Book Signing with William Alexander

Don't miss the opportunity for a meet-and-greet with National Book Award winner William Alexander, who will be in store chatting with customers about Sunward, a cozy debut science fiction novel. This story of found family follows a planetary courier training adolescent androids in a solar system grappling with interplanetary conflict after a devastating explosion on Earth’s moon.

WILLIAM ALEXANDER writes unrealisms for readers of all ages. His work has won the National Book Award, the Eleanor Cameron Award, the Librarian Favorites Award, the Teacher Favorites Award, two CBC Best Children’s Book of the Year Awards, and two Junior Library Guild Selections. As a small child he honestly thought that his Cuban American family came from the lost island of Atlantis.

Book Launch for Catherine Lang's Embedded

Please join us in welcoming Catherine Lang to Perfect Books to launch the autobiography Embedded: The Irreconcilable Nature of War, Loss, and Consequence.

When Catherine Lang's niece and Calgary Herald reporter Michelle Lang was killed while embedded with Canadian troops near Kandahar City, Afghanistan, in 2009, her world shifted.

In the aftermath, Lang and her family experienced the rigour of military ceremony. As she pieced together fragments from Michelle’s last days, Lang connected with the loved ones of soldiers who died alongside Michelle. She met with those injured by the roadside bomb, including the lone civilian woman talking to Michelle at the time of the blast, discovering in her and others a steely resilience to carry on and a more intimate understanding of the meaning of sacrifice. Suddenly thrust close to this aspect of Canadian society, Lang began to question previously held black-and-white views about military engagement, and she turned to writing as a way to understand the impact on her and her family, and to ensure that Michelle lived on in memory.

CATHERINE LANG worked as a community newspaper reporter and freelance writer at the outset of her writing career in the 1980s. In 1996, she published O-Bon in Chimunesu: A Community Remembered, a creative non-fiction work about the former Japanese-Canadian community on Vancouver Island, with Arsenal Pulp Press; O-Bon won the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize at the 1997 BC Book Prizes. She later worked as an editor of provincial legislative debates and in treaty negotiations with Indigenous nations in BC. Lang lives in Victoria, BC.

Book Launch for Tamara Jong's Worldly Girls

We are excited to have Tamara Jong in the store, in conversation with Ellen Chang-Richardson, to launch her debut memoir, Worldly Girls, named by CBC as a top nonfiction pick for the fall!

Tamara Jong’s powerful memoir documents the slow unravelling of her connection to her faith and the tragic history of her fractured family, shining a light into the dark corners of memory that have haunted her well into adulthood.

TAMARA JONG is a Tiohtià:ke (Montréal) born writer of Chinese and European ancestry. Her work has been published in the Humber Literary Review, Room Magazine, and The Fiddlehead, and has been both long and shortlisted for various creative nonfiction prizes. She is a graduate of The Writer's Studio at Simon Fraser University, and a former member of Room Magazine's collective. She currently lives and works on Treaty 3 territory, the occupied and ancestral lands of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinabewaki, Attiwonderonk, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (Guelph, ON). Worldly Girls is her first book.

ELLEN CHANG-RICHARDSON is an award-winning poet, hybrid genre writer, judicial assistant, and editor of Taiwanese and Chinese Cambodian descent. Co-founder of the experimental Riverbed Reading Series, they are a creative nonfiction editor for long con magazine and a member of Room’s editorial collective. Their debut collection, Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn), was shortlisted for the 2025 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Their second collection, Through the Eyes of Another, is forthcoming in Spring 2027.

Brit Griffin Launches The Haunting of Modesto O'Brien

We welcome Brit Griffin to the store to launch her latest book, The Haunting of Modesto O'Brien, a gothic tale from deep within the boreal forest. With special guest Charlie Angus!

Violence and greed have intruded into a wild and remote land. It’s 1907, and silver fever has drawn thousands of men into a fledgling mining camp in the heart of the wilderness. Modesto O’Brien, fortune-teller and detective, is there too - but he isn’t looking for riches. He’s seeking revenge. O’Brien soon finds himself entangled with the mysterious Nail sisters, Lucy and Lily. On the run from their past and headed for trouble, Lily turns to O’Brien when Lucy goes missing. But what should have been a straightforward case of kidnapping pulls O’Brien into a world of ancient myths, magic, and male violence. As he searches for Lucy, O’Brien fears that dark forces are emerging from the ravaged landscape. Mesmerized by a nightmarish creature stalking the wilderness, and haunted by his past, O’Brien struggles to maintain his grip on reality as he faces hard choices about loyalty, sacrifice, and revenge.

