Authors Paul Quarrington, David Adams Richards, and Emily Perkins all read and spoke at an event held at the Leander Boat Club in Hamilton, Ontario, Monday, May 5, 2008. The event was hosted by bookseller Bryan Prince and A Different Drummer Books. (Photos courtesy of A Different Drummer.)

Emily Perkins and Bryan Prince.

Paul Quarrington signs books with the help of a cold drink, a small pile of cash, and Ian Elliot of A Different Drummer.

David Adams Richards gets a grip on the lectern.

In case you hadn’t heard, tomorrow (May 3) is the seventh annual Free Comic Book Day, and comic book shops across the country will be handing out gratis goodies to all comers. Torontoist has a quick briefing today on some of the highlights you can expect:

This year’s selection of free comics is really fantastic. DC Comics offers a reprint of the first issue of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All Star Superman, widely regarded as the best Superman story in decades. Marvel Comics, not to be outdone, offers a brand new X-Men comic. Dark Horse offers up a Hellboy anthology, there’s free Archie and free The Simpsons comics, the Transformers, Gyro Gearloose, Gumby, and many, many more. There is a free comic for every taste: if you want cute owls frolicking in all-ages-suitable tales, there is Andy Runton’s Owly and Friends; if you want evil people being stabbed in the eyeball, there is an EC Comics Sampler.

The nominees for this year’s BC Book Prizes were feted at a shindig held April 19 in Vancouver. The winners will be named at the prize gala on Saturday, April 26. (Photos courtesy of kc dyer.)

Crystal Stranaghan, publisher of Gumboot Books, with author James McCann.

Author and BC Book Prizes boardmember Norma Charles chats with author Julie Burtinshaw.

Children’s author Kari-Lynn Winters, whose book Jeffrey and Sloth (Orca Book Publishers) is nominated in the picture book category.

Author Meg Tilly and her husband. Tilly’s book Porcupine (Tundra Books) is nominated in the YA category.

On April 14, David Macfarlane launched T0ronto: A City Becoming (Key Porter Books) with the help of a panel of (municipally) talking heads. The event happened at The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto (where else?) as part of This is Not A Reading Series. (Photos by David Cuthbertson, courtesy of Key Porter Books.)

David Macfarlane signs a copy of the book.

Macfarlane talks T.O. as his fellow panelists – photographer Michael Awad, Globe and Mail columnist John Barber, architect John Van Nostrand, and author and columnist Linda McQuaig – listen.

P.S. – Toronto.

Authors Mary Swan and Anne Simpson dropped in for a read-and-greet at A Different Drummer Books in Burlington, Ontario.

Mary Swan and Anne Simpson enjoy some after-reading wine. (Photo courtesy of A Different Drummer Books.)

Coach House Books launched its spring season with a multi-author Toronto reading on April 15. (Photos courtesy of Coach House Books; photos by Derek Wuenschirs, except for Claudia Dey photo, which is by Julia Gotz.)

Coach House senior editor (and emcee for the evening) Alana Wilcox.

Claudia Dey reads from her novel Stunt; the world goes black and white.

R.M. Vaughan reads from his poetry collection Troubled.

Another spring poet, Jen Currin, reads from Hagiography.

Here are some photos from recent book events:

Montreal author Ibi Kaslik launched her rock-themed second novel, The Angel Riots (Penguin Canada), at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto on April 1. The event was presented by This Is Not a Reading Series. Above, Kaslik (left) is interviewed onstage by EYE Weekly’s Sarah Liss. (Photo by Melodie Kwan)

Andrew Whiteman, a.k.a. the Apostle of Hustle, plays some tunes at Kaslik’s launch. (Photo by Melodie Kwan)

Abigail Carter outside the Capital Theatre in Port Hope, Ontario, where Furby House Books hosted an event for her memoir, The Alchemy of Loss (McClelland & Stewart), on March 28. (Photo courtesy of M&S)

Andrew Feindel, Alexander Herman, and Paul Matthews launched their book, Kickstart: How Successful Canadians Got Started (Dundurn Press), at a lavish do at Casa Loma in Toronto on April 2. Above (from left): Feindel, Herman, and Matthews dress sharp and display Kickstart. (Photo courtesy of Dundurn Press)

Lawyer Eddie Greenspan, one of the interviewees in Kickstart, signs a copy. (Photo courtesy of Dundurn Press)

April Q&Q cover boy and recent Canada Reads champ Paul Quarrington launched his new novel, The Ravine (Random House Canada), at an event hosted by Pages Books & Magazines and This Is Not A Reading Series at The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto on March 19. (All photos by Chris Reed.)

