Past Events

About the talk

In addition to being teachers and scholars, many Victoria College faculty are creative artists in their own right. Join us when our distinguished professors share their recent creative work with the community.  

About the authors

Camilla Gibb is the author of five acclaimed novels and a memoir. She has been shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the RBC Taylor Prize for non-fiction and is a past winner of the Trillium Book Award, the City of Toronto Book Award, and the CBC Canadian Literary Award. 

Daniel Scott Tysdal is a writer, filmmaker, and teacher. His works include The End Is In the Middle: Mad Fold-In Poems, and the TEDx talk “Everything You Need to Write a Poem (and How It Can Save a Life).”  

About the Festival  

This fall, TIFA returns to Victoria University at the University of Toronto and welcomes acclaimed writers, passionate readers and book lovers from around the globe for Canada’s largest and longest-running literary festival. With a new 5 day format over and 100 events ranging from conversations, masterclasses, talks, and readings, the festival will take place at new venues in partnership with Victoria University at the University of Toronto. 

Each year, TIFA brings people together to share stories, exchange ideas, and celebrate a love of literature. In 2025, this mission is more urgent than ever. TIFA has the unique ability to place Canadian and international writers together on a global stage, celebrating their stories and perspectives with audiences in Toronto, Canada and beyond. This year, the Festival welcomes authors from Japan, Taiwan, Korea, New Zealand, France, Germany, Portugal, Ireland, USA, Brazil and more, with many writers having roots and stories that span the globe.  

Featured events included Kiran Desai: Love Lost & Found; Serhii Plokhy: Understanding the Nuclear Age; Fight for Freedom, Search for Truth: Nathan Harris & Patrick Tarr; Literature & Memory: Pete Crighton; and Madeleine Thien: Memory & Migration, among others. Learn more about TIFA 2025 here.  

About the book

Echoing the pandemic-era phrase “shelter in place,” and extending beyond it, this collection examines how writing can create, illuminate, and complicate ideas about dwelling, belonging, or finding safe harbour. Through an engaging blend of academic essays and creative nonfiction, contributors interrogate the connections between the concepts of shelter and text, centering questions of care, disability, and housing inequality. How does the physical infrastructure of the city interact with literary form and how do stories bring attention to our built environments? Did the experience of lockdown (re)shape our interiorities, imaginations, and reading habits? Can Indigenous and decolonial approaches to land and storytelling and an inclusive practice of shelter-making through narrative enable a more sustainable future? While many of the works and writers discussed in the volume are Canadian, the scope extends beyond national borders to create a transnational dialogue on diverse and non-traditional approaches to topics of land, space, and shelter. Shelter in Text will appeal to literary scholars, particularly those working in the fields of Canadian literature, Indigenous studies, contemporary literature, ecocriticism, gothic fiction, Queer studies, feminist studies, disability studies, translation, and literary theory. 

Contributors: Kelly Baron, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Myra Bloom, David Chariandy, Lily Cho, Sophie Feng, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Kristi Leora Gansworth, Sarah Gordon, Shannon Griffin-Merth, Anna Guttman, Heather Jessup, Andrew David King, Caroline Lavoie, Jennifer Lawn, Jessi MacEachern, Kayla Penteliuk, Anil Pradhan, Geneviève Robichaud, Kasia Van Schaik, Holly Vestad, Erin Wunker, and Robert Zacharias. 

Edited by

Myra Bloom (Associate Professor, York University) specializes in modern and contemporary Canadian/Québécois literature. Her research is focused on Canadian women's writing and intercultural relations in Québecois fiction. She was the Fall 2024 Eakin Fellow at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC), where she completed a SSHRC-funded monograph on confessional Canadian women's writing, Evasive Maneuvers (under review). Her scholarship and criticism are published in various academic and popular venues, including in a recent issue of The Walrus dedicated to the best arts and culture writing of the past 20 years. Her collection Shelter in Text, co-edited with Kasia Van Schaik, is being published by University of Alberta Press in October 2025. 

Kasia Van Schaik (Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing, University of New Brunswick) is the Co-director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of New Brunswick. She specializes in twentieth and twenty-first century North American literature, creative writing, autobiography, experimental writing, eco-feminist poetics, and cultural theory. She is particularly interested in the intersections between narrative, gender, and the environment. 

Generously supported by the Toronto Lit Up program, funded by the Toronto Arts Council.  