BRIT GRIFFIN is the author of the climate-fiction Wintermen trilogy (Latitude 46) and has written essays, musings, and articles for various publications. Griffin spent many years as a researcher for the Timiskaming First Nation, an Algonquin community in northern Quebec. She lives in Cobalt, northern Ontario, where she is the mother of three grown daughters. These days, she divides her time between writing and caring for her unruly yard.

CHARLIE ANGUS is a nationally recognized politician, author, and musician. He has published nine books and is the recipient of numerous writing awards, including the Trillium Book Award finalist Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower. Angus has served in the Canadian Parliament for twenty years. He has earned a national reputation as a fierce fighter for social justice and Indigenous rights. Angus was the founding member of Toronto punk band L'etranger. He is the leader of the roots band Grievous Angels; their ninth album is Last Call for Cinderella. Angus lives in Cobalt, Ontario, with his wife, author Brit Griffin. They have three daughters.

Bywords John Newlove Poetry Awards

Join us for an unforgettable evening of poetry and music. Amanda Earl hosts the 2025 John Newlove Poetry Award reading and ceremony. Bywords.ca will be launching After all this hurt, Mahaila Smith’s chapbook with readings by this year's John Newlove Poetry Award recipient and honourable mentions, and music by Benoît Christie.

After a short break, it’s music and poetry performed by Domina Eliahou and Stuart Ross. Fresh off a breathtaking, improvisational performance at the Hillside Festival, the duo make their first appearance in Ottawa, where Eliahou will improvise an ever-changing eclectic soundscape into which Ross will plug his poems, bend his poems, and spit out sound poetry.

Up next, Arc Poetry will announce the winner of The Archibald Lampman Award which recognizes an outstanding book of English-language poetry by an author living in the National Capital Region. The 2025 Lampman Award finalists are: Gay Girl Prayers by Emily Austin, Heliotropia by Manahil Bandukwala, and Crazy/Mad by AJ Dolman. The jury for the 2025 award were Simina Banu (Quebec), Jake Byrne (Ontario), and Jess Housty (British Columbia).

The evening concludes with the Ottawa launch for Margo LaPierre’s second collection, Ajar. These poems navigate the physical and psychological dangers of womanhood through the flattening lens of mood disorder. Psychosis isn’t the opposite of reality—it’s another perceptual system. From the emergency room to the pharmacy to the fertility clinic to the dis/comfort of home and memory, this collection humanizes bipolar psychosis.

More details and tickets to this FREE event at writersfestival.org

With book sales by Perfect Books.

Rethinking Our Futures in an Age of Planetary Crisis

The Canada Research Chair in Critical Surveillance and Security Studies presents, in collaboration with the Centre for Law, Technology and Society, and the Research Centre on the Future of Cities, Rethinking Our Futures in an Age of Planetary Crisis.

In an age where we seem to be facing an age of multiple and compounding crisis –massive inequality and poverty, climate breakdown, growing authoritarianism, war and genocide– how do we find hope and rethink the possibilities for solidarity, community and better futures? How can we build better cities, make better use of new technologies, and create better media beyond what is offered to us by powerful corporations and short-sighted governments? Four leading contemporary international thinkers will address these questions in conversation.

Featuring speakers Quinn Slobidian, Orit Halpern, Ayona Data, and Nick Couldry, moderated by David Murikami Wood.

With book sales by Perfect Books.

More information and tickets available here: https://www.uottawa.ca/research-innovation/events-all/rethinking-our-futures-age-planetary-crisis

Wakefield Writers Festival presents Listening, Speaking Out, and Connecting in an Age of Rage

This inspiring event brings together renowned voices Carol Off, celebrated former CBC “As It Happens” host and acclaimed author, and Professor Timothy Caulfield from the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law and School of Public Health. Drawing from their latest works—At a Loss for Words: Conversations in an Age of Rage and The Certainty Illusion: What You Don’t Know and Why It Matters—they’ll share wisdom for navigating our complex world. Hosted by Adrian Harewood, Associate Professor at Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication.

With book sales by Perfect Books.

