleague’s unexpected death. Ambitious brothers take to the skies in an aerostat in 19th-century Paris. Big of You contains stories of real and fantastical life, each with its own distinctive voice and wild vocabulary.
At turns playful, blistering, unabashed, these stories examine the nuanced, kaleidoscopic dimensions of character, of people driven by ambition yet contending with the hauntings of the past. Spanning various settings and time periods, Big of You captures the everyday and the extraordinary in collisions soaring and earthy, exuberant and visceral.
ABOUT ELISE LEVINE
Elise Levine is the author, most recently, of Say This: Two Novellas, the story collection This Wicked Tongue, and the novel Blue Field. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Copper Nickel, Blackbird, The Walrus, and five times in Best Canadian Stories. She lives in Baltimore, where she teaches in the MA in Writing program at Johns Hopkins University.

We're Somewhere Else Now: Toronto Launch!
2025-10-22 17:00 - 19:00 (America/Toronto) | Ben McNally Books, 108 Queen St E, Toronto, ON, M5C 1S4, Canada
Come celebrate the Toronto launch of Robyn Sarah’s new poetry collection We’re Somewhere Else Now! Robyn will be reading from her new collection at Ben McNally Books, where copies will also be for sale and signing.
The launch will take place on Wednesday, October 22 at 5PM.
More details here.
Get 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.
Three poems from the collection, originally published in The New Quarterly, were nominated for a 2025 National Magazine Award in Poetry.
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.

We're Somewhere Else Now: Kingston Launch!
2025-10-23 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | Novel Idea, 156 Princess St., Kingston, ON, K7L 1B1, Canada
Come celebrate the Kingston launch of Robyn Sarah’s new poetry collection We’re Somewhere Else Now! Robyn will be reading from her new collection at Novel Idea Bookstore, where copies will also be for sale and signing.
The launch will take place on Thursday, October 23 at 7PM.
Get 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.
Three poems from the collection, originally published in The New Quarterly, were nominated for a 2025 National Magazine Award in Poetry.
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.

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.

Precarious: Victoria Launch!
2025-10-25 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Vancouver) | University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Rd, Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2, Canada
Join us in celebrating the Victoria launch of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers by Marcello Di Cintio. Marcello will be in conversation with host Seb Bonet. Books will be provided for sale and signing by the University of Victoria Bookstore.
The launch will take place on October 25 at 7PM.
More details TK.
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.

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.

Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way: New York Launch!
2025-10-30 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Glucksman Ireland House, 1 Washington Mews, New York, NY, 10003, United States
Elaine Feeney will be launching her new novel Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way at the NYU Glucksman Ireland House in New York! Books will be available for sale and signing courtesy of NYU Bookstore.
The launch will take place on Thursday, October 30 at 7PM.
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.

Precarious: Windsor Launch!
2025-11-04 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | Biblioasis Bookshop, 1520 Wyandotte St E, Windsor, ON, N9A 3L2, Canada
Join us in celebrating the Windsor launch of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers by Marcello Di Cintio. Marcello will be reading from his latest book followed by an audience Q&A at Biblioasis Bookshop, where books will be available for sale and signing.
The launch will take place on Tuesday, November 4 at 7PM.
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: Toronto Launch!
2025-11-05 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | Workers Action Centre, 720 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, ON, M5S 2T9, Canada
Join us in celebrating the Toronto launch of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers by Marcello Di Cintio. Marcello will be in conversation with Zoë Newman and Vannina Sztainbok. The event is presented by Another Story Bookshop, Talking Precarity Podcast, and Biblioasis; and sponsored by the Workers Action Centre.
The launch will take place on Wednesday, November 5 at 7PM. The event is free, and you can RSVP on Eventbrite.
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.

