While you’re waiting, here are some key dates to keep in mind:

• Jan., 17: Exhibitor Registration opens! Now is your time to become a part of Canada’s largest outdoor bookstore. For more information, pre-register online. Or, if your a visitor, keep an eye on the Marketplace section of our website. It will constantly be updated throughout the year with 2012′s exhibitors! Get a head start and pre-plan your day of shopping and browsing.

• Jan. 17: Advertising opens! Advertising space is available in our Official Festival Program and KidStreet Festival Guide. Our programs are the number one tool used by festival visitors to learn about and get around the festival! Here’s your chance to put your name in their hands. For more information email me (Kristen)!

• Jan. 24: Kristen’s birthday! Hehe.

• March: Author submission process begins! The Word On The Street welcomes publishers and authors to submit their books (published between Oct. 2011 – Oct. 2012) to be considered for one of our programming venues.

• June 1: Volunteer intake begins! Interested? Pre-register to be a volunteer here!

• June 2: Nicola’s birthday!

• July: The programming line-up is finalized! Check our website for an updated list of authors appearing at this year’s The Word On The Street

• August 31: Exhibitor Registration closes.

• Sept. 23:Festival Day! 11am-6pm. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Want to receive more exciting tidbits about this year’s festival? Why don’t you sign up for our monthly e-newsletter?

This year, Canada Reads has gone non-fiction to find the top non-fiction, Canadian book! Today Jian Ghomeshi announced the Canada Reads: True Stories Top 10, and here they are:

• The Boy in the Moon, Ian Brown, Random House of Canada
• Cockeyed, Ryan Knighton, Penguin Canada
• The Game, Ken Dryden, John Wiley & Sons
• Louis Riel, Chester Brown, Drawn & Quarterly
• On a Cold Road, Dave Bidini, McClelland & Stewart
• Paris 1919, Margaret MacMillan, Random House of Canada
• Prisoner of Tehran, Marina Nehmat, Penguin Canada
• Shake Hands with the Devil, Romeo Dallaire, Random House of Canada
• Something Fierce, Carmen Aguirre, D&M Publishers, Inc.
• The Tiger, John Vaillant, Random House of Canada

Do you agree, disagree, have any to add? I was hoping for Iain Reid to make that list. He was a programmed author at the 2010 festival, and his book, One Bird’s Choice, is a favourite of mine. But congrats to all finalists! I definitely spy some past The Word On The Street authors

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Journalist and author, James FitzGerald is not one to shy away from controversy. His first book, Old Boys: The Powerful Legacy of Upper Canada College, featured revelations of sexual abuse of boys at the school, never before published. This then led to the charging and conviction of three former teachers and the launching of a class action lawsuit against the college.

FitzGerald’s memoire, What Disturbs Our Blood: A Son’s Quest to Redeem His Past, dives head first into the last one hundred years of Canadian mental health policies and procedures. He tracks this through an extended time researching the history of mental illness in his own family and studying the distinguished Canadian public health career of his grandfather. Behind the many amazing medical successes found in FitzGerald’s family history, lies many stories of great men crippled and destroyed by depression, anxiety, and the many failed attempts at various types of treatment.

My favourite magazine makes a stunning showing in connection with this book; FitzGerald’s article, “Sins of the Fathers,” that sparked his desire to write a full length memoire, was published by Toronto Life in 2002. In fact, the article won a National Magazine Award.

The outpouring of praise for What Disturbs Our Blog comes from a wide range of sources – from reader responses stating that it was “an absolutely masterful and powerfully moving piece of work” to renowned Canadian film director, David Cronenberg, stating the he “thought it was magnificent…potent resonances on every page.”

“A memoire of extraordinary power and candour…as riveting as a crime thriller.”

— The Globe and Mail

Both The Globe and Mail and The National Post gave What Disturbs Our Blood glowing reviews. The book won the 2010 Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize and was a finalist for both the 2010 Trillium Book Award and the 2011 B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

The judges at The Toronto Book Awards describe FitzGerald’s novel as follows:

“Author James FitzGerald hails from two generations of doctors whose medical achievements left a great impact on the Canadian health system. But these great men also suffered great falls that the FitzGerald family kept secret. Not only is this memoir a gripping, deeply personal story about family relationships and family secrets, it is also a fascinating, well-researched history of Toronto, Canadian medicine and public health, and the treatment of mental illness.”

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What got you into writing novels?

I always liked to make up stories in my head, and sometimes I wrote them down to figure out what they were about. When I was in university in the late 1980s, I wrote a short story for an English course. My professor suggested that I send it to a magazine. I did, and it was published (in Quarry Magazine, which no longer exists). “That was easy,” I thought. Little did I know…  I wrote and published about a dozen more short stories way back then, but it was twenty years before my first novel, Walking Backward, was released by Orca Book Publishers in 2009.
How did you come up with the idea for your new book, All Good Children?