More details and tickets available here: https://www.writersfete.com/event/listening-speaking-out-connecting-in-an-age-of-rage/

Premee Mohamed launch for The First Thousand Trees

We can't wait to bring you the launch of the third and final installment of Premee Mohamed's fantastic climate-fiction novella series, The First Thousand Trees (ECW Press), with special guest Kate Heartfield! This is not an event to be missed for science fiction and fantasy readers! Find out why Booklist calls Mohamed “one of the most unique and engaging voices in genre fiction.” 

After making a grievous mistake that ended in death, Henryk Mandrusiak feels increasingly ostracized within his own community, and after the passing on of his parents and the departure of his best friend, Reid, there is little left to tie him to the place he calls home. Henryk does something he never expected: he sets out into the harsh wilds alone, in search of far-flung family. He finds his uncle’s village, but making a life for himself in this unfriendly new place — rougher and more impoverished than the campus where he grew up — isn’t easy. Henryk strives to carve out a place of his own but learns that some corners of his broken world are darker than he could have imagined.

PREMEE MOHAMED is a Nebula-, World Fantasy–, and Aurora Award–winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, AB. She is the author of the Beneath the Rising series of novels, as well as several novellas, and her short fiction has appeared in many venues.

KATE HEARTFIELD is the author of several novels, including her latest, The Tapestry of Time, and the international bestseller The Embroidered Book. She has won the Aurora Award for Best Novel three times, and her fiction has been shortlisted for the Aurora, Nebula, World Fantasy, Crawford, Locus, Sunburst, Scribe and Ottawa Book awards. Kate is a former journalist who lives in Ottawa, Canada with a black cat named Minerva.

Double Book launch with Katie Welch and James Cairns

Join BC author Katie Welch and Paris, Ontario author James Cairns to celebrate the release of their new books from Wolsak & Wynn!

About their books:

Ladder to Heaven by Katie Welch: In 2045 an earthquake ravages the Pacific Coast of North America and the world shifts. Suddenly people and animals can understand each other, while the chaos of climate change combines with the destruction of the earthquake in terrifying ways. Inland, where she should be safe, Del Samara finds her life spiralling out of control. Struggling with addiction and with her ranch in ashes around her, Del decides her family would be better off without her. Leaving her daughters behind, she retreats to her father’s fishing cabin with her dog, Manx. When she emerges three years later, she finds the world since the earthquake has become a very different place and she begins a dangerous journey to Vancouver Island to find her family and, perhaps, find peace.

In Crisis, On Crisis by James Cairns: In 2022, the Collins Dictionary announced that its word of the year was “permacrisis,” which it defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events.” Have we reached a breaking point, arrived at the moment of truth? If so, what now? If not, why do so many people say we’re living through a period of unprecedented crises? Drawing on social research, pop culture and literature, as well as his experience as an activist, father and teacher, James Cairns explores the ecological crisis, Trump’s return to power amid the so-called crisis of democracy, his own struggle with addiction and other moments of truth facing us today. In a series of insightful essays that move deftly between personal, theoretical and historical approaches he considers not only what makes something a crisis, but also how to navigate the effect of these destabilizing times on ourselves, on our families and on the world.

KATIE WELCH lives in Kamloops and on Cortes Island, BC. Her debut novel MAD HONEY was nominated for the 2023 OLA Evergreen Prize. She is a two-time alumnus of the Banff Centre and was a finalist for the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize.

JAMES CAIRNS lives with his family in Paris, Ontario, on territory that the Haldimand Treaty of 1784 recognizes as belonging to the Six Nations of the Grand River in perpetuity. He is a professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies, Law and Social Justice at Wilfrid Laurier University, where his courses and research focus on political theory and social movements.  James has published three books with the University of Toronto Press, most recently, The Myth of the Age of Entitlement: Millennials, Austerity, and Hope (2017), as well as numerous essays in periodicals such as Canadian Notes & Queries, the Montreal Review of Books, Briarpatch, TOPIA, Rethinking Marxism and the Journal of Canadian Studies. 

An Evening with Bob Joseph, presented by Perfect Books and The Other Hill

Perfect Books and The Other Hill are delighted to present An Evening with Bob Joseph, a night dedicated to celebrating the launch of his latest book, 21 Things You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government: A Conversation About Dismantling the Indian Act. Join us for a presentation, followed by an audience Q&A.