Quarrington chats onstage with Marc Glassman, owner of Pages.

Quarrington performs with his band, The Porkbelly Futures.

Children’s author Kathy Kacer recently spoke at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Toronto about her Silver Birch Award-winning book Hiding Edith and the just-released The Diary of Laura’s Twin, both published by Second Story Press as part of its Holocaust Remembrance Books for Young Readers Series. (All photos courtesy of Second Story Press.)

Kacer speaks at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

Edith Gelbard, the subject of Hiding Edith, addresses the room.

Kacer and Second Story Press publisher Margie Wolfe.

Miriam Toews has accepted a short writer-in-residence gig at the University of British Columbia, and this week Toews’ agent, Carolyn Swayze, held a soiree at Christianne’s Lyceum of Art & Literature in Kitsilano to welcome the author to Vancouver. Below, Swayze and Toews chat; visible in the background (right) is Bill Richardson. (Photo by kc dyer.)

(More photos after the jump.)

(more…)

Last week Janice Kulyk Keefer won the $25,000 Kobzar Literary Award, which honours writing with Ukrainian-Canadian themes. She won the prize at an event at Toronto’s Palais Royale. (Photos by Lu Taskey and courtesy of the Kobzar Literary Awards.)

Keefer stands at centre stage, flanked by (left to right) actor Fred Keating, the evening’s emcee; Shevchenko Foundation president Andrew Hladyshevsky; Senator Raynell Andreychuk; and Joy Kogawa.

Nominee Roman Fodchuk reads from his book, Zhorna: Material Culture of the Ukrainian Pioneers (University of Calgary Press)

A now fedora-less Fodchuk receives a plaque from Senator Andreychuk.

The four Kobzar finalists: Lisa Grekul, Keefer, Marusya Bociurkiw, and Fodchuk.

Jamie Kennedy’s restaurant at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto played host to an eco-lit lunch this week. Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, talked about the importance of responsible preparation, sourcing, and farming of food. To highlight the point, there was a presentation illustrating the journey of the meal being served, from field to table. The journey was a short one, as all the food was from Ontario, earning Kennedy 10 bonus ecopoints from Pollan.

From left to right: Michael Pollan, Jamie Kennedy, and Andrew Heintzman, President of Investeco Capital Corporation, the company which organised the event.

The Salon du Livre, an international book fair in Paris, is being boycotted by a coalition of Islamic nations unhappy with the decision to award the ‘Pavilion of Honour’ to Israeli writers.

From The Guardian:

The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Isesco) has urged its 50 members to boycott the fair, which starts on March 14. So far, Iran, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon and Tunisia have confirmed they are to pull out.

A statement issued by Isesco said that “the crimes against humanity Israel is perpetrating in the Palestinian territories” make it an unworthy recipient of the honour.

Christine de Mazières, speaking for the French Publishers’ Association who organise the Salon, said it was an unfortunate move. “What is happening in the Middle East is very sad, but it is not linked to our event.” Israel, she stressed, was not being honoured for its politics but for its writers, such as Amos Oz and David Grossman, both of whom are due to appear at the event. All of the countries now pulling out, Ms de Mazières said, were aware of the Israeli honour at the time they signed up.

Oz and Grossman are both outspoken peace activists and highly critical of Israeli aggression.

Penguin Canada held a “100 Years of Anne” launch party at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum on a snowy Tuesday, February 12, evening. (All photos by Jason Nolan.)

Penguin editor Helen Reeves tells about when she first broached the idea of an Anne of Green Gables prequel in 2005 with L.M. Montgomery’s family heirs.

Kate Macdonald Butler (granddaughter of LMM) and a Canada Post official unveil two new Anne-themed stamps, and The Royal Canadian Mint unveiled a new 25 cent Anne-themed coin at the event. Former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, a loyal Anne fan, also came out for the event.

Budge Wilson, author of Before Green Gables, personally addresses a copy of the book for a fan.

Budge Wilson takes a brief rest while in the background L.M. Montgomery scholar Dr. Elizabeth Epperly signs a copy of Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery, also launched that evening.

