Featured Speaker(s)

Kelvin Kong
Kelvin Kong is the owner and principal agent at K2 Literary, and instructor/academic coordinator in the Toronto Metropolitan University/Chang School Publishing Certificate program.

Cecilia Lyra
Cecilia (“CeCe”) Lyra is an associate literary agent at P.S. Literary Agency representing adult fiction and nonfiction.

Bianca Marais
Bianca Marais is a bestselling author and a host of the popular podcast, The Shit No One Tells You About Writing. She’s also an award-winning creative writing instructor.

Carly Watters
Carly Watters is Senior Vice President and Senior Literary Agent at P.S. Literary and co-host of The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Podcast.

Léonicka Valcius
Léonicka Valcius is a second year law student at Lincoln Alexander at TMU, a host and Connect Group leader at C3Toronto Church, and a Literary Agent at Transatlantic Agency. She represents books for children and adults with a focus on commercial and genre fiction by writers of colour. Books she has worked on include Not The Plan by Gia de Cadenet, The Moonlight Blade by Tessa Barbosa and Falling Back in Love With Being Human by Kai Cheng Thom.
How to Register
The 2023 festival will run from April 30 – May 7. Dedicated virtual programming on our innovative, online platform will run April 30 – May 3, while in-person events — many of which will also be live-streamed and available on-demand for virtual audiences — will run May 4-7.
A Virtual Festival Pass gives guests access to more than 20 virtual events which can be viewed from the website or through our festival app designed for mobile devices. In addition to festival events, virtual passes provide users with direct access to more than a dozen vendors in our festival exhibitor hall. Guests who purchase a virtual pass can also participate in trivia times, roundtable discussions and our new festival after-parties, which will follow all of our evening events.
An In-Person Festival Pass gives users access to all of our virtual events as well as our standard in-person events in Brampton, Ontario on Saturday, May 6.
This year, the festival includes three in-person Specialty Events – the Dine N’ Draw on May 4, the Literary Cabaret on May 5 and our Historical Fiction High Tea on May 7. Tickets for these events are not covered with our passes and are only available until April 30.
On a Budget? Check out our Patron Pass program.