The Word On The Street Blog

The Word On The Street Toronto is happy to host three of the five finalists for the 2015 Toronto Book Awards at this year’s festival on Sunday, September 27^th, at Harbourfront Centre. Be among the first to hear the finalists read from their nominated books at the Toronto Book Awards Tent. Each attending author will read twice from their work throughout festival day, beginning at 11:00 AM.

The finalists are:

• André Alexis for his apologue, Fifteen Dogs, published by Coach House Books
• Margaret Atwood for her short fiction collection, Stone Mattress, published by McClelland and Stewart (author Lynn Crosbie will read on Margaret Atwood’s behalf)
• Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer for her novel, All the Broken Things, published by Random House Canada
• Bruce McDougall for his work of dramatic nonfiction, The Last Hockey Game, published by Goose Lane
• Emily St. John Mandel for her novel, Station Eleven, published by Harper Avenue (editor Jennifer Lambert will read on Emily St. John Mandel’s behalf)

The Toronto Book Awards were established by Toronto City Council in 1974 to honour authors of books of literary or artistic merit that are evocative of Toronto. The winner will be announced on October 15, 2015, at the Toronto Reference Library’s Bram & Bluma Appel Salon. This annual awards program is produced by the City of Toronto and the Toronto Public Library.

The Toronto Book Awards Tent also features a program of readings from Diaspora Dialogues. Diaspora Dialogues supports the creation and presentation of new fiction, poetry, and drama that reflect the complexity of the city through the eyes of its culturally diverse writers. Four writers will discuss how they got their first book published. From creative conception to publication, the writers explore how being a writer of colour may have impacted that journey. Cherie Dimaline (Red Rooms, The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy), Jon Chan Simpson (Chinkstar), Sabrina Ramnanan (Nothing Like Love), and Jael Richardson (The Stone Thrower) will each give a short personal talk and reading, and then come together for a lively moderated discussion.

For more information about the Toronto Book Awards Tent at The Word On The Street, please visit http://www.toronto.ca/book_awards/