Mélikah Abdelmoumen in Conversation with Madeleine Thien
2025-11-06 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Toronto) | Queen Books, 914 Queen St E, Toronto, ON, M4M 1J5, Canada
Toronto friends! Mélikah Abdelmoumen, author of Baldwin, Styron, and Me (trans. by Catherine Khordoc) will be in conversation with Madeleine Thien and Vinh Nguyen at Queen Books. The event, “Migration, Friendships, and the Politics of Writing” will be hosted by Thy Phu, and is sponsored by the Critical Refugee and Migration Studies Network of Canada.
The conversation will take place on Thursday, November 6 at 6:30PM.
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).

Dust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars): Toronto Launch!
2025-11-06 20:00 - 22:00 (America/Toronto) | The Mezz, 1546 Queen St W, Toronto, ON, M6R 1A6, Canada
Toronto friends, join us for the launch of Ray Robertson’s Dust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars)! Ray will be reading from his new book, followed by a performance from Toronto-based musical duo Staig and Billings. The event will be moderated by Alan Zweig.
The launch will take place at The Mezz on Thursday, November 6 at 7PM.
Preorder Dust here!
ABOUT DUST: MORE LIVES OF THE POETS (WITH GUITARS)
“Robertson offers the whole picture, warts and all. In doing so, he honors the music of artists who have enriched his life—and opens the door for his readers to experience the same magic.”—Blues Blast Magazine
In Dust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars), Ray Robertson digs deep, offering up an eclectic gathering of a dozen biographical and critical portraits of some of the twentieth century’s most innovative, influential, and fascinating musicians. From rock to folk, blues to gospel, country to the unclassifiable; from the famous, to the forgotten, to the barely known, Ray Robertson combines a novelist’s eye for dramatic detail with an unapologetic fanboy’s obsession with the lives and lasting artistic achievements of twelve of his musical heroes.
ABOUT RAY ROBERTSON
Ray Robertson is the author of nine novels, six collections of non-fiction, and a book of poetry. His work has been translated into several languages. He contributed liner notes to three Grateful Dead archival releases: Dave’s Picks #45, the Here Comes Sunshine 1973 boxed set, and the From the Mars Hotel 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. Born and raised in Chatham, Ontario, he lives in Toronto.

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).

Dust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars): Hamilton Launch!
2025-11-13 20:00 - 22:00 (America/Toronto) | The Capitol, 973 King St E, Hamilton, ON, L8M 1C3, Canada
Join us in Hamilton for the launch of Ray Robertson’s Dust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars)! Ray will be reading from his new book, followed by a performance from Toronto-based musical duo Staig and Billings. The event will be hosted by bookstore owner Tim Hanna, and books will be available for sale and signing courtesy of The City & The City Bookstore.
The event will take place at The Capitol on Thursday, November 13 at 8PM. More details TK.
Preorder Dust here!
ABOUT DUST: MORE LIVES OF THE POETS (WITH GUITARS)
“Robertson offers the whole picture, warts and all. In doing so, he honors the music of artists who have enriched his life—and opens the door for his readers to experience the same magic.”—Blues Blast Magazine
In Dust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars), Ray Robertson digs deep, offering up an eclectic gathering of a dozen biographical and critical portraits of some of the twentieth century’s most innovative, influential, and fascinating musicians. From rock to folk, blues to gospel, country to the unclassifiable; from the famous, to the forgotten, to the barely known, Ray Robertson combines a novelist’s eye for dramatic detail with an unapologetic fanboy’s obsession with the lives and lasting artistic achievements of twelve of his musical heroes.
ABOUT RAY ROBERTSON
Ray Robertson is the author of nine novels, six collections of non-fiction, and a book of poetry. His work has been translated into several languages. He contributed liner notes to three Grateful Dead archival releases: Dave’s Picks #45, the Here Comes Sunshine 1973 boxed set, and the From the Mars Hotel 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. Born and raised in Chatham, Ontario, he lives in Toronto.

