Finally, some luck of all of us Canadians.
A few months ago it was announced that a new book convention, in the form of the Toronto International Book Fair (TIBF), will be arriving this year. For all of us book lovers in the north who watched events like BEA, San Diego Comic Con and Leaky Con go by and felt nerds that weren’t invited to the cool kid’s party, our time is now.
TIBF, a brand spanking new event, will feature over 400 authors from Canada and around the world.
That means there is probably something for everyone. If you’re a YA fan like me it’s Maggie Stiefvater, Gayle Forman, and E. Lockhart. Fantasy and science fiction fans get giants like Anne Rice, Lev Grossman and William Gibson. Canadian fiction fans get idols like Margret Atwood.
From their stage schedule it looks like there are going to be discussions raging all weekend on everything under the sun, from things like issues with translation to Italian writers to writing strong heroines. There is a strong emphasis on Canadian diversity and a dedication to representing books from every publishing niche. All they need is an organized space for distributing ARCs and I can see this becoming a world class event.
And the best part of this three-day bibliophile extravaganza?
It’s only $15 for the entire weekend. When does that ever happen?
There are still a lot of unknowns about this event: will it reach its attendance goals, will it be well organized, will it be back next year? It’ll be November before we know anything concrete, but there is one thing I am sure of:
TIBF is shaping up to be a beast of its own.
