Top Ten Tuesday: Canadian Book Festivals I’d Love to Go to Someday

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Map of the provinces and territories of CanadaI chose Canadian literary events for this week’s prompt because most of the bookish event and festival lists out there are heavily slanted towards the United States.

I think there’s something to be said for shining the spotlight on other parts of the world, too.

Word on the Street, the first entry on this list, is something I’ve attended on numerous occasions in the past. It’s a great deal of fun, and I can’t recommend it highly enough to all of you no matter which genres you enjoy.

Everything else is still on my bucket list!

See the map at the beginning of this post if you need a refresher on Canadian geography as you read about all of these wonderful festivals. The provinces will be highlighted in red in the photos below for the festivals that always occur in the same provinces.

Ontario highlighted on a map

Photo credit: TUBS.

1. Word on the Street

Location: Toronto,Ontario

Target Audience: Everyone

Why I Love It: It includes such a wonderful variety of books and authors for every age, genre, style, and demographic group you can imagine and maybe even a few you’ve never encountered before. The food there is incredible, too!

 

2. The Festival of Literary Diversity 

Location: Brampton, Ontario

Target Audience: Diverse authors and storytellers (and anyone who wants to read diverse books!)

Why I Want to Visit It: What’s not to love about celebrating diversity in the bookish community? I really need to rent a car or hop on a train and take a road trip to this festival after we have a vaccine for Covid-19.

 

Quebec highlighted on a map

Photo credit: TUBS.

3. Atwater Poetry Project

Location: Montreal, Quebec

Target Audience: Poets and anyone who loves poetry

Why I Want to Visit It: A well-written poem makes my heart sing.

 

4. Bloody Words

Location: Various Canadian cities (the location changes every year)

Target Audience: Mystery writers and readers

Why I Want to Visit It: I occasionally read mysteries and think it would be cool to learn more about this genre.

 

The Northwest Territories highlighted on a map

Photo credit: TUBS

 

5. NorthWords Writers Festival Society

Location: Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

Target Audience: Aboriginal writers and anyone who is interested in reading their work

Why I Want to Visit It: Canada has an amazing literary community in general, and it includes many talented Aboriginal and First Nations authors. I’d be thrilled to attend a whole festival dedicated to their work.

 

Yukon territory highlighted on a map

Photo credit: TUBS

 

6. Yukon Writers’ Festival

Location: The Yukon Territory

Target Audience: Anyone who is part of Canadian literary scene in the Yukon or who wants to learn more about it.

Why I Want to Visit It: I must confess to not knowing a lot about the culture of the Yukon or what the literary scene is like up there. That’s something I’d love to change someday.

 

Nova Scotia highlighted on a map

Photo credit: TUBS

 

7. Read by the Sea

Location: River John, Nova Scotia

Target Audience: Everyone who wants to read Canadian works

Why I Want to Visit It: It sounds like an all-Canadian version of Word on the Street. If that’s true, this festival must be amazing!

 

Newfoundland highlighted on a map

Photo credit: TUBS

 

8. Writers at Woody Point

Location: Newfoundland

Target Audience: Anyone who writes or reads stories set in this province

Why I Want to Visit It: I only know a little bit about the culture of or literary scene in Newfoundland and would like to change that.

 

British Columbia highlighted on a map

Photo credit: TUBS

 

9. Vancouver Writers Fest

Location: Vancouver, British Columbia

Target Audience: Anyone who writes or reads stories set in Vancouver

Why I Want to Visit It: I used to live in Vancouver. It’s a beautiful, bookish city, and reading about it makes me feel like I’m back there.

 

Saskatchewan highlighted on a map

Photo credit: TUBS

 

10. Saskatchewan Festival Of Words

Location: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

Target Audience: Everyone who enjoys Canadian literature

Why I Want to Visit It: This festival lasts for four whole days! That alone is enough to make me eager to check it out.

Do any of you have other Canadian literary festivals to add to this list? I’d sure like to hear about them.

90 Comments

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90 Responses to Top Ten Tuesday: Canadian Book Festivals I’d Love to Go to Someday

  1. As a fellow canadian – I love this list. I’ve got friends who have been to the Vancouver Lit Fest and loved it! I want to go some day

    My TTT

  2. Great list! I’m sorry to say I haven’t heard of any of these, and I’ve yet to make my way over to North America, but I’d definitely join you at all of these festivals.

  3. But of course. I chose European events. There are still too many to restrict yourself to ten, so why list any you won’t be able to visit?

    Anyway, love your choices.

    My TTT.

  4. Great list and I adore your use of maps – what a great idea! Going to have to steal that one on another list! And always wanted to visit Canada.

    This is my list if you wanted to see some UK festivals! TTT

  5. Such a cool idea to include the maps! Thank you!

    Word on the Street sounds like so much fun. I would love to go the one in Nova Scotia because I have a blogging friend who lives near there!

  6. I’m excited to think that many of these may be virtual this year, and I can attend from home.

  7. I love knowing that we have so many events to choose from here in Canada. Especially ones I didn’t know about (taking notes). Great list 😀

    Here’s my Top Ten Tuesday post.