Several things prompted me to write this book. First, I read about a legal case in the USA where a school board took a family to court to try to force the parents to medicate their unruly child. (The judge ruled against the school in that case but the whole thing was quite creepy to me.)

Not long after, I took a night class on child development. When one of the students admitted that she sometimes spanked her children to correct their behaviour, the other students were outraged. But no one expressed any kind of outrage when the topic came round to correcting children’s behaviour with medication. Everyone found that to be clearly for a child’s own good, and not an issue of control. (A sign of modern times and, again, quite creepy.)

Finally, my oldest son reached the teen years. I’ve wrestled with my own feelings of wanting him to be “good,” and I’ve dealt with several authority figures who want him to be “good,” and I’ve found that the “solution” of medication rises almost immediately in a lot of minds. Creepy indeed.

Is your main character, Maxwell Connors, based off of someone you know in real life?

No. He started out as a 12-year-old white kid who loved to skateboard and goof around, and at first he was loosely based on my next-door-neighbour. But as I wrote the story, he changed completely and became a 16-year-old black artist who is deeply serious as well as playful. As Max aged, the focus of his story changed from being about family to being about friendship. I have no idea how a character comes to life like that; it’s not like inventing someone, it’s like meeting them. Weird. But wonderful.

What or who is your inspiration when it comes to writing?

This is a very difficult question. Anything in the world can inspire my writing. For me, stories start with a feeling, than an image of the character experiencing that feeling, then the things that happened to cause the character to experience that feeling. That is probably a backwards way of writing, but that’s how it is for me. Almost anything can inspire a story – something from nature, family, friends, books, memories, desires. My kids inspire me a lot.

Why do you choose to write novels for children and young adults?

I used to write stories for adults. But once I had kids, I read so many great books for children and young adults, and I saw how stories come alive for the child listening or reading them, and I wanted to write for young people. My youngest son once exclaimed, when I closed the book we were reading for the night, “But I can’t survive if I don’t know what happens next!” I’d like to make someone feel like that.

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Catherine Austen is appearing on the This Is Not The Shakespeare Stage in the “Reading and Writing Dystopian Fiction” segment at 4:45 p.m.

Upon telling her mother about her plans to write for The Word On The Street blog and review the five books shortlisted for the Toronto Book Awards this year, her mother promptly asked for the titles to read them as well. An avid reader herself, in some instances she provides her assistance, observations, and opinions to our guest blogger. To read more about our guest blogger’s mother, click here.

Join Christine and her mother as they work their way through the 5 shortlisted titles, then visit The Toronto Book Awards Tent to see the finalists on read on stage. The winner will be announced by the City of Toronto on October 13^th.

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Nicholas Ruddock’s novel, The Parabolist, has been promoted as a satirical crime thriller. It is true that the story is at times comic and at times horrific but behind the mystery and murder lies a complex story about love, both physical and emotional. Ruddock’s captivating novel features a vast spectrum of the many manifestations of love and sex: casual, passionate, unrequited, extramarital, violent, and perverse.

“It was at one of the poetry classes that John Glass first heard of Baudelaire’s Les fleurs du mal, a passing reference by Roberto Moreno. Because of that, from the next day on, he carried a tattered edition of Baudelaire wherever he went. It might have been the fatal blow for him, for his academic career, this Baudelaire. He’d already stropping going to all his classes except embryology, a curious psychological quirk because embryology was difficult and tedious. It was perverse, the attraction he had to that minor course. It was self-destructive, the attention he paid to it.”

– From The Parabolist by Nicholas Ruddock

John Glass and a loose knit group of medical students form the central characters for Ruddock’s novel. However, ‘the parabolist’ of the title is a young Mexican poet named Roberto Moreno. Glass and his fellow students become enthralled in not only the poetry of Moreno’s class but but also the charismatic young instructor himself. All the characters are well developed and will catch your interest.

The novel is framed by a gruesome rape and attempted murder; the story follows the investigation into the crime and the intriguing mystery of two drunk strangers who save the victim by killing the assailant. The police figure out the details of the indecent only to avoid arrest in a debate about vigilante justice. As the students live in 1975 Toronto, the novel shows a realistically gritty version of our city, set in student apartments and dingy bars.

The criminal investigation, and the descriptions of Toronto student life, are surrounded by dueling narratives of literature and medicine. As the students spend the year dissecting a cadaver and investigating poetry they discover more about themselves and each other. The story studies the profound impact these two courses have on each of the different characters. The descriptions of their work with the cadaver are detailed in a clinically factual style. The technical dissection is mirrored in the students frequent attempts to understand the poetry present in Moreno’s class.

Ruddock has created a novel where it is easy to care about each and every character and the story flows well between their narratives. You will be mesmerized all the way to The Parabolist’s mesmerizing conclusion. A great read!!!