Tickets $10, available here: https://theotherhill-lautrecolline.ca/event/perfect-books-toh/

Doors open at 6:30 pm, Event 7:00-8:30pm

Location: AllSaints, 330 Laurier East, Ottawa

Bob Joseph is the author of the national best seller 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act. With his trademark wisdom, humility, and deep understanding, Bob Joseph shows us the path forward in 21 Things™ You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government: A Conversation About Dismantling the Indian Act, in which Indigenous self-governance is already happening and not to be feared—and negotiating more such arrangements, sooner rather than later, is an absolute necessity.

An Evening with Louise Penny - SOLD OUT**

*THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT*

The National Arts Centre is pleased to present an evening with Louise Penny, including an on-stage interview with the author and launch of her latest book in the Chief Inspector Gamache series, The Black Wolf. Books will be available for purchase on site courtesy of Perfect Books.

Ottawa Writers Festival presents Final Orbit with Chris Hadfield

CBC Radio’s Alan Neal hosts #1 bestselling author and astronaut Chris Hadfield, in celebration of his latest novel, Final Orbit, an edge-of-your-seat thriller set about China's secret role in the 1970s Space Race between the US and the USSR. Tickets include a copy of the book. Please note that this event will not be livestreamed.

Books provided by Perfect Books.

More informations and tickets available here: https://writersfestival.org/events/fall-2025/final-orbit

Margo Pierre launch for Ajar

Join Margo LaPierre for the Halloween launch of her second poetry collection, Ajar, alongside Jason Purcell and Nicola Vulpe, and hosted by Ellen Chang-Richardson. And don't miss the afraid-of-ghosts open mic or the best ghost costume contest!

The poems in Ajar navigate the physical and psychological dangers of womanhood through the flattening lens of mood disorder. Psychosis isn’t the opposite of reality—it’s another perceptual system. If neurotypical thought measures the world in centimetres, this collection measures it in inches, gallons, amperes. Ajar celebrates radical recovery from gendered violence and psychotic paradigm shifts, approaching madness through prismatic inquiry. As time converges within us, we find new ways to heal and grow. From the emergency room to the pharmacy to the fertility clinic to the dis/comfort of home and memory, this collection humanizes bipolar psychosis.

MARGO LAPIERRE is a writer and freelance literary editor. With multi-genre work published in The Ex-Puritan, CV2, Room, PRISM, and Arc, among others, she has won national awards for her poetry, fiction, and editing. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. Ajar is her second poetry collection.

Sean Paul Bedell Book Signing

Join Sean Paul Bedell for the book signing of his novel Shoebox!

Author of the novels Shoebox and Somewhere There’s Music, SEAN PAUL BEDELL has been writing and publishing for more than 30 years. A longtime paramedic and captain with the fire service, Sean lives with his wife Lisa in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Alex Manley launches Post-Man

Please join us in welcoming Alex Manley to the store for the launch for their second book of nonfiction, Post-Man!

In this divisive moment in the history of gender politics, Alex Manley navigates life as a neurodivergent non-binary person and explores their dislocations from the norm. 

Post-Man delves into the ways in which Manley has always felt apart, alone, and othered - how they always felt there was something wrong with them. In adulthood they came to recognize that in addition to suffering from depression, anxiety, ADHD, and possibly more, they understood themselves as existing outside the neat binary of gender that modern society imposes on us. 

With this understanding of themself, Manley takes readers through the stultifying machismo of hockey culture, the improbable job of working for a men's website, the strange unpleasantness of going bald as a non-binary person, and more. Heart-wrenching and profound, Post-Man is a book that will make you reconsider your own perceptions of masculinity and manhood

Alex Manley (they/them) is a non-binary writer, editor, translator and poet from and living in Montreal/Tiohtia:ke. They are the author of We Are All Just Animals & Plants (Metatron Press) and The New Masculinity (ECW Press), as well as the English-language translator of Daphne B.'s Made-Up (Coach House Books).

Book Signing with Jolly Bimbachi and Jay Bertrand

Join author Jolly Bimbachi and illustrator Jay Bertrand for a book signing and chat from 1-3 about their children’s book I Wish I Could…If I Could I Would.

These are the heartfelt and tender wishes of a parent for their child. Words of love, longing, hope, and happiness fill the pages of this book. From dreams of travel to daily routines, this story explores the love and bond between a parent and her/his child(ren). It echoes the desire of every parent’s heart: that parents and children belong together.

