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

Best Canadian Stories: Montreal Launch
2025-11-24 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | De Stiil, 351 Avenue Duluth E, Montreal, QC, H2W 1J3, Canada
Montreal readers: come on out for a night of short fiction, as we celebrate the launch of Best Canadian Stories 2026! Guest editor Zsuzsi Gartner, along with several local writers featured in the anthology, will be reading from their work. Copies will be available for sale and signing courtesy of De Stiil.
The launch will take place on Monday, November 24 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

Jón Kalman Stefánsson: Winnipeg Free Press Book Club
2025-11-25 12:00 - 14:00 (America/Winnipeg) | QC
Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalman Stefánsson (trans. Philip Roughton) is the Winnipeg Free Press Book Club’s November Pick! Jón will be appearing virtually for this online event to speak about the book.
The event will take place virtually on Tuesday, November 25 at 12PM CT. More details TK.
Order Heaven and Hell here!
Check out the second book, The Sorrow of Angels, here!
ABOUT HEAVEN AND HELL
“Stefánsson shares the elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy.”—Eileen Battersby, TLS
In a remote fishing village, a boy and his best friend spend the lonely hours on shore reading and talking about poetry. When the friend, absorbed in a borrowed copy of Paradise Lost, forgets his oilskin one morning and the crew is unexpectedly caught at sea in a savage winter storm, tragedy strikes. Overwhelmed by grief—and his crewmates’ indifference to what has happened—the boy leaves the village, determined to return the book to its owner. The hardship and danger of the journey is of little consequence: he’s already resolved to join his friend in death. But when he reaches the town where he intends to end his days, he couldn’t have imagined the stories and lives he finds.
Navigating the depths of despair to celebrate the redemptive power of friendship, Heaven and Hell is an incandescent story of community, resilience, and love from one of Iceland’s most celebrated novelists.
ABOUT JON KALMAN STEFANSSON
Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s novels have been nominated three times for the Nordic Council Prize for Literature, and his novel Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night received the Icelandic Prize for Literature in 2005. In 2011 he was awarded the prestigious P. O. Enquist Award. He is perhaps best known for his trilogy: Heaven and Hell, The Sorrow of Angels (longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize) and The Heart of Man (winner of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize). A subsequent novel, Fish Have No Feet, was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2017.

Best Canadian Stories: Toronto Launch
2025-11-26 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | Queen Books, 914 Queen St E, Toronto, ON, M4M 1J5, Canada
Toronto friends: come on out for a night of short fiction, 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 Queen Books.
The launch will take place on Wednesday, November 26 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

Dust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars): Windsor Launch
2025-11-27 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | Biblioasis Bookshop, 1520 Wyandotte St E, Windsor, ON, N9A 3L2, Canada
Join us in Windsor 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 launch will take place at Biblioasis Bookshop on Thursday, November 27 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.

Dust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars): Chatham Launch!
2025-11-28 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | Studio One, 75 William St N, Chatham, ON, N7M 4L4, Canada
Join us in Chatham 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. Books will be available for sale and signing.
The event will take place at Studio One (Chatham Cultural Centre) on Friday, November 28 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.

Best Canadian Poetry: St John's Launch
2025-11-30 19:30 - 21:00 (America/St_Johns) | The Ship Pub, 265 Duckworth St, St John's, NL, A1C 1G9, Canada
Come on out for a night of poetry and fun, as we celebrate the launch of Best Canadian Poetry 2026! Guest editor Mary Dalton, along with several poets featured in the anthology—Danielle Devereaux, Craig Power, Paul Moorehead, Susan White, and Richard Greene—will be reading from their work at the Ship Pub. Copies will be available for sale and signing courtesy of Riddle Fence.
The launch will take place on Sunday, November 30 at 7:30PM.
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

