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Riding the “Magic Bus” with the Anansi Girls

Last night, House of Anansi Press united readers and writers in discussions about books, writing, the Alice Hoffman Twitter freak out, and how incredibly long it takes to drive from downtown Toronto to Don Mills in rush-hour traffic. Anansi held an online contest to select eight readers to accompany the Anansi Girls (Emily Schultz, Lisa Moore, Karen Solie, and Shani Mootoo) on a “magic bus” (actually a white mini-coach bus) on a trip from the Anansi offices at 110 Spadina to the authors’ public reading at McNally Robinson Booksellers in Don Mills.

According to Julie Wilson, online content manager at Anansi, the press wanted to create an event around these four female authors to showcase their work, as well as to show support for indie bookseller McNally Robinson. In Wilson’s words: “Don Mills is not exactly local [...] so we thought the easiest thing to do is to just put people on a bus!”

After a long drive through the side streets of Toronto (as well as along the Bridle Path, where the authors muttered comments such as, “If your book sells really, really well, you too can live here!”), the readers and writers arrived in rainy Don Mills for the readings.