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All of the shortlisted novels will be featured in the Toronto Book Awards Tent at The Word On The Street! The Parabolist by Nicholas Ruddock will be presented by at both 1:00pm and 4:30pm.

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Title: Something Wicked

Author: Lesley Anne Cowan

Publisher: Puffin Canada

Published Date: June 2010

Source: Courtesy of the LOVELY Kristen from The Word On The Street Toronto

You can only be strong for so long. 16 year old Melissa seems to be on a path of no return when her and her 28-year-old boyfriend Michael split up. First comes the anger than comes the fall. Melissa spirals into a depression and all she does to cope with the loss is let herself into the world of drugs, alcohol and meaningless hook-ups that earn her a bad, BAD reputation. There is help for her and people to listen to what she really has to say but Melissa can’t bring herself to take the offer. Her single mother seems like she could care less about what Melissa is smoking and who she is doing, sometimes all Melissa really needs is for her mom to get her act straight. Emotions run extremely high between Melissa and the people in her life, which makes her believe that there really is no hope for a better life. Melissa’s future looks blurry, at times a future seems impossible for her. One night, something happens to Melissa that makes her open her eyes for the first time. She’s stuck and in too deep of a depression. It’s up to her if she wants to give her life another go or if she wants to give up entirely.

Our mistakes do not define us, and I think that’s one thing Something Wicked teaches you. Regardless of how you were brought up, you have the ability to do something right for yourself because you deserve it. You must first be willing to let change in. What was really unique about Something Wicked was how daring it was. There were no limits to how far Melissa’s character was willing to go and that allowed for such a bigger storyline.

Such a bold and vulnerable main character, the story that is told of Melissa is one that points out the darkness of everything that we love, lust, and long for! Both a painful and eye opening read! Something Wicked was something beautiful.

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About Sherry Lay:

Sherry Lay grew up never knowing the power of reading till now. She’s a full-time student and lover of YA fiction. When she’s not reading she’s watching some sort of movie or TV drama with very cute boys. She hates tomatoes but loves Ketchup. There’s not a moment in her day where she doesn’t stop to think what song would play right that second. She loves all things photography and has a weird obsession with Michael Buble. “Reading is not an escape from reality, but rather the entrance to it.” 10 years from now, she wants to be doing exactly what she’s doing right now: sharing her experiences with others – hopefully with a wiser mind.

Check out her blog, BloggityBLOG for more reviews and other book-ish things.

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Even though first-time novelist Nicholas Ruddock currently lives in Guelph and has lived across Canada, from Newfoundland to the Yukon Territory, Toronto remains the city of his youth. He grew up in the Eglinton-Avenue Road area of Toronto and attended University of Toronto and the University of Toronto Medical School. It is this setting that he chose for his riveting novel, The Parabolist.

The Parabolist is set in 1975 and focuses on a group of medical students taking a poetry class together at the University of Toronto. The story is told through interlacing narratives and the plot is framed around a chilling unsolved crime. On a rainy summer night, a woman is raped and very nearly murdered, however, the act is interrupted by two drunken strangers who kill her attacker before fleeing the scene. Part comedy, part poetry, The Parabolist is a novel about murder, sex, the medical establishment, poetry, and vigilante justice in Toronto.

Besides being nominated for The Toronto Book Awards this year, Ruddock’s first novel has not been short on accolades. NOW Magazine called it, “Extremely well written.” The book was a finalist for The Arthur Ellis Prize: Best First Crime Novel. Amazon.com named The Parabolist one of the Best Books of the Month in February, 2010. The novel also received a glowing review by Claire Cameron in The Globe and Mail, during which she states, “Ruddock is a smart and literary writer.”

“The Parabolist has a strong pulse that will keep your heart beating until the end.”

– The Globe and Mail

The Toronto Book Awards judges describe Ruddock’s novel as follows:

“Cadavers, med students, Mexican poetry and a smattering of Crisco are but a few of the ingredients in this literary page-turner. With a vivid cast of characters and evocative prose, first-time novelist Nicholas Ruddock takes us on a delirious ride through the streets of 1970s Toronto as an intricate mystery unfolds. Darkly humourous, sensual and erudite, The Parabolist is at once an auspicious debut and a sumptuous, adrenaline-fueled read.”

Stay tuned for my upcoming review of Nicholas Ruddock’s The Parabolist (Anchor Canada).

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Merci Mister Dash, by Monica Kulling, is about a well-dressed dog who likes to read the paper and enjoy peace and quiet with his owner, Madame Croissant.  Sundays are another story!  On Sundays, Madame Croissant’s granddaughter comes to visit. Daphne is a wild and rambunctious child.  Mister Dash always tries to get out to read the paper before Daphne gets to his house but one day he is too late.  He is about to go for his morning jog when Daphne bursts in and a grabs him.  However, no matter how much she hassles him, he is too polite to bite her and he ends up being her hero.