Best Canadian Poetry: Combined Vancouver Launch
2025-12-11 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Vancouver) | Upstart & Crow, 1387 Railspur Alley, Granville Island
Come on out for a special combined launch of Best Canadian Poetry 2025 and 2026! Hosted by last year’s 2025 editor Aislinn Hunter, several local poets featured in the anthologies will be reading from their work at Upstart & Crow. Copies will be available for sale and signing.
The launch will take place on Wednesday, December 11 at 7PM.
Grab Best Canadian Poetry 2026 here!
Grab Best Canadian Poetry 2025 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 2024.
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
ABOUT BEST CANADIAN POETRY 2025
Selected by editor Aislinn Hunter, the 2025 edition of Best Canadian Poetry showcases the best Canadian poetry writing published in 2023.
Featuring:
Hollie Adams • George Amabile • Erin Bedford • Billy-Ray Belcourt • Bertrand Bickersteth • Elisabeth Blair • Ronna Bloom • Alison Braid-Fernandez • Robert Bringhurst • Emily Cann • Anne Carson • Molly Cross-Blanchard • Lorna Crozier • Kayla Czaga • Evelyna Ekoko-Kay • Kate Genevieve • Susan Gillis • Sue Goyette • Catherine Graham • Henry Heavyshield • Gerald Hill • Alexander Hollenberg • Kim June Johnson • Eve Joseph • Evelyn Lau • Y. S. Lee • D. A. Lockhart • Fareh Malik • David Martin • Domenica Martinello • Cassidy McFadzean • Carmelita McGrath • Erín Moure • Tolu Oloruntoba • Catherine Owen • Molly Peacock • Miranda Pearson • Pauline Peters • Amanda Proctor • Shannon Quinn • Armand Garnet Ruffo • Anne Simpson • Carolyn Smart • Karen Solie • Catherine St. Denis • Owen Torrey • Michael Trussler • Sara Truuvert • Rob Winger • Jaeyun Yoo

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.

Off the Shelf Poetry Reading Series: Garth Martens
2026-03-27 | QC
Garth Martens, author of Who Else in the Dark Headed There: Poems, will be a featured poet for the Off the Shelf Poetry Reading Series! Presented by Simon Fraser University, the reading will take place on Friday, March 27.
Time and more details to come.
Order a copy of Who Else in the Dark Headed There here!
ABOUT WHO ELSE IN THE DARK HEADED THERE
In his first collection since the Governor General’s–nominated Prologue for the Age of Consequence, Martens adds an autobiographical lens to his concerns about class and labour.
A mother disappears. A son struggles to make sense of the life she left behind. Set against the stark northern Alberta of the 1980s and 90s, Who Else in the Dark Headed There follows a man reaching through time to find the child he was and the father he is becoming.
Beneath this waking world is another world, of the overheard, of the unsaid. To enter is to find a lyricism finely wrought and hallucinatory, a depth of feeling and fidelity to metaphor in all its guises—but most of all an urgent relationship with language. Here, in a reconstruction of childhood’s rooms, Garth Martens approaches the past not as a record but as a pressure, a “muscled concentration” that reorders, resuscitates, and redoubts.
ABOUT GARTH MARTENS
Garth Martens is the author of Prologue for the Age of Consequence and Who Else in the Dark Headed There. For his first book, he was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. He is also a past winner of the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. His poetry appears in Dark Mountain Project, Poetry Ireland, Hazlitt, This Magazine, Vallum, Fiddlehead, and Best Canadian Poetry. He is also a member of Palabra Flamenco, a literary flamenco ensemble that joins traditional flamenco dance and music with poetry and oral storytelling. He lives in Victoria, BC.