Celebrate the best in contemporary Canadian literature at an evening showcasing the 2025  Giller Prize  shortlisted authors. Join these exceptional authors as they read from their nominated works, share insights into their craft, and discuss the stories that earned them a place among Canada’s literary elite. Don’t miss this chance to discover the voices shaping the future of Canadian fiction, hosted by Antonio Michael Downing. 

Featuring: 

Learn more about the authors and their books here.  

About the event

Three faculty from prominent Creative Writing Graduate Programs will join us to share stories, dispense wisdom, and answer your questions about applying to graduate school in Creative Writing. 

About the speakers

Nancy Lee (Associate Professor and Graduate chair, University of British Columbia) is the award-winning author of two works of fiction, Dead Girls and The Age, and a poetry collection, What Hurts Going Down (McClelland & Stewart, 2020). Her books have been published in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, and her work most recently appeared in Ploughshares, The Adroit Journal, The Puritan and Arc Poetry Magazine. Nancy has served as Writer-in-Residence for Historic Joy Kogawa House, the city of Richmond, and the city of Vincennes, France. Together with Annabel Lyon, Nancy is co-creator of the internationally acclaimed EdX education series, How to Write a Novel. 

Chris Bachelder (Professor and Director of Creative Writing, University of Cincinnati) is the author of four novels, including The Throwback Special, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Paris Review's Terry Southern Prize. Dayswork, a novel written collaboratively with Jennifer Habel, was published in 2023. Bachelder has taught fiction writing at UC since 2011. 

Richard Greene (Professor and Acting Director, MA in English in the field of Creative Writing, University of Toronto) is the author of multiple works of poetry and prose, including Dante's House, Edith Sitwell: Avant Garde Poet, English Genius, Crossing the Straits, and Boxing the Compass, which won the Governor General's Award for English Language Poetry in 2010. 

Every team has unheralded but dogged players but none more so than the expansion-era Raptors, a team that many NBA players and free agents often ignored—until they became one of the most interesting and winningest teams in the league. We the Raptors: Thirty Players, Thirty Stories, Thirty Years is about the grinders, glue guys, bench heroes, and more. Whether regular or part-time starters, role players, key cogs, or even short-term stars—all of them felt blessed to call Canada home. 

Paul Jones, Toronto Raptors radio and TV broadcaster, will introduce Eric Smith (Sportsnet 590 the FAN), co-author Andrew Bricker, and their new book, We the Raptors. 

Smith and Bricker will then join University of Toronto Professor Joseph Wong (Munk School) in conversation as they talk about the Raptors' first thirty years, their impact on Toronto and Canadian identity, and the stories and players that have shaped our culture. 

About the speakers 

Eric Smith has been working at Sportsnet and Sportsnet 590 the FAN, covering the Raptors for nearly thirty years. He was also the Raptors/NBA analyst for Global TV Sports, and he has appeared on CNN, NBA TV, CBC Newsworld, and more. For over twenty years, he has been the radio voice for Toronto Raptors radio broadcasts and a full-time sports talk radio host. 

Andrew Bricker is an associate professor of English literature at Ghent University. Bricker (Vic 0T5; MA, University of Toronto 0T6) is originally from Toronto. We the Raptors is his first book about basketball. 

Joseph Wong is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and serves as the Vice President, International, overseeing international student experience for the University of Toronto. He previously held the Canada Research Chair in Democratization, Health and Development and was the Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. In 2023, he hosted Joe's Basketball Diaries, a six-episode series on basketball and global politics. 

This event was generously sponsored by TD Insurance, the Centre for Creativity at Victoria University in the University of Toronto, TYPE Books, and Simon & Schuster Canada.

Join us for a remarkable evening with internationally acclaimed author, John Irving, as he presents his sixteenth novel, Queen Esther – a powerful return to the world of his beloved classic  The Cider House Rules. Spanning from Vienna in 1905 to Jerusalem in 1981, Queen Esther traces Esther Nacht’s extraordinary journey: from her early orphanhood and the care of Dr. Wilbur Larch, to her enduring bond with the philanthropic Winslow family, to her own reckoning with history, faith, and identity. With characteristic depth, humour, and humanity, Irving crafts a story that confronts anti-Semitism while celebrating the enduring strength of love and loyalty. 

