11:00 - 12:00 :: Toronto as Muse: Books Inspired by the City We Love

The Many Revenges of Kip Flynn
Sean Dixon

It all started with a black rose and a rich young man. And then there she was, Kip Flynn, standing beside her dead boyfriend and agreeing to take a large sum of money from the young man’s father to keep quiet. As if she could have done anything else, being so scared and grief-stricken and maybe pregnant…
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Six Metres of Pavement
Farzana Doctor

Ismail Boxwala made the worst mistake of his life one summer morning twenty years ago: he forgot his baby daughter in the back seat of his car. After his daughter's tragic death, he struggles to continue living. But Ismail's story begins to change after he reluctantly befriends two women: Fatima, a young queer activist kicked out of her parents' home; and Celia, his grieving Portuguese-Canadian neighbour who lives just six metres away.
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Passing Through
David Penhale

Toronto is not a place Daniel Foster wants to be for very long. If not for his daughter Mary being in financial trouble, he would not be here at all. But when the bank that holds his million dollar savings crashes, he realizes he will be stuck in Toronto much longer than he expected. Forced to move in with Mary and her daughter, Foster must relearn everything he thought he knew: job skills, parenting, even how to love again.
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The Girl On The Escalator
Jim Nason

Inspired by everyday people riding the TTC, The Girl on the Escalator is a collection of gender- and expectation-bending stories that reveal the extraordinary and often heartbreaking truths behind ordinary life.
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12:00 - 12:15 :: Winterkill by Catherine Graham

Winterkill represents the mature culmination of a trilogy of work by one of Canada’s most skilled young poets. Each small treasure repays numerous visits, revealing something new with each reading.
Learn more about Catherine Graham

12:15 - 12:30 :: Love Figures by Sam Cheuk

Borrowing disparate ideas and modes ranging from self-censorship and identity performance, lyric poetry and phenomenology, Sam Cheuk’s debut poetry collection attempts to invent a new way of truth-telling.
Learn more about Sam Cheuk

 12:30 - 1:00 :: Dancing Lessons by Olive Senior

When her house in the Jamaican countryside is damaged by a hurricane, Gertrude Samphire is sent by her estranged daughter Celia to an assisted living centre, where she spends most of her time alone. It is only through writing that she finds her voice, and she begins to record her life in a notebook: memories of her gothic childhood, impetuous marriage, and struggles with raising a family. Gertrude slowly comes out of her shell —and comes to realize she may not be as alone as she once felt.
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1:00 - 1:30 :: No Ordinary Day by Deborah Ellis

Young Valli, living on the streets of Kolkata, India, comes smack up against the ancient disease of leprosy, and has to learn to trust others as much as she trusts herself. Deborah Ellis is partnering with The Leprosy Mission on this book. Join her to find out how we can all Make Leprosy History.
Learn more about Deborah Ellis

1:30 - 2:30 :: Trillium Book Award Voices: The Writing LIfe in Ontario

A selection of winners of the Trillium Book Award over the past 24 years will gather together to discuss and share their individual takes on the writing process in Ontario, providing fresh and local insight on such things as their favourite places to write, where they get their inspiration, and tips on how to connect and research.

The Ontario government established the Trillium Book Award in 1987 to recognize the literary excellence and diversity of Ontario writers and writing. This prestigious Award is unusual because it allows entries from all genres. Over the years it has grown in stature. With the upcoming 25^thanniversary, the Trillium Book Award is among the most highly regarded national and international literary prizes.

2:30 - 3:00 :: Underground by Antanas Sileika

Inspired by true historical revelations and fragments of the author's family history, Underground tells the story of a troubled romance between Lukas and Elena, two members of the underground Lithuanian resistance movement in mid- 1940s.
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3:00 - 3:30 :: Stories About Storytellers: Publishing Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, Alistair Macleod, Pierre Trudeau and Others by Douglas Gibson

“I’ll kill him!” said Mavis Gallant. Pierre Trudeau almost did, leading him into a whizzing stream of traffic that almost crushed both of them. Alistair MacLeod accused him of a “home invasion” to grab the manuscript of No Great Mischief. And Paul Martin denounced him to a laughing Ottawa crowd, saying, “If Shakespeare had had Doug Gibson as an editor, there would be no Shakespeare!” Stories About Storytellers shares these tales and many more, as readers follow Doug Gibson through 40 years of editing and publishing some of Canada’s sharpest minds and greatest storytellers.
Learn more about Douglas Gibson

3:30 - 3:45 :: Woods Wolf Girl by Cornelia Hoogland

Wolves, woodsmen and tangled woods merge in this lush Canadian adaptation the story of Little Red Riding Hood. A meditation on innocence and its loss, and on the power of the green wilderness, Woods Wolf Girl uses striking lyric poetry to expose the heart of the original fairy tale.
Learn more about Cornelia Hoogland

3:45 - 4:15 :: The Suite Life: The Magic and Mystery of Hotel Living by Christopher Heard

Hotel living has always seemed exotic. Why did Claude Monet, Greta Garbo, Coco Chanel, and many other mercurial individuals desire such a life? Besides answering that question, The Suite Life features interviews with high-profile celebrities, such as Johnny Depp, who have also chosen hotel living.  The Suite Life is the culmination of a lifelong fascination with iconic hotels and those who have opted to reside in them.
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4:15 - 4:30 :: Bending the Continuum by Dane Swan

The poems in Bending the Continuum are slave to no genre. Science-fiction, alternative realities, and time are fluid. Form, voice and space in this collection borrow from multiple canons. Dane’s first book is equal parts Can-lit, Harlem Renaissance, the Caribbean oral tradition known as Griotism, Roddenberry, hip-hop and dark-humour.
Learn more about Dane Swan

4:30 - 5:15 :: Larger than life: How Quirky Characters Give Us a New View of the World

Join Cordelia Strube , Bonnie Bowman and Kristen den Hartog as they discuss how ‘big’ characters can reveal small truths.

Lemon just can’t be bothered trying to fit in. She spurns fashion, television, and even the mall. High school is misery, a trial run for an unhappy adulthood of bloated waistlines, bad sex, and inequities, and nothing her guidance counsellor can say will convince Lemon otherwise.  Cordelia Strube’s Lemon (Coach House Books) was shortlisted for the 2010 Trillium Book Award and longlisted for the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize. 

In Spaz (Anvil Press), Bonnie Bowman introduces readers to Walter Finch, the manager of a shoe store in his local mall. Walter finds the store an ideal environment in which to pursue his grand ambition: designing the perfect woman’s shoe. As he delves further into his passion, Walter comes to believe that his path will ultimately lead him to the perfect foot to fit his creation. On an all-consuming mission to find his princess, Walter is plunged into a separate reality, his own fairytale.

 Kristen den Hartog, And Me Among Them (Freehand Books) :Ruth grew too fast. A young girl over seven feet tall, she struggles to conceal the physical and mental symptoms of her rapid growth, and to connect with other children. Not knowing how to help Ruth, her parents turn inward, away from one another. Ruth is not precocious, nor a prodigy, but her extraordinary size affords her extraordinary vision. Possessing an uncanny ability to intuit the emotional secrets of her family’s past and present, Ruth gently surfaces her parents’ vulnerabilities, their regrets and their deepest longings.

5:15 - 5:45 :: Idaho Winter by Tony Burgess

In Idaho Winter, the young title character is tormented by all who know him. When Idaho discovers that his miserable life is the creation of a cruel writer, he locks the author in a closet and takes control of the narrative. When the author emerges from the closet, he finds his story completely unrecognizable…
Learn more about Tony Burgess