Planet Earth Poetry Series: Garth Martens
2026-04-10 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Vancouver) | Russell Books, 100-747 Fort St, Victoria, BC, V8W 3E9, Canada
Garth Martens, author of Who Else in the Dark Headed There: Poems, will be reading for the Planet Earth Poetry Series!
Hosted by Kyeren Regehr, the reading will take place at Russell Books on Friday, April 10 at 7PM.
More details here.
Order a copy of Who Else in the Dark Headed There here!
ABOUT WHO ELSE IN THE DARK HEADED THERE
In his first collection since the Governor General’s–nominated Prologue for the Age of Consequence, Martens adds an autobiographical lens to his concerns about class and labour.
A mother disappears. A son struggles to make sense of the life she left behind. Set against the stark northern Alberta of the 1980s and 90s, Who Else in the Dark Headed There follows a man reaching through time to find the child he was and the father he is becoming.
Beneath this waking world is another world, of the overheard, of the unsaid. To enter is to find a lyricism finely wrought and hallucinatory, a depth of feeling and fidelity to metaphor in all its guises—but most of all an urgent relationship with language. Here, in a reconstruction of childhood’s rooms, Garth Martens approaches the past not as a record but as a pressure, a “muscled concentration” that reorders, resuscitates, and redoubts.
ABOUT GARTH MARTENS
Garth Martens is the author of Prologue for the Age of Consequence and Who Else in the Dark Headed There. For his first book, he was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. He is also a past winner of the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. His poetry appears in Dark Mountain Project, Poetry Ireland, Hazlitt, This Magazine, Vallum, Fiddlehead, and Best Canadian Poetry. He is also a member of Palabra Flamenco, a literary flamenco ensemble that joins traditional flamenco dance and music with poetry and oral storytelling. He lives in Victoria, BC.

WHO ELSE IN THE DARK HEADED THERE: Kelowna Launch
2026-04-14 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Vancouver) | Benvoulin Church, 2279 Benvoulin Rd, Kelowna, BC, V1W 2C8, Canada
Join us in Kelowna for the launch of Who Else in the Dark Headed There: Poems by Garth Martens! Garth will be joined by fellow writers Lesley-Anne Evans and Ruth Daniel for the event, hosted by UBC-O professor Emily Murphy. Copies will be available for sale and signing courtesy of Mosaic Books.
The launch will take place at the Benvoulin Church on Tuesday, April 14 at 7PM.
Order a copy of Who Else in the Dark Headed There here!
ABOUT WHO ELSE IN THE DARK HEADED THERE
In his first collection since the Governor General’s–nominated Prologue for the Age of Consequence, Martens adds an autobiographical lens to his concerns about class and labour.
A mother disappears. A son struggles to make sense of the life she left behind. Set against the stark northern Alberta of the 1980s and 90s, Who Else in the Dark Headed There follows a man reaching through time to find the child he was and the father he is becoming.
Beneath this waking world is another world, of the overheard, of the unsaid. To enter is to find a lyricism finely wrought and hallucinatory, a depth of feeling and fidelity to metaphor in all its guises—but most of all an urgent relationship with language. Here, in a reconstruction of childhood’s rooms, Garth Martens approaches the past not as a record but as a pressure, a “muscled concentration” that reorders, resuscitates, and redoubts.
ABOUT GARTH MARTENS
Garth Martens is the author of Prologue for the Age of Consequence and Who Else in the Dark Headed There. For his first book, he was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. He is also a past winner of the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. His poetry appears in Dark Mountain Project, Poetry Ireland, Hazlitt, This Magazine, Vallum, Fiddlehead, and Best Canadian Poetry. He is also a member of Palabra Flamenco, a literary flamenco ensemble that joins traditional flamenco dance and music with poetry and oral storytelling. He lives in Victoria, BC.