In conversation with Marsha Lederman, Irving will reflect on the inspirations behind Queen Esther, the novel’s connections to The Cider House Rules, and the themes that have defined his illustrious career. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear one of the world’s most celebrated storytellers. 

TIFA Presents an Evening with John Irving is presented by Knopf Canada, Miles Nadal JCC, The Speakers Annex and the Toronto International Festival of Authors. 

Victoria University is proud to celebrate its alumni. Join us when our accomplished alumni-authors share their recent publications with the community. 

About the authors

Alex Pugsley has worked on over 185 produced episodes of television, writing for performers such as Lauren Ash, Scott Thompson, Jenn Whalen, Mark McKinney, Dan Aykroyd, and Michael Cera. He wrote and directed the feature film Dirty Singles which won for him the Irving Avrich Emerging Filmmaker Award at TIFF. Following the publication of his first novel, Aubrey McKee, he was named one of CBC’s Writers to Watch. His first story collection, Shimmer, was nominated for the ReLit Award for Short Fiction. His most recent novel, The Education of Aubrey McKee, was long-listed for the Toronto Book Awards. His next novel, Silver Lake, the third in a multi-part series about Aubrey McKee, will be published next year by Biblioasis. 

Lindsay Zier-Vogel is an author, grant writer, arts educator, and the creator of the internationally acclaimed Love Lettering Project. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto, and the author of Letters to Amelia, and The Fun Times Brigade, and her picture book, Dear Street was a Junior Library Guild pick, a Canadian Children’s Book Centre book of the year, and was nominated for a Forest of Reading Blue Spruce Award (Canada), a Magnolia Book Award (Mississippi), and the Mountain Laurel Award (Pennsylvania). She leads creative writing workshops in schools and community settings. 

About Word on the Street

The Word On The Street is a national celebration of reading, writing, and literacy. Each year, we host hundreds of author readings for visitors of all ages and a vibrant marketplace featuring the best selection of books and magazines in Canada. Join us (for free!) as we share vital stories about where we live. Learn more about WOTS here.  

In addition to being teachers and scholars, many Victoria College faculty are creative artists in their own right. Join us when our distinguished professors share their recent creative work with the community.  

About the authors

John Reibetanz has been a finalist for the National Magazine Awards (Canada) and the National Poetry Competition (United States). His poems have appeared in such magazines as Poetry (Chicago), The Paris Review, Canadian Literature, The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, The Southern Review, and Quarry. His most recent collection, Mining For Sun, was shortlisted for the ReLit Poetry Award. His reading will be to launch his new collection, Metromorphoses. 

Kate Cayley has published two short story collections and three collections of poetry, and her plays have been performed in Canada, the US and the UK. She has won the Trillium Book Award, an O. Henry Prize, and the Mitchell Prize for Poetry, and been a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, among other awards. 

Five faculty from prominent Creative Writing Graduate Programs will join us to share stories, dispense wisdom, and answer your questions about applying to graduate school in Creative Writing. 

This event explores the role of creativity in cutting through the noise for celebrity platforms, corporate brands, and government initiatives aiming to do "good." 

About the speakers

Marni Van Dyk is a Screenwriter, Director, and Producer. She has served as Head Writer for event specials focused on community impact work and causes for ABC, CBS, CTV, and CBC, with talent including Jennifer Aniston, Will Ferrell, Neil Patrick Harris, Natalie Portman, The Muppets and many more. For the past two years she has written Selena Gomez’s Rare Impact Fund Benefit, her annual event in Los Angeles in support of youth mental health in conjunction with The Rare Impact Fund and Rare Beauty. 

Her first feature-length film Learn to Swim, written with Director Thyrone Tommy, had its World Premiere at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival and is distributed by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY on Netflix in the US/UK/Aus/NZ. Her latest film, a short entitled This is Not About Swimming, also had its World Premiere at TIFF (’23) and is now available to stream on CBC Gem. Marni is the Series Director for Made for TV with Boman Martinez-Reid (CRAVE), and has served as a writer, producer, and story editor on many award winning television series. 

Marni is an alumna of Queen's University, the Corus Writer’s Apprenticeship at the Banff World Media Festival, and the Writer's Lab at Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre. 

Julie Markle spent the last five years as Executive Creative Director, leading the team at Canadian independent creative agency, Bleublancrouge (Toronto). Prior to that, she left her indelible mark at Ogilvy, producing creative work that often stretched well beyond Canada's borders because of its brand building ability. 

