Chris Reed leaving TINARS

Chris Reed, longtime co-artistic director and series coordinator of the Toronto-based This is Not A Reading Series (TINARS), has announced that he is leaving the position for a new job as publicist for University of Toronto Press. He will start at UTP on June 21. Reed won’t be leaving TINARS behind entirely, however. He will continue to run the offshoot series for young people, Small Print Toronto.

A replacement for Reed has yet to be named.

Event photos: Tom Jokinen thinks outside the box at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel

On Tuesday night, CBC Radio producer Tom Jokinen (left) launched his new memoir Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker-in-Training (Random House Canada) at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel as part of This Is Not a Reading Series. Above: Jokinen is interviewed by Torontoist’s books editor (and Q&Q contributing editor) James Grainger.

Jokinen, who signed books after the event, told the crowd he wanted to find out what actually goes on at a funeral parlour. “It’s a really mysterious process,” he said. “Somebody dies, they disappear for a couple of days, and then they magically pop up at a funeral in a casket or as a bag of ashes – and in between is this mysterious Alice’s rabbit hole where nobody knows what goes on.”

Event host Marc Glassman, co-artistic director of TINARS and former owner of Toronto’s Pages Books & Magazines, with Grainger. (All photos by Laura Godfrey)

Pages gets new lease on life

Last fall, Q&Q Omni reported that after 30 years at its current Queen Street West location, Toronto’s Pages Books & Magazines  was slated to move – or shut down – when the store’s lease expires at the end of February. However, it seems that Pages proprietor Marc Glassman has come to an understanding with his landlord, Pinedale Properties, to keep the store open, at least for now. In a message sent out to members of the This Is Not A Reading Series Facebook group, TINARS co-ordinator Chris Reed wrote:

After spending anxious months dealing with an uncertain future, Pages Books & Magazines has just been given a six-month extension on its historic Queen Street location. “We’re thrilled to be staying until at least the end of August,” says [Pages proprietor] Marc Glassman….

The release continues:

Community support over the next few months will be critical for Pages’ survival. “We’ll continue to work with Pinedale in hopes of securing a longer lease,” says Glassman. “Realistically, Pages will be looking for other locations as well. We look forward to forging partnerships, if possible, with like-minded enterprises and artist’s centres. We are heartened by the groundswell of community support for our predicament and look forward to continuing a dialogue about the role that Pages plays in the cultural life of Toronto. And we’ll certainly be talking to Councillor Vaughan about Pages’ relationship to the changing downtown environment.”