It was a miserably snowy afternoon for a press conference in Toronto yesterday, but Luminato CEO Janice Price soldiered ahead anyway, making a formal announcement of the festival’s 2008 literary line-up in front of a small crowd of attendees.

There are four major programs this year: a spotlight on new South Asian writing, featuring readings by Shyam Selvadurai, Padma Viswanathan, Jaspreet Singh, and U.K. author Daljit Nagra; a look at politically themed graphic novels, with Bernice Eisenstein, U.S. artist Spain Rodriguez, and others; a celebration of Nobel-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer, with David Bezmozgis and U.S. author Dara Horn; and an evening of diverse voices (organized in partnership with Diaspora Dialogues), including Judy Fong Bates, Alissa York, and several others.

The Luminato website doesn’t seem to have been updated with all of this info yet, but you can see some of the details here. The festival runs from June 6-15.

An industry tribute to the late Robert Weaver, who died last Saturday at the age of 87, was held in Toronto’s Massey College last night (see photo below). Though it was a small, closed gathering, many of the biggest names in the industry were there, including Michael Ondaatje, Robert Fulford, and Scott Griffin. (Alice Munro sent word that she had intended to attend, but poor weather in her part of the province made traveling difficult.)

Margaret Atwood took the podium early in the evening, remarking that Weaver was able to achieve so much at the CBC because the network didn’t feel the need to compete with the “so-called entertainment industry” the way it does now. “It was a golden age,” said Atwood, “and like all golden ages, we didn’t know we were in it until it was over.”

Media tributes to Robert Weaver are manifold. There are obituaries in the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail (the latter featuring what seems to be Munro’s only public comment on the late Weaver) as well as a first-person remembrance by Robert Fulford in the National Post. And here’s a full Weaver biography.

Below are two photos from two recent events. Though both events were hosted by This Is Not a Reading Series and held at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel, you may detect some subtle differences between the two pics.
(Both photos come courtesy of Chris Reed and Pages Books & Magazines.)

Tahmima Anam (right), author of A Golden Age (HarperCollins Canada), being interviewed onstage by Aparita Bhandari from CBC Radio’s Metro Morning on Jan. 29.

Steve Penfold, author of The Donut: A Canadian History (University of Toronto Press), chatting with author and food journalist Christine Sismondo on Jan. 22.

(Penfold may know a lot about donuts, but he could learn a thing or two about presentation…)

Last night, the winner of the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers was announced. This being the first year the award is sponsored by the RBC Foundation, the ceremony was held, appropriately enough, in the 40th floor reception suite of the RBC building on Toronto’s Bay Street. Below are some photos from the event.

Marjorie Celona (back to camera), whose story “Othello” won this year’s award, is congratulated by judges Michelle Berry and Andrew Pyper. (The third judge, Natalee Caple, was unable to attend the event.)

(More photos after the fold…)

(more…)

McArthur & Company held its 20th annual Beaujolais Party on Thursday, Nov. 15 at Toronto’s Bistro 990. (Photos courtesy of McArthur & Company)

RBC Royal Bank’s Michael Meredith, author Barry Callaghan, Janet Sommerville of PEN Canada, and McArthur & Company publicist Taryn Manias.

The IFOA’s Geoffrey Taylor, Richard Bachmann of Different Drummer Books, Parmjit Parmar of Montana Ridge Publicity, and Jen Tindall, also from the IFOA.

On Saturday, Nov. 10, rocker/author Dave Bidini read his new book, Around the World in 57 1/2 Gigs – all of it – and performed a few songs in the window of Pages Books & Magazines in downtown Toronto. More info here. (Photo courtesy of McClelland & Stewart)

Dundurn Press held a launch for actor and singer Jan Rubes’ biography Jan Rubes: A Man of Many Talents at The Arts & Letters Club in Toronto. Photos courtesy of Meisner Publicity.

Jan Rubes (left) and author Ezra Schabas (right) both signed copies of the book.

Beth Bruder and Zoe Pope of Dundurn taking care of business.

Actor Saul Rubinek and Jan Rubes work with the camera.

In its coverage of last night’s Giller bash, the Toronto Star has a short sidebar about a goofy protest staged by Margaret Atwood and husband Graeme Gibson. According to the Star, the literary duo said “no thanks” to the Four Season’s fancy menu of tuna tartar and beef tenderloin, and instead ate homemade dinners they’d brought along in a gym bag.

