Chris Turner to Launch "How to Breathe Underwater" with Shift Mag Alumni

You know it's going to be the literary headbanger of the season when Shit from Hell, Canada's favourite geriatric punk band, is booked as the closer.

Chris Turner is gathering with the scattered alumni of Shift, Toronto's late legendary tech & culture magazine, to celebrate the launch of his new collection of award-winning journalism, How to Breathe Underwater: Field Reports from an Age of Radical Change.

In addition to a few words from Chris, Shift co-founder Andy Heintzman will speak, and (with any luck) a number of former Shift writers will man the turntables.

The event is open to everybody. Mark it on your calenders!

For more information and updates, visit our Facebook event page.

Kathy Page @ eh List Reading Series in Toronto, May 27 + 28th

The wonderful, adventurous, and complex Kathy Page will be making not one but two appearances at the eh List Reading Series next week in support of her new collection Paradise & Elsewhere. Called "sensuous and verdant" and compared to the achievements of Angela Carter in  The National Post, Page's book of genre-defying meta-fabulist fairy-tales was also recently called a best new small press book by The Globe & Mail. More information on the readings is available below. 

The eh List Author Series: Kathy Page - Paradise and Elsewhere

Tue May 27, 2014

7:00 p.m. - 8:15 p.m.
75 mins

Barbara Frum Library 

20 Covington Road, 

Toronto, ON 

M6A 3C1

416-395-5440

*

The eh List Author Series: Kathy Page - Paradise and Elsewhere

Wed May 28, 2014
7:00 p.m. - 8:15 p.m.
75 mins

North York Central Library Auditorium
5120 Yonge Street, 

Toronto, ON
M2N 5N9
416-395-5535

Ondjaki Appearing at IFOA

Join Host Grace O'Connell as she welcomes Ondjaki, Miriam Toews and Evie Wyld to present their latest works at Toronto's International Festival of Authors on Wednesday, April 30th.

Ondjaki was named one of The Guardian's Top Five African Writers in 2012. His most recent novel translated to English, Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret, was shortlisted in 2010 under the Best Book of the Year category of the São Paolo Prize for Literature. In 2013 Ondjaki won the José Saramago Prize for Literature.

Miriam Toews, 2004 Governor General's award winner and Giller Prize finaliast, will be celebrating the launch of her newest book All My Puny Sorrows. Evie Wyld will be reading from her second novel All the Birds, Singing. Her first novel, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.

Host Grace O'Connell has been nominated for the RBC Browen Wallace Award and two National Magazine Awards for fiction. Her novel Magnified World is a national bestseller.

The event begins at 7:30 pm in the York Quay Centre Brigantine Room, 235 Queens Quay West, Toronto.

For more information visit the IFOA website here.

Andrew Steinmetz is a busy, busy man...

Still in the whirlwind of the Weston Prize shortlist, Andrew Steinmetz has been all over the internet discussing his acclaimed book This Great Escape and writing life in general.

You'll be able to catch him in person as part of Biblioasis' big Toronto launch at the Garrison tomorrow night, but until then, here's a few ways to get your This Great Escape fix:

The Toronto Star published their wonderful review of This Great Escape today:
"With extraordinary emotional intensity, Steinmetz reclaims this son, friend, actor, cousin, for us all. His close-up of an almost-famous man challenges easy assumptions about who deserves a biography … beguiling."

Open Book Toronto featured Andrew in their Weston Words feature last week, in which he talks about his reaction to the award nod, his favourite non-fiction books and his future projects.

He also chatted with CBC Books on All in a Day back in September and the LPG's Writer's Block about books that have influenced his work, his work space, and his reasons for writing.

If you're in the Toronto area, head to The Garrison (1197 Dundas St. W.) tomorrow (Thursday) night for the big Biblioasis launch where you'll be able to catch Steinmetz live, as well as Cynthia Flood, Lucie Wilk, Mauricio Segura, Norm Sibum, Alexandra Oliver and Richard Norman.

We'll also have music from Massey Harris, and a chance to win a beautiful limited-edition leather-bound copy of David Mason's The Pope's Bookbinder, to be drawn in November.

Not enough Biblioasis for you? You'll also have the chance to proclaim your love in t-shirt form with our brand new (and already in great demand) South Detroit shirts. Get yours for only $15 at the launch.

spiderwebs, bats, and plastic torso not included