Jolly (she/her) acknowledges that she is a guest living on unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin People. Jolly is an educator, a leader, and a mentor. She has a master's degree in Transformative Leadership and Spirituality, and is deeply passionate about community-strengthening, relationship-building, and compassion for all. In her spare time, Jolly likes to dance, create flower arrangements, go on nature walks, and enjoys karaoke once in a while. Jolly lives in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada, with her daughter and their cat Cléo where she works for a non-profit serving students and teachers. Jolly is also one of the founders of Return Our Children Home - Canada.

Wilde About Sappho

Wilde about Sappho—Celebrating Lambda Scholarship Foundation Canada’s 40th Anniversary

After a sixteen-year run that concluded in 2007, Wilde About Sappho—Lambda’s pioneering 2SLGBTQIA+ literary gala—returns for one special afternoon to mark Lambda Foundation’s 40th Anniversary as part of ChromaQueer, Ottawa’s new Queer Film + Arts Festival.

We are celebrating 40 years of queer literature, education, and research. Please join us from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 9th, at the Arts Court Theatre to honour the voices that shaped our early years and celebrate the national scholarship programs that have grown from that legacy.

The writers headlining Wilde About Sappho in 2025 are John Barton, Donna Sharkey, H. Nigel Thomas, and Eli Tareq El-Bechelany Lynch.

Together again this November, let's honour Lambda's literary beginnings as we share our new plans for awards and scholarships to continue empowering Canadian 2SLGBTQIA+ and QTBIPOC communities.

Get complete details here: https://lambdafoundation.org/wildeaboutsappho/

With book sales by Perfect Books

Ottawa Writers Festival presents Poetry Caberet

Join us for an unforgettable evening of poetry hosted by Ottawa’s English language poet laureate, David O’Meara, as he welcomes Griffin Poetry Prize-winner Billy Ray Belcourt, Windham-Campbell Prize-winner Canisia Lubrin and Governor General’s Award–winner katherena vermette back to the Festival stage.
 
BILLY-RAY BELCOURT (he/him) is from the Driftpile Cree Nation in northwest Alberta. He won the Griffin Poetry Prize for his debut collection This Wound is a World. He has twice been nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award—once in poetry for the debut and in non-fiction for his memoir, A History of My Brief Body. Both his works of fiction, A Minor Chorus and Coexistence, were national bestsellers. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia.

CANISIA LUBRIN was born in St. Lucia. She has had work published in literary journals including Room, The Puritan, This Magazine, Arc, CV2 and The City Series #3: Toronto Anthology. She has been an arts administrator and community advocate for close to two decades. Lubrin has contributed to the podcast On The Line, hosted by Kate Sutherland for The Rusty Toque. She studied at York University where she won the President's Prize in poetry and the Sylvia Ellen Hirsch Memorial Award in creative writing. Lubrin holds an MFA from the University of Guelph and teaches at Humber College. She lives in Whitby, Ontario.

KATHERENA VERMETTE (she/her) is a Red River Métis (Michif) writer from Treaty 1 territory, the heart of the Métis Nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Vermette received the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry for her first book, North End Love Songs . Her first novel, The Break , won several awards including the Amazon First Novel Award, and was a bestseller in Canada. Her second novel, The Strangers , won the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, named Indigo’s 2021 Book of the Year, and was a #1 national bestseller. Her work in children’s literature includes the graphic novel series A Girl Called Echo . Vermette lives with her family in a cranky old house within skipping distance of the temperamental Red River.

With book sales by Perfect Books.

More details and tickets here: https://writersfestival.org/events/fall-2025/poetry-cabaret

Rebecca Hirsch Garcia launches Other Evolutions

We hope you are as excited as we are for Rebecca Hirsch Garcia’s book launch for Other Evolutions! Please join us for a conservation about this speculative wonder of a book you don’t want to miss! Hosted by Manahil Bandukwala.

With sharp human insight and unflinching prose, Other Evolutions is O. Henry Prize-winning author Rebecca Hirsch Garcia’s dark, speculative debut, perfect for readers of Iain Reid and Emily St. John Mandel.

Alma Alt, the sheltered youngest daughter of an interfaith, interracial Jewish-Mexican couple, rarely ventures far from her home on a wealthy tree-lined street in Ottawa, where nothing ever happens. The one time she did, striking out to visit her older sister, Marnie, in Montreal, things ended in disaster as she found out that beautiful, blonde Marnie had been lying about their family’s background, trying to pass herself off as white. The fallout from that betrayal leads to a devastating accident, one that claims Alma’s arm and someone’s life.