The reason: They were protesting the Four Seasons’ role in a massive resort development in Grenada that threatens an endangered species: the Grenada dove.

“Until there is a fair resolution of the dispute over the kind of resort being built in Grenada, we cannot accept food or drink from the Four Seasons,” explained Gibson, who arrived at the event carrying what appeared to be a gym bag but in fact contained their meal.

And so Canada’s most famous literary couple munched on homemade spinach and cucumber, and drank their own sake, while others at their table, including former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, ate beef and drank wine. […] Four Seasons CEO Isadore Sharp sat at a nearby table.

Not to be cynical, but if Atwood and Gibson really wanted to show solidarity with the Grenada dove, wouldn’t it have behooved them to boycott the ceremony altogether? They could have put out a press release explaining their absence and got the same amount of coverage. But by picnicking they managed to make a show of their anti-establishment credentials and still retain pride of place at the literary status-symbol night of the year. That takes some sort of genius….

As you may have heard, the annual Scotiabank Giller Prize was handed out last night. Q&Q will have a full report on the evening on our News page, but for now, here’s some shots of the gala.

Above: Authors Linda Spalding and Michael Ondaatje.

More below the fold… (more…)

The Charles Taylor Prize for the Literay Non-Fiction has donated almost 100 books to Canada’s embassy in Washington D.C. The gift was presented at the IFOA in Toronto. Photos courtesy of the Charles Taylor Foundation.

Carolyn Strauss, culture and outreach counsellor with the Canadian embassy in Washington, speaks to the crowd at the IFOA, with author and host for the evening, Charlotte Gray, in the background.

Charles Taylor prize administrator June Dickenson presents the books to Strauss.

Rudy Wiebe, whose book Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest won this year’s Charles Taylor prize, with Strauss.

Chef Masaharu Morimoto, a Japanese chef who has appeared on The Iron Chef, tours Canada in support of his first cookbook, Morimoto - The New Art of Japanese Cooking. Photos courtesy of Chris Houston.

Morimoto makes an appearance at the MTV Cookoff.

Morimoto poses with Canada AM hosts Beverly Thomson, Seamus O’Regan, and Jeff Hutcheson.

Chris Houston, marketing director for Tourmaline Editions/DK Publishing, chums around with Morimoto

Morimoto and Jelena Adjic, host of CBC’s The Scene.

The 28th annual edition of the International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront in Toronto ran from Oct. 17-27. Here are pictures from just some of the dozens of readings, onstage interviews, signings, and, of course, parties that happened during the festival.

Antanas Sileika chats with The Walrus’s Daniel Baird at the IFOA’s Welcome Party. (Courtesy of the IFOA)

Scottish writer A.L. Kennedy reads at the 40th Anniversary gala for House of Anansi Press. (Julie Wilson/Courtesy of House of Anansi)

Graeme Gibson reads at Anansi’s 40th. (Julie Wilson/Courtesy of House of Anansi)

Birthday cake for Anansi’s 40th. (Julie Wilson/Courtesy of House of Anansi)

Barbara Berson and Sam Hiyate at the Penguin Canada party. (Courtesy of Penguin Canada)

Penguin Canada’s Melanie Storoschuk and The Globe and Mail’s Martin Levin tell us all to Live Long and Prosper. (Courtesy of Penguin Canada)

Author Celestine Hitiura Vaite and Pat Donnelly of the Montreal Gazette. (Courtesy of Penguin Canada)

Jonathan Garfinkel and Helen Oyeyemi. (Courtesy of Pengiun Canada)

D.R. MacDonald and Michael Winter, who appeared together at the Gallery on the Bay in Hamilton, Ontario. (Courtesy of the IFOA)

Bookseller Ben McNally interviews British novelist Will Self. (Courtesy of the IFOA)

Marina Lewycka and Vendela Vida are interviewed by The Globe and Mail’s Sandra Martin. (Courtesy of the IFOA)

Actor (and now author) David Thewlis came to this year’s International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront in Toronto to chat about his first novel, The Late Hector Kipling (Viking Canada).

Thewlis can make ‘em laugh merely by pointing at his own chin. Only Penguin publicity manager Debbie Gaudet, lurking in the background, seems unamused. (From left: Titus McNally, Rupert McNally, singer/songwriter Tom Phillips, Gaudet, Thewlis, Ben McNally.) Photo courtesy of the IFOA.