Voices of Resistance: Toronto Launch
2025-11-17 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Toronto) | It’s Ok* Studios, 468 Queen Street W, Toronto, ON, M5V 2B2, Canada
Toronto friends, don’t miss the launch of Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide by Batool Abu Akleen, Sondos Sabra, Nahil Mohana, and Ala’a Obaid. The book will be co-launching with Leila Marshy’s Razing Palestine in this event hosted by Samira Mohyeddin. Books will be for sale and signing from Another Story.
The double launch is free to attend and will take place at It’s Ok* Studios on Monday, November 17 at 6:30PM.
More details here.
Order a copy of Voices of Resistance here!
ABOUT VOICES OF RESISTANCE
For two years, the world has witnessed image after devastating image of Israel’s genocide in Gaza: videos, photos, and Instagram reels showing blanket bombardment, cities in ruin, and entire families pulled from the rubble of their homes. Such enormity can be difficult to process, but behind each image lie ordinary lives full of hope, love, and community.
In these diaries, four Gazan women—Batool Abu Akleen, Sondos Sabra, Nahil Mohana, and Ala’a Obaid—offer first-hand accounts of Israeli airstrikes, forced displacement, and engineered famine. These atrocities are documented alongside the everyday resilience of Palestinians: from the neighbour who fashions an ashtray from the shrapnel of an Israeli missile, to the street vendor who donates his last egg for a child’s birthday cake, to the community of displaced people who pool their resources to stage a traditional wedding. Even when homeless, under fire, forced to bury loved ones, or thrown at the mercy of a devastated health system, the writers of these diaries never abandon their humanity, their individuality, or their belief in the future of Gaza.
All proceeds from the sale of this book will go directly to the writers and their families.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Batool Abu Akleen is a twenty-year-old Palestinian poet and translator, born and raised in Gaza City. She is a student of English Literature and Translation at the Islamic University of Gaza. At the age of fifteen, Abu Akleen won the Parjeel Poetry Prize for her poem ‘I Did Not Steal the Cloud’, which was also translated and published as part of the anthology Di acqua e di tempo. Her poem ‘I Want a Grave’ was published in Penguin’s Letters from Gaza (2025). She was the 2024 Poet-in-Residence with Modern Poetry in Translation, for whom she collected and translated Sea Shells: An Anthology of Emerging Poets from Gaza (edited by Cristina Viti). Her poem ‘Gunpowder’ was among the winners of The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2025. Her debut bilingual poetry collection 48Kg was published by Tenement Press in June 2025. Extracts from her diaries have been performed by Leila Herandi at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry.
Nahil Mohana is the author of the novel No Men Allowed, the short story collection Life in a Square Metre and six plays including High Pressure, which received the 2008 Abdul Mohsin Al-Qattan Prize; Ghoson, which received the 2008 Children’s Culture Award; and Lipstick, which was produced by the Royal Court Theatre, London. Her writing has appeared in AGNI Online, Literary Hub, and The Washington Post. Extracts from her diaries have been performed by Maxine Peake at the Barbican Theatre, London, and Julie-Yara Atz at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry.
Ala’a Obaid is a writer and a mother of three children. She has held a number of positions in various NGOs and cultural institutions in Gaza, including Education Officer, Creative Writing Teacher and Culture Centre Coordinator. Ala’a co-authored the books Writing Behind the Lines and Disturbing Flashbacks, both of which document the experiences of Palestinians living through the current genocide. She has published several articles in The New Arab. Excerpts from her diaries have been performed by Hind Shoufani at the Barbican Theatre, London, and by Zarah Sultana MP at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry.
Sondos Sabra, 25, holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from the Islamic University of Gaza and is a founding member of the Shaghaf Youth Initiative, which organises discussions of literary works. She is a translator and writer. Her writing has appeared in Mondoweiss, The New Statesman, and ArabLit Quarterly. Extracts from her diaries have been performed by Yusra Warsama at the Barbican Theatre, London, and Sama Rantisi at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. Her piece ‘We Kill Terrorism’ was read by Maxine Peake to a crowd of 15,000 protesters outside the 2024 Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.