SMASH & GRAB: Fredericton Launch
2026-04-16 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Halifax) | Gallery on Queen, 406 Queen St, Fredericton, NB, E3B 1B6, Canada
Join us in Fredericton for the launch of Mark Anthony Jarman’s new story collection, Smash & Grab! The launch will take place at Gallery on Queen, and books will be available for sale and signing from Westminster Bookmark.
The launch will take place on Thursday, April 16 at 6PM.
Grab a copy of Smash & Grab here!
ABOUT SMASH & GRAB
“A Canadian master of the form.”—Gregory Cowles, New York Times
A former military policeman, a veterinarian, and a French poet walk into a bar and debate the Vietnam war. A couple of men who are part of a commune discover two dead bodies while out sailing. An Irish woman hits a boy with her car and contemplates turning herself in. Two paramedics try to live and not burn out while dealing with so much death. A man on holiday in Venice is stalked by a pickpocket. A heartsick astronaut finds love on the moon.
In Smash & Grab Mark Anthony Jarman offers up a mischievous medley of stories that blur the lines between the real and the imagined. Continuing to chronicle the lives of the wayward and unlucky, it confirms its author as one of the most adventurous guides to the absurdity of twenty-first century existence.
ABOUT MARK ANTHONY JARMAN
Mark Anthony Jarman is the author of Burn Man, Touch Anywhere to Begin, Czech Techno, Knife Party at the Hotel Europa, My White Planet, 19 Knives, New Orleans Is Sinking, Dancing Nightly in the Tavern, and the travel book Ireland’s Eye. He is co-editor of a new literary journal CAMEL, and edited Best Canadian Stories 2023. His novel Salvage King Ya!, is on Amazon.ca’s list of 50 Essential Canadian Books and is the number one book on Amazon’s list of best hockey ﬁction. Widely published in Canada, the US, Europe, and Asia, Jarman is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a Yaddo fellow, has taught at the University of Victoria, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and the University of New Brunswick. Burn Man was a New York Times Editor’s Choice in 2024.

Marcello Di Cintio at Polar Beak Books
2026-04-18 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Vancouver) | Polar Peak Books, 482 2nd Ave., Fernie, BC, V0B 1M0, Canada
Marcello Di Cintio, author of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers, will be appearing at Polar Peak Books! Marcello will be in conversation with fellow writer Angie Abdou for the event hosted by bookstore co-owner Melanie Jeannotte. There will also be an audience Q&A, book sales and signing, and a cash bar.
The talk will take place on Saturday, April 18 at 7PM.
RSVP 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.

OBLIVIOUS: Toronto Launch
2026-04-29 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Toronto) | Massey College, 4 Devonshire Place, Toronto, ON, M5S 2E1, Canada
Join us in Toronto to celebrate the final book—and life’s work—of acclaimed author Elaine Dewar.
Elaine Dewar didn’t live to see the publication of her last book, Oblivious, an investigative masterwork that every Canadian should read. Oblivious examines one of the most shameful chapters in Canadian history: the government-sanctioned medical experiments on an Indigenous population. Elaine Dewar raises unwelcome questions about who knew what and when—and what the obliviousness means for this country’s reconciliation with First Nations and other going forward. Please come and help celebrate Elaine’s lifelong legacy of pursuing uncomfortable truths.
This launch, hosted by Marci McDonald, will take place at Massey College on Wednesday, April 29 at 6PM EST.
RSVP to Dominique at dbechard@biblioasis.com
Grab a copy of Oblivious here.
ABOUT OBLIVIOUS
Over the last thirty years, Canadians have been forced to face their country’s genocidal attempt to destroy its Indigenous populations through segregation, poverty, coerced labour, and infectious diseases. Few have read the statements of claim, academic literature, or multi-volume commission reports setting out exactly what we stole and who we hurt (and how); and the policies and decisions which harmed generations of Indigenous people are still not broadly known.
In Oblivious, investigative journalist Elaine Dewar exposes the governmental and psychological machinery that allowed this to continue for so long. The granddaughter of settlers saved during their first Prairie winter by the generosity of Indigenous neighbours, Dewar explores how even well-meaning Canadians who glimpsed what was being done did nothing to stop it. In the process, she uncovers further evidence of crimes against Indigenous people, including unethical and cruel scientific experiments, a segregated and woefully inadequate health care system, and a callous indifference to Indigenous well-being that has almost entirely eroded the sense of trust true reconciliation must be based on.
Part memoir, part investigation, Oblivious tells the story of a Jewish girl from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, who grew up in a society so segregated—its Indigenous people consigned to an alternate universe—that she, like so many of us, failed to notice their plight for decades.
ABOUT ELAINE DEWAR
Elaine Dewar (1948–2025)—author, journalist, television story editor—has been honoured by nine National Magazine awards, including the prestigious President’s Medal, and the White Award. Her first book, Cloak of Green, delved into the dark side of environmental politics and became an underground classic. Bones: Discovering the First Americans, an investigation of the science and politics regarding the peopling of the Americas, was a national bestseller and earned a special commendation from the Canadian Archaeological Association. The Second Tree: of Clones, Chimeras, and Quests for Immortality won Canada’s premier literary nonfiction prize from the Writers’ Trust. The Handover was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for nonfiction. On The Origin of the Deadliest Pandemic in 100 Years broke front page news in the Globe and Mail with its investigation into the infiltration of Canada’s only level four microbiology institution by leading Chinese military researchers who subsequently fled the country. Called “Canada’s Rachel Carson,” Dewar aspired to be a happy warrior for the public good.

