Menu
Select your Location:
Select your Location:
The Word On The Street has been renowned for the quality and diversity of its event programming and our 2025 festival promises to offer the best so far. Check out our schedule for Saturday, September 20, 2025!
In 1983, Elle is a blackjack dealer at an Alberta casino. At the same time, Amado is a baggage handler in Manila. When Amado witnesses the assassination of a prominent political figure in Manila, he flees to Canada and ends up in the same casino as Elle; a disgruntled Hollander, Erik; and a card counter and stalker, Regrettable Russell.
Over the next thirty years, the characters remain intimately connected as their stories and histories intersect. Told from alternating points of view, this puzzle-in-progress brings each character’s pieces together that make up a whole picture that examines how everything from political espionage to intimate partner violence affects not only its direct participants but also its bystanders and witnesses.
Lee Kvern is an award-winning author of short stories and novels. Her stories in 7 Ways To Sunday have won the CBC Literary Award, Western Magazine Award, Hazel Hilles Memorial Short Fiction Prize, and the Howard ‘O’ Hagan Award. Afterall was selected for Canada Reads (Regional) and nominated for Alberta Books Awards. The Matter of Sylvie was nominated for Alberta Book Awards and the Ottawa Relit Award and Alberta Magazine Awards. Her work has been produced for CBC Radio, and published in Funicular, Grain, Event, Descant, Air Canada enRoute, Tishman Review, Globe&Mail, and subTerrain.
ONE WORLD UNDER DOOM! Doom’s secret – and how he’s been able to win so much, so often – has been revealed. But how do you best the no-win scenario? The Fantastic Four have an idea – but it’ll take them to the frozen depths of Antarctica, deep into Doom’s secret lair, where they’ll face their greatest challenge yet. It’s Doom vs. the Fantastic Four in a way you’ve never seen before…and to the winner goes the freedom of an entire planet!
Ryan North’s recent work includes the non-fiction books How To Take Over The World and How To Invent Everything, the semi-fictional graphic novel adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, and the so-far-fictional series Dinosaur Comics, Squirrel Girl, and Fantastic Four. He’s an internationally-recognized multiple-New-York-Times-bestselling author whose work has been translated into 16 different languages, and as a linguist, he’s very happy about that. He lives in Toronto, where he once messed up walking his dog so badly it made the news.
It’s Ghostbusters meets a mysterious puzzle in this latest Lunch Club adventure!
Class is back in session at Pleasantville Elementary and there’s a NEW new kid at school. This cool kid has an English accent, kills it at both guitar and basketball, becoming an instant sensation. And Leo’s not jealous at all. Nope, not even a teeny tiny bit.
But someone — or something — else is also NEW new at school: a ghost with unfinished business. Is it a coincidence that the newbies arrived at the same time? Tia, Leo, Mr. Peabody and the NEW new kid will need to solve this puzzle, or risk being haunted forever . . .
DOM — a.k.a Dominique — PELLETIER started drawing cartoons at a young age and has never put his crayons down, studying graphic communications at Laval University in Quebec City. A lover of the great outdoors, he has planted trees and travelled the world before beginning work as a video game designer. After a fateful meeting at the Quebec Book Fair, Dom teamed up with Éditions Scholastic on their bestselling joke book series. Fifty very funny books later, he has translated his joke book success into the hilarious graphic novel series, The Lunch Club (Les timbrés). He lives with his wife in Saint-Liboire, Quebec.
This Sweet Rupture unflinchingly explores interwoven themes of family secrets, diaspora, food culture, and the impact of war on personal stories. Rooted in Omar Ramadan’s experiences as a son of Lebanese immigrants, and set in Canada, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates, the collection brings together intergenerational exchanges and present-day realities, from sweetened tea preparations to conversations about conflict zones to investigations of Canadian blizzards. The book speaks to Arab father-son relationships and incorporates Arabic, reflecting the hybridity of its speakers and their shifting sense of place. Resonant and intricate, This Sweet Rupture thoughtfully navigates cultural identity, war, memory, and family.
Omar Ramadan is a Lebanese-Canadian writer, poet, aspiring novelist, and PhD Candidate in the Department of English at the University of Calgary. His work and research revolve around Arab diaspora literature, particularly focused on systems of power, surveillance, and the lasting impact of 9/11 on Arab and Muslim communities in Canada. He is the author of the chapbook Sesame Love and his work has appeared in CV2 and The Polyglot. He lives in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton).