  8. Jo

    I’ve never been to Canada! Would love to visit once we are all able to travel again.
    My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2020/07/21/top-ten-tuesday-273/

  9. This list is so fun, when I visit Canada I am going to every place on this list. Favorite from all this is Read by the Sea

  10. Aoife @ Pretty Purple Polka Dots

    Canada has been on my wanderlist for a really long time. Perhaps I should schedule a trip for when one of these events is on and kill two birds with one stone. When you say there’s great food at Word on the Street, that makes it a potential winner.

    • I hope you do! And, yes, Word on the Street has amazing food from so many different corners of the globe. Everything from grilled corn on the cob to poutine to burgers to stir fries and more. I’m sure you’d find something you like there!

  11. Awesome list!! I didn’t even know they had so many cool festivals in Canada!! The first 2 and Read by the Sea sound super awesome especially!! I hope you get to all of these someday!!

  12. These all sound wonderful. I’d especially like to go to the festivals in Yukon and Nova Scotia, just because I’d love an excuse to go there!

  13. Very interesting–especially the diversity one. If we can ever travel again….

  14. There are so many real book festivals that I’ve never heard of! These sound like a lot of fun. I think I’d be most interested in the Vancouver Writer’s Fest, because I’ve really enjoyed visiting Vancouver, but really? I’d happily go to any of them.

  15. Great list and I love the maps! I’ve never been to Canada, but I’d definitely love to visit someday and then maybe attend one of these events 🙂

  16. Bloody Words sounds cool! Hope you get a chance to visit some of these. 🙂

  17. I love this! Thank you so much! I didn’t know about any of these festivals and I enjoyed seeing the maps! I will have to think about Canada when I plan literary trips in the future!

  18. Me as non-Canadian feel very glad because can know a lot of interesting book fair out there. Thanks for sharing this list 🙂

  19. I love how you included the provinces as well- always nice to see the locations of different events. Word on the street sounds wonderful, and I always love good food to go with a festival! 🙂

  20. Poinsettia

    I remembering you telling me about Word on the Street!

  21. What a great idea, to focus on Canada’s festivals. Good list! I might check out the Festival of Literary Diversity someday.

  22. Oh my gosh I love that you’ve done a Canada-focused one! They all sound amazing, I’ve only been to Canada once and would love to go back – these book festivals would be the perfect reason to go again!

  23. I like the way you broke your list up by province. I’m adding so many festivals to my must-visit list. Thank you!

  24. Bloody Words sounds like the perfect festival for me! I’ve never been to a festival or event devoted to mystery books, so that sounds really cool.

  25. Great to see some Canadian ones and ones that are in some of the more remote provinces as well! The Yukon and Yellowknife ones would be excellent to visit.

  26. A friend of mine got to go to Read by the Sea – from what I heard it sounded amazing!

    Lauren @ Always Me

  27. I like your take on this week’s topic. There are a lot of smaller book conferences out there (more than just BookCon, BookExpo, and SDCC) and I like how you highlighted some.

  28. I love what you did here and how you mapped it out for us. I love seeing where they are all located.

  29. Great list! Love the use of maps!

  30. oh, I´d like to go to Canada and visit them all. I very much like the Canadian Authors Margaret Atwood and Giles Blunt

  31. Um, thank you so much for this. I live in Canada and never heard much of these… mostly the ones in Ontario.

  32. verushka

    !!!! OMG, I wish I had known about these when I had lived in Toronto!! Especially Bloody Words and the Festival of Literary Diversity!! (Excuse me while I go kick myself!!)

  33. I love that you highlighted only events in your own country. Sadly, I’ve never heard of any of these. They sound fabulous, though!

    Happy TTT (on a Wednesday)!

    Susan
    http://www.blogginboutbooks.com

  34. What a great list for Canadians! Yeah, there are a lot of them that are in the U.S. so this probably helped a lot of people around you. 🙂

  35. I love that you focused on Canadian events AND included maps! Someday I want to visit Canada, and a bookish event would be the perfect excuse. 😉

  36. These all sound really good especially Bloody Words.

  37. I love that you focused on Canadian festivals, in particular! I agree that things tend to be heavily slanted to the US as far as what people talk about, and it’s good to get the word out about other venues. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Canada, but I’d love to go to any of these! They sound great.

  38. Love this twist on the prompt!

  39. Nice! I haven’t been to any bookish events… I was supposed to attend my first this year but then covid happened. 🙁 Silver lining is that it was moved to next year rather than cancelled and the line up looks even better! 🙂

  40. Its kind of awesome that there is a diversity festival!

  41. Ooh, these all sound wonderful! I hope you can go to a few of these in the future! Fingers crossed.

  42. I don’t really know anything about events that take place in Canada, but some of these sound really interesting! Personally I’m pretty interested in the Word on the Street event. If I ever get a chance to visit Canada, I’ll definitely have to check and see if there are any bookish events happening! I hope you’re able to make it to all of these one day!

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