WHO ELSE IN THE DARK HEADED THERE: Victoria Launch
2026-04-30 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Vancouver) | Caffe Fantastico, 965 Kings Rd, Victoria, BC, V8T 0C4, Canada
Join us in Victoria for the launch of Who Else in the Dark Headed There: Poems by Garth Martens!
The launch will take place at Caffe Fantastico on Thursday, April 30 at 7PM.
Order a copy of Who Else in the Dark Headed There here!
ABOUT WHO ELSE IN THE DARK HEADED THERE
In his first collection since the Governor General’s–nominated Prologue for the Age of Consequence, Martens adds an autobiographical lens to his concerns about class and labour.
A mother disappears. A son struggles to make sense of the life she left behind. Set against the stark northern Alberta of the 1980s and 90s, Who Else in the Dark Headed There follows a man reaching through time to find the child he was and the father he is becoming.
Beneath this waking world is another world, of the overheard, of the unsaid. To enter is to find a lyricism finely wrought and hallucinatory, a depth of feeling and fidelity to metaphor in all its guises—but most of all an urgent relationship with language. Here, in a reconstruction of childhood’s rooms, Garth Martens approaches the past not as a record but as a pressure, a “muscled concentration” that reorders, resuscitates, and redoubts.
ABOUT GARTH MARTENS
Garth Martens is the author of Prologue for the Age of Consequence and Who Else in the Dark Headed There. For his first book, he was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. He is also a past winner of the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. His poetry appears in Dark Mountain Project, Poetry Ireland, Hazlitt, This Magazine, Vallum, Fiddlehead, and Best Canadian Poetry. He is also a member of Palabra Flamenco, a literary flamenco ensemble that joins traditional flamenco dance and music with poetry and oral storytelling. He lives in Victoria, BC.