For decades, Julie has been giving brands the unique trifecta of meaning, purpose and talk value, turning consumers into followers, and often ardent fans. Whether her work championed women’s and girls’ self-esteem (Dove), reinforced the importance of skin-to-skin hugs for babies (Huggies), or advocated for eating real, unadulterated food (Hellmann’s), there is nothing Julie loves more than creative ideas that effect change. And build businesses. 

By putting creative ideas to work in big, unimaginable ways, delighting her clients and their audiences, her work has often been picked up globally, and has been recognized both nationally and internationally with numerous awards, including the Cannes Glass Lion for Change. 

Professor Sunil Johal is the David and Ann Wilson Professor in Public Policy and Society. Professor Johal is a policy expert with a track record of executive-level experience addressing challenging policy issues. He is also the Vice President, Public Policy at the CSA Group where he leads a team developing innovative solutions to thorny problems. 

In 2022, he was named to expert panels advising the Ontario government on the development of a portable benefits scheme for non-standard workers and the City of Toronto on its Long-Term Financial Plan. In 2021, Professor Johal led the medium-term planning and transition activities for Employment and Social Development Canada in an Assistant Deputy Minister-level role. 

He was Policy Director at the University of Toronto’s Mowat Centre from 2012 to 2019, where he led the Centre’s research activities and established himself as a thought leader on issues such as the future of work and the implications of disruptive technologies. In 2019 he was named Chair of the Expert Panel on Modern Labour Standards by the federal Minister of Labour. 

The Toronto Poetry Society is an artist-run organization led by students at Victoria College working to cultivate the creation, performance, and publication of poetry.  

About the event

Join us for a Poetry Reading hosted by the Toronto Poetry Society on Wednesday, December 6th at 3:00 PM in Northrop Frye Centre (VC102). Come to share in the art of words and celebrate the incredible talent within our community. Everyone is welcome—whether you’re a poet, a poetry lover, or just curious! 

Find the Toronto Poetry Society on Instagram here.  

Join us for an unforgettable evening as National Book Award-winning author Colum McCann discusses the profound and deeply moving book, American Mother, co-authored with Diane Foley. Described by Sting as “a thriller, a memoir, a mystery; a portrait of forgiveness, and a literary song of grace”, this compelling narrative tells the story of Diane's journey after the tragic loss of her son, James Foley, a freelance journalist captured and shockingly killed by ISIS in Syria, and her remarkable resilience in transforming grief into advocacy. Join us as McCann explores themes of loss, hope, and the enduring power of human connection offering an inspiring message of courage and compassion.   

More details about the event can be found here.  

The Toronto Poetry Society is an artist-run organization led by students at Victoria College working to cultivate the creation, performance, and publication of poetry.  

About the event

Join us on March 19th from 5-7 PM at the Northrop Frye Centre in Old Vic (VC102) for an evening of poetry and prose. Submissions to enter the Open Mic Slam are open until March 18th at 11:59 PM, with cash prizes for those whose words leave a mark. Judged by a professional panel.  

Find the Toronto Poetry Society on Instagram here.  

Curious about working in a creative field? Join us in conversation with a panel of four industry professionals who will share their experience in areas including publishing, editing, podcast production, marketing and publicity, communications, and ghostwriting. This is an opportunity for students to meet professionals in diverse creative fields and learn about possible career paths. 

About the speakers

Jessica Johnson is a senior fellow at McGill University studying the future of the CBC/Radio-Canada, as well as an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto,  where she teaches literary journalism and media studies. The former editor-in-chief of  The Walrus, she has contributed to a wide range of media outlets, including The Globe and Mail, National Post, the Guardian, The New Republic, and Elle. In 2021, she wrote the acclaimed essay “Journalism’s Wicked Problem: Save What’s Lost or Invest in What’s New?” She also produces the Substack newsletter “Writing for People Who Hate Writing.” 

Mitchell Stuart is an award-winning podcast producer and a senior fellow at the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University.He is currently the senior producer of The Globe and Mail's technology show Machines Like Us, the producer of the CBC podcast Crime Story, and the showrunner of a forthcoming audio docuseries with The Toronto Star. He is also a frequent contributor to the CBC radio programme Ideas, and was the mixer and sound designer behind two of the most popular podcast titles of the past year: Broomgate (CBC) and Kaitlyn's Baby (CBC/BBC). 

