Lit City

I try and record what is happening around me – and with that in mind I will talk about Lit City today. This is another of our City of Toronto organized happenings to generate enthusiasm for the places within its borders. Lit City promotes writers who find inspiration in Toronto and use the city as a setting in their work. There are author readings, literary walking tours, book launches, panel discussions, exhibits and more organized as part of this continuing event. Toronto has a large community of writers and of course it makes sense that many authors choose to set their stories in locations which can be identified as Torontonian.

Lit City kicked off with Toronto’s 175th anniversary party, held in early March. Hmm, don't know why that escaped mention on my blog!

The one attraction that I must get to visit before it finishes is the exhibit at the St. Lawrence Market at the The Market Gallery. The exhibit is titled “Lit City: Toronto Through the Eyes of Authors and Artists". According to the promo on their website: It merges the words of the Toronto authors and the works of the Toronto artists.

This show runs until June 13th. I am going to make sure that I get over to see it and will let you know all about it when I do.

Find out more about specific events being held as part of Lit City by going here: What's On @ Lit City.

Someone has put together a list of 57 books which are set in the City of Toronto. You can see the list here. There are some well known writers as well as some I have not heard of. Michael Ondaatje of course and Margret Atwood as well, but my favourite, Michael Redhill wrote Consolation which is a tremendous read and set in Toronto - in fact in two different times in history! I enjoyed reading Consolation last year when it was picked as Toronto's "one read" book during reading month. There are a lot of local Toronto places mentioned both in the 1960s and in the 1850s, the two time periods of the novel.

The Lit City Event runs until May 24th when the grand finale – the Doors Open tour is held. Doors Open connects these books to specific buildings all open to the public on that one weekend. I will talk about the Doors Open event on a subsequent blog as it deserves its own white space - there are a lot of buildings on to be open and I would like to talk about a few of them. In any event, you should mark it on your calendar if you are in Toronto that weekend.