Biblioasis Spring Launch: Windsor!
2026-05-04 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | Biblioasis Bookshop, 1520 Wyandotte St E, Windsor, ON, N9A 3L2, Canada
Join us in celebrating the launches of three Biblioasis spring books: On Sports by David Macfarlane, Cherry Beach by Don Gillmor, and Silver Lake by Alex Pugsley! Hosted by our publisher Dan Wells, the launch will be held at Biblioasis Bookshop and will include readings from each author, a discussion and Q&A, and of course books will be available for sale and signing.
The launch will take place on Monday, May 4 at 7PM.
Grab On Sports here!
Grab Cherry Beach here!
Grab Silver Lake here, or check out the rest of the Aubrey McKee series here!
ABOUT ON SPORTS
What are sports, really? What do we love about them? And what, in our digital age, have they become?
On Sports reads like a conversation between friends at the ballpark in those golden days before the kiss cam and college co-eds with T-shirt cannons spoiled the fun; a book that feels like the sun on your forehead and the breeze in your hair, beer and laughter on your lips; a book that celebrates communion and friendship and the beauty of these games—whether it be baseball or football or soccer or tennis or cricket—that we’ve designed to distract ourselves from the end of the world. It’s about what 7Up tastes like when drunk from the Grey Cup, how much work it takes for talent to shine, and the near impossibility of language to properly capture athletic excellence. It’s about the beauty of good sports copy, the ephemerality of even the biggest sports story, and how sport remains perpetually powered by the eleven-year-old in all of us. It’s a book about rediscovering the spirit of sport, before online gambling and the manufactured spectacle of today’s professional sports suffocates the last of it; and it’s about where that spirit today is best found.
ABOUT DAVID MACFARLANE
David Macfarlane‘s family memoir, The Danger Tree, was described by Christopher Hitchens as “one of the finest and most intriguing miniature elegies that I have read in many a year.” Macfarlane’s novel, Summer Gone, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. Based on The Danger Tree, “The Door You Came In,” a two-man show (co-written and performed with Douglas Cameron) has been produced, to acclaim, from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Stratford, Ontario. Macfarlane lives in Toronto with his wife, the designer, Janice Lindsay.
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.
ABOUT SILVER LAKE
It was on a fully dark February night when I went to the Communist’s Daughter to meet a friend who never showed that my life in movies began.
So begins the third installment in a series of standalone novels about the life and travels of Aubrey McKee. Set in Toronto and Silver Lake, a creative neighbourhood in Los Angeles, the novel chronicles with infectious élan Aubrey’s journey from broken-hearted derelict to B-movie production assistant, comedy writer, and science-ﬁction screenwriter, all the way up to feature ﬁlm director. Along the way, he encounters long-ago childhood friends, manic producers, NHL players turned talk show hosts, Victoria’s Secret models, impulsive movie stars . . . and his own rising destiny.
ABOUT ALEX PUGSLEY
Alex Pugsley has worked on over 185 produced episodes of television, writing for performers such as Lauren Ash, Scott Thompson, Dan Aykroyd, and Michael Cera. He wrote and directed the feature ﬁlm Dirty Singles which won for him the Irving Avrich Emerging Filmmaker Award at TIFF. Following the publication of his first novel, Aubrey McKee, he was named one of CBC’s Writers to Watch. His ﬁrst story collection, Shimmer, was nominated for the ReLit Award for Short Fiction, and his most recent novel, The Education of Aubrey McKee, was long listed for the Toronto Book Awards. His next book, The Hungarian Ballroom, an Aubrey McKee novella, is forthcoming from Biblioasis. More information can be found at www.alexpugsley.com.

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.

CHERRY BEACH and ON SPORTS: Toronto Launch!
2026-05-07 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | The Supermarket, 268 Augusta Ave, Toronto, ON, M5T 2L9, Canada
Toronto readers! Join us for the double book launch of Don Gillmor’s Cherry Beach and David Macfarlane’s On Sports. The launch, hosted by our intrepid sales coordinator Hilary, will be held at The Supermarket, and include a reading, conversation and Q&A, and books will be for sale and signing from Ben McNally.
The launch takes place on Thursday, May 7 at 7PM EST.
Grab Cherry Beach here!
Grab On Sports 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.
ABOUT ON SPORTS
What are sports, really? What do we love about them? And what, in our digital age, have they become?
On Sports reads like a conversation between friends at the ballpark in those golden days before the kiss cam and college co-eds with T-shirt cannons spoiled the fun; a book that feels like the sun on your forehead and the breeze in your hair, beer and laughter on your lips; a book that celebrates communion and friendship and the beauty of these games—whether it be baseball or football or soccer or tennis or cricket—that we’ve designed to distract ourselves from the end of the world. It’s about what 7Up tastes like when drunk from the Grey Cup, how much work it takes for talent to shine, and the near impossibility of language to properly capture athletic excellence. It’s about the beauty of good sports copy, the ephemerality of even the biggest sports story, and how sport remains perpetually powered by the eleven-year-old in all of us. It’s a book about rediscovering the spirit of sport, before online gambling and the manufactured spectacle of today’s professional sports suffocates the last of it; and it’s about where that spirit today is best found.
ABOUT DAVID MACFARLANE
David Macfarlane‘s family memoir, The Danger Tree, was described by Christopher Hitchens as “one of the finest and most intriguing miniature elegies that I have read in many a year.” Macfarlane’s novel, Summer Gone, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. Based on The Danger Tree, “The Door You Came In,” a two-man show (co-written and performed with Douglas Cameron) has been produced, to acclaim, from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Stratford, Ontario. Macfarlane lives in Toronto with his wife, the designer, Janice Lindsay.