Victoria Hetherington is the author of two critically acclaimed science-fiction novels: Amazon First Novel Award shortlisted Mooncalves (Now or Never, 2019)and   Autonomy (Dundurn Press, 2022). Her bestselling nonfiction book Into the Mist: Finding CF-JDO (Kestrel Publications, 2022), explores a Canadian aviation tragedy in rural Saskatchewan. Friend Machine, a nonfiction book exploring artificial companionship, is slated for publication with Sutherland House Books, tentatively 2026. As a literary moderator and panelist, Victoria speaks at festivals, libraries and conferences including Word on the Street Toronto, Fan Expo Canada, the  International Festival of Authors in Toronto, Calgary Wordfest, and the Ontario Library Association. Victoria is also a television writer, a communications specialist with a focus on healthcare, and a ghostwriter of book-length projects. 

Kate Earnshaw received her Master’s in Gender Studies from the University of Toronto before completing a publishing certificate from Humber College. She is the Manager of Brand Marketing & Communications at HarperCollins' Harlequin imprint and previously worked in the Marketing & Publicity Department at Second Story Press, a small feminist press in Toronto. She has spent time in various marketing roles both in publishing and the sporting goods industry. Outside of work, you can find her reading at pubs, watching Jane Austen adaptations, and slowly working toward her PhD at York University. 

In addition to being teachers and scholars, many Victoria College faculty are creative artists in their own right. Join us when our distinguished professors share their recent creative work with the community.  

About the authors

Leila Aboulela is the Shaftesbury Creative Writer-in Residence at Victoria College for 2024-2025. Leila is a novelist and playwright. Her most recent novel, River Spirit, was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and Best Historical Fiction Book of 2023. Leila’s work has been translated into fifteen languages, and her audio plays, both original and adaptations of her work, were broadcast on BBC Radio. Leila is a winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 

Robert McGill is the author of three novels, two nonfiction books, and, most recently, a short fiction collection, Simple Creatures, published by Coach House Books. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, The Dublin Review, and Hazlitt, among others. He is the Acting Chair of English and a Fellow of Victoria College. 

From cozy crime and police procedural to psychological thriller and true crime, MOTIVE brings together the masters of mystery for criminally good conversations, book signings, workshops and more that will keep you hooked all weekend long. 

Explore and celebrate a genre that has inspired some of the world’s most gripping stories from Canada and across the world, including USA, United Kingdom, Finland, Iceland and Korea. Alongside discovering your next best read, you can participate in true crime workshops and hone your own killer writing instincts in our masterclass programme. 

Learn more about MOTIVE here.  

The Centre for Creativity was launched on May 9, 2024, by Launch Director Prof. Adam Sol with the support of former Victoria College Principal Angela Esterhammer with the mandate of hosting cross-disciplinary programming and events, inviting artists, thinkers and developers from different fields to share work, compare ideas and collaborate.  

The May 9-10, 2024 launch event demonstrated this. The afternoon began with an interdisciplinary panel on creativity and how it is practiced, with panelists writer and composer Gary Barwin, dancer and choreographer Natasha Powell, University of Toronto biochemistry Professor Angus McQuibban, and OISE Director of Indigenous Digital Practice Jennifer Wemigwans. The four panelists engaged in a discussion focused on how their respective fields approach creativity and creative practices, considering both the convergences and divergences between their fields. The panel was followed by a reception and exhibition of intermedial student work, and a culminating exercise led by Erin Stone and Christie Dang from Emmanuel College. 

Music industry insiders discussed if Toronto is at risk of losing the next generation of musicians during a panel discussion at the Isabel Bader Theatre, held in partnership with Victoria University’s new Centre for Creativity and TD Toronto Jazz Fest. 
 
Introduced by Centre for Creativity Launch Director Adam Sol, hosted by Michael Williams, a Juno-nominated music producer and former MuchMusic VJ, attendees heard from Gil Moore (owner of Metalworks Studios and member of the band Triumph), Sandy Horne (bassist of Spoons), Professor Gregory Newsome (U of T Faculty of Music), Xeynamay Gezahegn (It’s OK*) and award-winning violinist Aline Homzy on the future of music in our city. The panellists shared their personal journeys and reflected on the challenges faced by young artists in Toronto today—and what can be done to help them succeed. 

Read more about the event here.