I like that Mister Dash is a very human-like dog in the way he dressed.  It was funny that he wore a fleece hoodie for his morning jog.

I think that the illustrations are excellent and very detailed.  I like picture where Daphne and Mister Dash are eating popcorn and the food is going everywhere.  The detail in this picture is swirly – especially the caramel popcorn.

I also really like the message that no matter how much someone annoys you, you should not let them get hurt or hurt them yourself.  This is an important message for kids.

I’m going to recommend this book to kids aged 5-9 because it’s a funny and entertaining book that is easy to read.

I’m rating the book a 9 out of 10 on the Darcy scale.

This is Darcy S. signing off.  Keep reading and I’ll see you at the festival.

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ALPHABET: In the English language, 26 characters. In Étienne’s Alphabet, the novel by James King, it is the key structuring feature. I had assumed that a story based around the structure of a dictionary would be annoying and feel contrived. Only a few sentences into the book, all of my assumptions were proven false when I found myself captivated by King’s description of the letter A. All of the 26 sections of the novel, which is divided like a dictionary, starts with a brief and interesting discussion of each letter; the letters are often personified in the most amusing way.

EXAMPLE: One that is representative of a group. There are so many examples of King’s amusing letter descriptions. I found myself agreeing with each unique description, often laughing out loud at the comparisons. However, this one is a little depressing as it details both C and S negatively. My name is Christine Sweeton, so these are obviously among my favourite letters. Mind you, King is not wrong with his observations:

“C – together to S – is a difficult letter to love. Both of them are arrogant. The C has a simple curve by which it announces its place whereas the sinuosity of the S is like that of the serpent that tempted Eve in Eden. In addition, C seems deliberate in its studied nonchalance. To my eyes, it has a brutal edge, as when it is written as a slash to indicate a mediocre mark on an academic assignment. Like most human beings I have my measure of pride but I despise exhibitionists and, in the final analysis, C luxuriates in displaying its vainglory.

The powers of C have been brilliantly exploited Coca-Cola. The two Cs in an elegant signature style seem to open their arms in a warm embrace and even a smile. Seldom has seduction been so perfectly enacted by the letters of the alphabet.”

FRANCOPHONE: One who speaks French. An major theme is Étienne’s Alphabet is the overwhelming prejudice experienced by French-Canadians. Even though the novel is set in the mid-twentieth century I was alarmed at how many of the statements remain true today. This is an excellent read to help better understand French-English relations and to reflect on what are unacceptable and outdated attitudes of a divided nation.

KING, JAMES: An obviously talented Canadian writer. King’s writing style is inviting, drawing even the most reluctant reader in. Despite the obviously disjointed format of a dictionary, King avoids this pitfall with a story that flows with ease; the novel is very readable.

ROOMATE: A unrelated person you live with. Normally I am a faster reader than my roommate. However, she got to Étienne’s Alphabet first and read it in an hour. Because I read it as my “commuting book”, It took me longer. I would suggest planning to read the book as my roomate did: you will have a hard time putting down this captivating novel, the story is more conducive to a longer reading than picking it up for short sessions, and that will give you time to read the other Toronto Book Awards contenders.

TORONTO: The capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. In the book, Étienne says, “Although I have retained a guarded view of Toronto. For me, it remains a place of possibilities.” The novel itself presents a similarly balanced viewpoint of the city. Toronto is not paradise but also not undesirable. The descriptions feel real and comforting.

WONDERFUL: Something capable of eliciting wonder. Étienne’s Alphabet is an excellent novel and a wonderful read. I would definitely suggest this great book!

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All of the shortlisted novels will be featured in the Toronto Book Awards Tent at The Word On The Street! Étienne’s Alphabet by James King will be presented by at both 12:00pm and 3:30pm.

Julie will be launching her first book Starting Tomorrow, a collection of her online comics called “Promises, Promises“, at The Word On The Street this year. Her comics are about Promises Fitness, a posh, suburban health club staffed by Fiona, Trish and Shanta. These three are well-meaning, cheeky fitness professionals doing their best to keep a very resistant membership in peak condition. Julie says that her comics revolve around the idea of “making a good effort.” The comics give a fun and honest look at diet and fitness, and the struggles/successes that come with trying to live a healthy lifestyle, because as Julie says, “we’re all human.”

To celebrate the launch of Starting Tomorrow, Julie will be selling and offering personalized signings of her book, which will include an original sketch inside… for free! Brian Evinou, who is sharing a booth with Julie, also has a new story published online. So make sure to stop by their booth on festival day to say hi to both of them and congratulate Julie on her new book — it will definitely give you a chuckle. Fun trivia fact! Julie volunteered at the festival for 3 years, before she became an exhibitor