Events

“Lit Up Lunch” at Indigo with Alex Pugsley and Russell Smith

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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 will be hosted by Emily Weedon.

The event will take place on Monday, October 20 at 12PM.

Moe details TK.

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.

We’re Somewhere Else Now: Toronto Launch!

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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.

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.

Precarious: Toronto Launch!

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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

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Toronto friends! Mélikah Abdelmoumen, author of Baldwin, Styron, and Me (trans. by Catherine Khordoc) will be in conversation with Madeleine Thien at Queen Books, at an event hosted by Vinh Nguyen.

The even will take place on Thursday, November 6 at 6:30PM. More details TK.

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!

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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 launch will take place at The Mezz on Thursday, November 6 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

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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.