Open Book: Toronto, along with Mabel’s Fables, hosted Mini Lit: An Indoor Family Picnic at Toronto’s Drake Hotel on Oct. 13. The event was packed with both authors and kiddies. (Photos courtesy of Lisa Myers/Open Book: Toronto)

Sean Dixon plays a little banjo.

Loris Lesynski reads from Dirty Dog Boogie.

One of the kid-friendly snacks available. (Where’s the tomato soup?)

On Oct. 9, Open Book: Toronto and SheDoesTheCity.com hosted “Under the Covers: Bedtime Stories for Adults” at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel. (Photos courtesy of Lisa Myers/Open Book:Toronto)

We see England, we see France: Jenn Perras of rock-it promotions (with pink teddy bear) and Bruce Couture.

Open Book’s Amy Logan Holmes chats with Jen McNeely of SheDoesTheCity.com.

McNeely addresses the crowd.

Zoe Whittall reads from Bottle Rocket Hearts while actor Jackie English lounges. We haven’t seen this many visible thongs since the Clinton administration… (Ba-da-doom crash! Thank you, you’re a great audience…)

Given the fact that his memoir is entitled The Man Who Forgot How to Read, author Howard Engel’s appearance at the Burlington Public Library’s Engaging Ideas series was not a reading, but an onstage interview with Cynthia Good. (Photo courtesy of A Different Drummer Books)

Cynthia Good and Howard Engel.

Brian Joseph Davis launched his new book, I, Tania (ECW Press), a parodic goof on the Patty Hearst story, at Supermarket in Toronto’s Kensington Market on Oct. 10. (Photos courtesy of ECW Press)

Poet a. rowlings reads from Libra by Don Delillo, one of the books Davis riffs upon in I, Tania.

Vice magazine’s Carolyn Tripp, Brian Joseph Davis, Bill Kennedy of Coach House Books, and Eye Weekly�s Chris Randle.

Damian Rogers reads from Little Girl Lost by Drew Barrymore, another riffed-on book.

ECW Press editor Michael Holmes chats with Darren Wershler-Henry.

Christine Cushing launched her new cookbook, Pure Food (Whitecap Books), at The Cheese Boutique in Toronto on Sept. 28. (Photos courtesy of DDG Publicity and Marketing)

Christine Cushing has a laugh. (As does publicist Debby de Groot in the background.)

Cushing addresses the hungry attendees, including Nick Rundall of Whitecap.

McClelland & Stewart launched Peter Robinson’s latest mystery, Friend of the Devil, at the Dora Keogh pub in Toronto. A band kept the evening lively and played the Grateful Dead song that inspired the title for the book. (Photos courtesy of Debby de Groot)

McClelland & Stewart’s Ruta Liormonas, Ashley Dunn, and Dinah Forbes (who edits Robinson’s mysteries).

Robinson enjoys the music with Dunn and Forbes.

For the Toronto launch of Michael Winter’s new novel, The Architects Are Here (Penguin Canada), This Is Not A Reading Series arranged an event in which 32 CanLit notables told stories about the author. The event took place at the Cadillac Lounge on October 4. (Photos courtesy of Penguin Canada)

Winter drinks in the attention from Barbara Gowdy (while Pages owner Marc Glassman listens in)…

… and then just drinks.

It was a hot time at the Toronto nightclub Stone’s Place on Oct. 24, as Coach House Books held its fall launch. Six authors did brief readings, including….

Jessica Westhead (Pulpy and Midge),

Greg MacArthur (Isolated),

Sarah Lang (The Work of Days),

David McGimpsey (Sitcom),

Cara Hedley (Twenty Miles),

and Darren Wershler-Henry, who read from The Alphabet Game: A bpNichol Reader.

House of Anansi Press celebrated 40 years of tenacious, improbable existence at a gala event Saturday as part of the International Festival of Authors. Actor and Soulpepper Theatre artistic director Albert Schultz acted as the evening’s very congenial host, cracking CanLit groaners – he mentioned that Margaret Atwood wrote 1967’s The Circle Game back when she was still using a “short pen” – singing a little, and at one point even throwing Anansi T-shirts into the crowd.

The evening’s readers were divided into three broad categories: Anansi past, Anansi present, and Anansi future. Margaret Atwood, Graeme Gibson, and Roch Carrier represented the press’s illustrious past – though Schultz noted that Atwood could just as easily have read during the future segment, given that she was slated to deliver the Massey Lecture in 2009. Carrier got perhaps the most enthusiastic reaction of the night with his dramatic and funny reading of “The Hockey Sweater.”