Marcello Di Cintio: Conversations in Trust Calgary (Writers' Trust 50th Anniversary)
2026-05-13 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Edmonton) | Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, 111 12 Avenue Southeast, Calgary, AB, T2G 1A1, Canada
Marcello Di Cintio, author of Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers, will be featured in the Writers’ Trust 50th Anniversary event in Calgary, “Conversations in Trust Calgary: Canadian Authors Make Sense of Our World,” joining Canadian writers and leaders in the arts, business, and society for a national conversation on connection.
Marcello will be in conversation with fellow authors Guy Vanderhaeghe, Jenny Heijun Wills, and Shelley Youngblut.
The event takes place at Decidedly Jazz Danceworks on Wednesday, May 13 at 6PM.
Tickets and more details here.
Grab Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers here!
ABOUT PRECARIOUS
Finalist for the 2026 City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize • Finalist for the 2026 Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction • A Globe 100 Best Book of 2025 • One of The Hill Times’ Top 100 Best Books in 2025 • Winner of the 2024 Dave Greber Freelance Writers Book Award
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.

An Afternoon of Poetry: Robyn Sarah at Motel Chelsea
2026-05-24 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Toronto) | Motel Chelsea, 1418 Rte 105, Chelsea, QC, Canada
Come on out to Motel Chelsea, where Robyn Sarah, author of We’re Somewhere Else Now: Poems 2016–2024, will be joined by Ken Victor for an afternoon of poetry reading.
The event will take place on Sunday, May 24 at 2PM ET.
More details here!
Grab We’re Somewhere Else Now here!
ABOUT WE’RE SOMEWHERE ELSE NOW
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.
ABOUT ROBYN SARAH
A California Review of Books Best Poetry Book of 2025
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.

SILVER LAKE: Toronto Launch
2026-06-01 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Toronto) | Flying Books, 371 Queen St W, Toronto, ON, M5V 2A4, Canada
Join us in Toronto for the launch of Alex Pugsley’s Silver Lake, the third installment in his Aubrey McKee series. Alex will be reading from the novel, and books will be available for sale and signing.
The launch will take place at Flying Books on Monday, June 1 at 6:30PM.
Grab a copy of Silver Lake here!
Check out the previous Aubrey McKee books here.
ABOUT SILVER LAKE
It was on a fully dark February night when I went to the Communist’s Daughter to meet a friend who never showed that my life in movies began.
So begins the third installment in a series of standalone novels about the life and travels of Aubrey McKee. Set in Toronto and Silver Lake, a creative neighbourhood in Los Angeles, the novel chronicles with infectious élan Aubrey’s journey from broken-hearted derelict to B-movie production assistant, comedy writer, and science-ﬁction screenwriter, all the way up to feature ﬁlm director. Along the way, he encounters long-ago childhood friends, manic producers, NHL players turned talk show hosts, Victoria’s Secret models, impulsive movie stars . . . and his own rising destiny.
ABOUT ALEX PUGSLEY
Alex Pugsley has worked on over 185 produced episodes of television, writing for performers such as Lauren Ash, Scott Thompson, Dan Aykroyd, and Michael Cera. He wrote and directed the feature ﬁlm Dirty Singles which won for him the Irving Avrich Emerging Filmmaker Award at TIFF. Following the publication of his first novel, Aubrey McKee, he was named one of CBC’s Writers to Watch. His ﬁrst story collection, Shimmer, was nominated for the ReLit Award for Short Fiction, and his most recent novel, The Education of Aubrey McKee, was long listed for the Toronto Book Awards. His next book, The Hungarian Ballroom, an Aubrey McKee novella, is forthcoming from Biblioasis. More information can be found at www.alexpugsley.com.

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.
