37. BOOKS WITH BUZZ
In-Person Event
Four authors of some of the year’s buzziest books discuss the highs and lows of the season — how their buzzy books made for a busy year, and how they’re coping with the ups and downs that come with publishing.
Date: May 6, 2023
Time: 4:00pm – 5:00pm ET
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.
Cherie Dimaline‘s book, The Marrow Thieves, was declared one of the Best YA Books of All Time by TIME Magazine and won the Governor General’s Award and the Kirkus Prize. Her novel Empire of Wild became an instant Canadian bestseller and was named Indigo’s 2019 Best Book. Hunting By Stars was a 2022 American Indian Library Association Honor Book and her new novel VENCO debuted at #1 on Canadian bestseller lists. Other 2023 titles include Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, Anthology of Monsters, and Into the Bright Open. Cherie lives in her community and writes for television and stage.
Suzette Mayr is the author of six novels including her most recent, The Sleeping Car Porter, winner of the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Award. Her other novels have won the ReLit Award and City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize, and been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book in the Canada-Caribbean Region, the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s Best First Book and Best Novel Awards, and the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction. Mayr teaches Creative Writing at the University of Calgary.
Ali Hassan is a Stand-up Comic, Actor and CBC Personality. Ali is the host of the CBC Radio stand-up comedy show Laugh Out Loud, and the host of Canada Reads – the annual battle of the books celebrating the best of Canadian literature. Ali can be seen as a recurring guest star in Sort Of on CBC GEM and HBO Max, and the sitcom Run The Burbs on CBC Television, and just began touring his latest solo show ‘Does This Taste Funny?’ across Canada. His comedic memoir Is There Bacon in Heaven? is out NOW with Simon & Schuster.
Catherine Hernandez (she/her) is an award-winning author and screenwriter. She is a proud queer woman who is of Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and Indian descent and married into the Navajo Nation. Her novel, Scarborough, was a finalist for several awards including Canada Reads 2022. She wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Scarborough, which won 8 Canadian Screen Awards including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Her second novel, Crosshairs, was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Her latest novel, The Story of Us, was published this year. She is currently working on a few television projects and her fourth novel.
Jael Richardson is the author of Gutter Child, The Hockey Jersey, Because You Are, The Stone Thrower, and the founder and Executive Director of the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD) in Brampton, Ontario. Gutter Child was shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel Award and was a finalist for the Forest of Reading White Pine Award. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and lives in Brampton, Ontario.