Anansi present was represented by poet Kevin Connolly and fiction writers Elyse Friedman and A.L. Kennedy. Kennedy’s comic reading set up a running joke on the theme of rodents. (Don’t ask.)

For the future, it was novelist Shani Mootoo (whose name Schultz repeated over and over – he just liked saying it) and rock critic Stuart Berman, who read from his upcoming book on the band Broken Social Scene. Berman expressed some confusion over his placement among such a group of renowned authors, and many heads were scratched during his potted history of the Toronto indie rock scene of the nineties. (“Who, or what, is hHead?” some audience members were clearly wondering.)

Songwriter (and BSS member) Jason Collett – wearing the unofficial uniform for artsy, youngish males at the event: thrift-shop suit jacket and jeans – sang a few folkily wistful tunes and charmed the crowd with his asides and anecdotes. (“In the U.S., they don’t call it a ‘Super Toke,’ they call it a ‘Shotgun’ – which should tell you all you need to know about the difference between the two cultures.”)

(This Quillblogger always knew it as a “Shotgun,” too, but still, it’s a good joke.)

After the reading, many moved up to the festival’s hospitality suite at the Westin Harbour Castle for a private party. The suite was packed, with some preferring the cooler corridor to the increasingly humid main room. In attendance were the evening’s readers, everyone from Anansi, including president Sarah MacLachlan and publisher Lynn Henry, authors Thomas King, Michael Ondaatje, and Janette Turner Hospital, and a host of other bookselling, media, and publishing types.

Cake, of course, was served at both events, though it was sugary and mass-produced. In other words, exactly the opposite of the kind of work Anansi is known for.

(See more photos from the event here.)

In other IFOA news, tongues were wagging at the Anansi event about author David Gilmour’s behaviour the day before as part of an onstage round table discussion that included Daniel “Lemony Snicket” Handler and Scottish writer Bernard MacLaverty. From the accounts we heard, Gilmour made clear his lack of interest in the discussion’s purported theme – “Innocence and Experience: How through writing and reading we recapture what we have lost,” which is, admittedly, a bit of an eye-roller – and accused Handler of once accosting him in a restaurant. All in all, the discussion was not a happy one, though probably more fun to watch than to participate in.

Quillblog: your best source for secondhand literary gossip. (Hey – didja hear about Dumbledore?)

Kids Can Press celebrates the nomination of two of its books at the announcement of the finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Awards.

Kids Can publisher Karen Boersma, author and illustrator Wallace Edwards, president Lisa Lyons, and publicist Mary Kapusta share the good news of Edwards’ nomination for The Painted Circus.

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney signed books at an event hosted by A Different Drummer Books and Bryan Prince, Bookseller, at Burlington’s Royal Botanical Gardens. (Photo courtesy of McClelland & Stewart)

Former P.M. Brian Mulroney relaxes with fans as McClelland & Stewart’s Josh Glover looks on. (If Mulroney looked this happy then, just imagine what a good time he’s having now that former P.M. Jean Chrétien has released his memoir bashing former Liberal P.M. Paul Martin instead of the Conservative Party or Mulroney.)

Students at Highfield Junior School in Toronto won Scholastic Canada’s Kids Are Authors competition with their book Counting on Zero. The prize is normally worth $1,000, but for the tenth anniversary of the competition the prize was enriched to a $10,000 Scholastic gift certificate. (Photos courtesy of Scholastic Canada)

Students in Grades 1, 3, and 4 at Highfield Junior School in Toronto collaboratively wrote and illustrated their winning book, Counting on Zero.

Linda Gosnell, co-president of Scholastic Canada (right) presents principal Rita Russo with a $10,000 Scholastic gift certificate.

Ontario Lieutenant-Governor David Onley speaks to Highfield students and principal Rita Russo.

William Gibson was recently in Toronto to promote his new novel, Spook Country (G.P. Putnam’s Sons/Penguin). He did an onstage interview at Bloor St. United Church as part of This Is Not A Reading Series. (Photos courtesy of Penguin Canada)

Gibson outside of Pages Books & Magazines in downtown Toronto, admiring the iGibson display.

Gibson with a penguin. (Get it? Check the photo credit.)

Signing books inside the church.