Best Canadian Stories: Vancouver Launch
2025-11-18 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Vancouver) | Upstart & Crow, 1387 Railspur Alley, Granville Island
Vancouver friends: come on out for a night of literary fun, as we celebrate the launch of Best Canadian Stories 2026! Guest editor Zsuzsi Gartner, along with several writers featured in the anthology, will be reading from their work. Copies will be available for sale and signing courtesy of Upstart & Crow.
The launch will take place on Tuesday, November 18 at 7PM.
Grab a copy of Best Canadian Stories 2026 here!
Check out the full set of Essays, Stories, and Poetry here!
ABOUT BEST CANADIAN STORIES 2026
“Combines both emerging and established voices for a fascinating glimpse at the most exciting short fiction coming out of this country.”—Open Book
Selected and introduced by Zsuzsi Gartner, Best Canadian Stories 2026 provides a distinctive sample of the best Canadian short fiction published over the previous year. Geminis are recruited to fight a war in space; an awkward Christmas dinner escalates around the roadkill main course; an interactive fiction game set in early Quebec becomes devastating and unnervingly strange for the player. These fifteen stories draw together an expressive range of characters and narratives, and appeal to both longstanding readers and those looking for an entry point into Canadian literature.
Featuring:
Shashi Bhat • Julie Bouchard, translated by Arielle Aaronson • Randy Boyagoda • Grant Buday • Petra Chambers • Sophie Crocker • Bill Gaston • Evan J • Aaron Kreuter • Alex Leslie • Erin MacNair • D.F. McCourt • Rishi Midha • Kaitlin Ruether • Margaret Sweatman

Best Canadian Poetry: Toronto Launch
2025-11-19 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Toronto) | Queen Books, 914 Queen St E, Toronto, ON, M4M 1J5, Canada
Come on out for a night of poetry and fun, as we celebrate the launch of Best Canadian Poetry 2026! Series editor Anita Lahey, along with several local poets featured in the anthology—Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, Steve McOrmond, Emily Kedar, Richard Greene, Susan Glickman, Ronna Bloom, and Puneet Dutt—will be reading from their work at Queen Books. Copies will be available for sale and signing.
The launch will take place on Wednesday, November 19 at 6:30PM.
Grab a copy of Best Canadian Poetry 2026 here!
Check out the full set of Essays, Stories, and Poetry here!
ABOUT BEST CANADIAN POETRY 2026
Selected by editor Mary Dalton, the 2026 edition of Best Canadian Poetry showcases the best Canadian poetry writing published in the past year.
Featuring introductions by Mary Dalton and series editor Anita Lahey, Best Canadian Poetry 2026 offers a collection of brief but impactful glimpses into our current literary landscape, that expands our worldview and continues in the series tradition of asking: What constitutes a great poem?
Featuring:
John Wall Barger • Ronna Bloom • Nicholas Bradley • Petra Chambers • Carolina Corcoran • Kayla Czaga • Danielle Devereaux • Irina Dumitrescu • Puneet Dutt • Darrell Epp • Susan Glickman • Ariel Gordon • Jennifer Gossoo • Sue Goyette • Richard Greene • Glenn Hayes • Henry Heavyshield • Dave Hickey • Nancy Huggett • Kevin Irie • Emily Kedar • Conor Kerr • Evelyn Lau • Sylvia Legris • Steve McOrmond • Estlin McPhee • M.W. Miller • Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi • George Moore • Paul Moorehead • A.F. Moritz • Megan Morrison • Erín Moure • Cassandra Myers • Shane Neilson • Nofel • David O’Meara • John O’Neill • Michael Ondaatje • Craig Francis Power • John Reibetanz • Ozayr Saloojee • Vivek Sharma • Sue Sinclair • Karen Solie • Misha Solomon • Susan White • Erin Wilson • Jaeyun Yoo • Patricia Young
