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April 01, 2021
Novelist John Jantunen on Opening Scenes, Naming Murderers After Friends, & the Strange Time He Met His Protagonist in Northern Ontario
In the not too distant future, a prison filled with hardened inmates is suddenly plunged into darkness. The power has mysteriously gone out, and it's not coming back. The guards flee the prison, leaving ...
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July 29, 2022
"Histories That are Buried Beneath the Mainstream" Sheila Murray on Telling the Stories of Two Mixed Race Men in Her New Novel
Nearly 100 years of history separate Cyril and Edward, two mixed race Black men who made Toronto their home in Sheila Murray's Finding Edward (Cormorant Books). When Cyril arrives from Jamaica in 2012, ...
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April 29, 2021
May 2021 Writer-in-Residence Wendy Orr Explores Love & Disability in Ancient Greece in Her Captivating New Novel
Children's author Wendy Orr knows how to capture the imagination of young readers in her many acclaimed books (including fan favourite Nim's Island, which was even adapted as a blockbuster film). ...
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February 04, 2021
A.G. Pasquella Shows Readers the City's Dark Side in His Compulsively Readable Toronto Crime Novels
Toronto's dark side takes centre stage in A.G. Pasquella's Jack Palace series. Season of Smoke (Dundurn Press), the newest instalment in the series, sees Jack backed into a terrible corner when his past ...
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May 10, 2022
"No Novel is Perfect" Anita Anand on Learning & Loving the Novel Form
In Anita Anand's A Convergence of Solitudes, the experience of separation, partition, and the longing that divisions can create spirals through multiple generations of a single family and the people ...
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January 05, 2022
"I am Obsessed with Place" Anna Dowdall on Whisking Readers to Paris and Montreal in Her Twisty New Mystery Novel
Private investigator Ashley Smeeton returns for a third time in Anna Dowdall's lush new mystery novel, April on Paris Street (Guernica Editions), which sees the Montreal-based PI travel to Paris on ...
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April 14, 2021
Ross Breithaupt on Weaving Together Music, Mourning, and the Gritty Reality of Tree Planting in His Moving First Novel
Anyone who's ever tried their hand at tree-planting in Canada knows it's an intense undertaking. For 20-year old Rory Fleck, the intensity is just what he's looking for—a place to forget himself and ...
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July 06, 2023
Colleen Nelson on Setting Her New Kids' Novel in One of New York's Most Unique Historical Properties
Umbrella House in New York City is a unique urban phenomenon. Abandoned in the late 70s, it was sealed up with cinderblocks and cement until several years later when a group of squatters moved in. Over ...
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September 19, 2023
TIFA's Roland Gulliver on Genre Evolution, Programming Pair-Ups, & Some Really Big Swings
The Toronto International Festival of Authors kicks off this year on September 21, with a packed calendar of author talks, readings, workshops, and more at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre. Featuring acclaimed ...
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October 20, 2021
Harold R. Johnson on Blending Swedish and Cree Influences in His Innovative New Fantasy Adventure
Armed aliens searching for heaven; mysterious storytellers; otherworldly medicine women and sacred trees; and, of course, dragons. It sounds like a list that could never be contained in a single book, ...