Alma is now stuck in a holding pattern, unable to move past her grief. But Alma's life is turned upside down by an encounter just steps from home with an impossible person: the boy she watched die.

Rebecca Hirsch Garcia lives in Ottawa, ON. An O. Henry Award–winning author, she has been published in The Threepenny Review, PRISM international, The Dark, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, The Girl Who Cried Diamonds & Other Stories (2023), was the runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and shortlisted for an Ottawa Book Award. Other Evolutions is her debut novel.

Lyse Doucet at Ottawa Writers Festival

Ottawa Writers Festivals welcomes Lyse Doucet and her book The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People's History of Afganistan.

When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan’s first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising country connected to the world. More than fifty years on, the Inter-Continental is still standing. It has endured Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a grievous civil war, a US invasion and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. History lives within its scarred windows and walls.
 
Doucet has been checking into the Inter-Continental since 1988. And here, she uses its story to craft a richly immersive history of modern Afghanistan.

With book sales by Perfect Books.

More details and tickets available here: https://writersfestival.org/events/fall-2025/the-finest-hotel-in-kabul-a-peoples-history-of-afghanistan

Book Signing with Irina Moga

Join poet Irina Mona for a book signing for her poetry collection, Quantum, from 1-3 pm!

Quantum is a collection of poems meant to anchor readers in light-heartedness and serenity. One of the themes in the book is the view that poetry can be perceived as a field of creative energy, whose quanta surround us and in which we can immerse ourselves via the mediating power of daydreaming. Poetry is the deconstruction of reality and its recompilation into an alternate paradigm, guided by intuition, aesthetics, and the quantum mechanics of one’s own imagination. In Quantum, the author moves us through layers of sensorial cues and a discourse whose ultimate goal is healing - an everyday catharsis for life’s tough moments, held in balance by the power of words.

Irina Moga is a trilingual poet writing in English, French, and Romanian, and a member of The Writers’ Union of Canada. The author of six poetry collections, she brings a distinctive voice to contemporary literature, one that interlaces linguistic precision with lyrical depth. Her collection Variations sans palais (Éditions L’Harmattan, Paris) received the 2022 Dina Sahyouni International Literary Prize in France. Her poems have appeared widely in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France in publications such as Canadian Literature, carte blanche, New York Quarterly, and California Quarterly. Her work has been nominated for the SFPA Rhysling Award and Best of the Net. Moga’s poetry has been translated into German, Spanish, Korean and Farsi, further extending its reach across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

Ottawa Writers Festival presents Rick Westhead

Join TSN’s Senior Correspondent Rick Westhead, for a hard-hitting and powerful look at hockey's moment of reckoning in Canada, and the ways in which a game that is so universally loved has been rocked in recent years by court cases involving sexual assault and startling incidents of hazing and abuse throughout junior hockey.
 
In We Breed Lions: Confronting Canada's Troubled Hockey Culture, award-winning journalist and bestselling author Rick Westhead does a deep-dive into the state of hockey in Canada today. He gives voice to those who have been sexually assaulted by hockey players, revealing the struggles they've had with local police officials in their efforts to seek justice. He also goes inside the dressing room to find out how attitudes of misogyny and homophobia continue to flourish, and speaks to former players who were forced to perform degrading acts of initiation in order to “be one of the guys.”

With book sales by Perfect Books.

Tickets and details here: https://writersfestival.org/events/fall-2025/we-breed-lions

Amelie B. Book Signing

Join Amélie B. For a book signing from her poetry collection from 1-3pm!

the things we left unsaid is a honest and authentic collection of poetry written by two best friends, reflecting on some subjects we often struggle to voice. through its pages, you'll explore themes of trauma, healing, growth, love, friendship, and more. this book is our truth, it's all the things we left unsaid.

Amélie B. is a writer from a small town near Ottawa. She is pursuing her post-secondary education at the University of Ottawa. Amélie’s debut “lost poems” was a great success with support from her high school. When she’s not writing, Amélie enjoys reading, movies, music, having coffee dates and of course, food. Her love for writing started at an early age. At first, she didn’t like poetry but in high school, she discovered the author Rupi Kaur and that’s when she fell in love with poetry. Amélie sees her poems as honest truth about topics that we don’t talk about enough in person. She doesn’t shy away from the truth and is open about her own mental health.

Ottawa Writers Festival presents Alan Doyle

CBC Radio’s Alan Neal hosts an evening celebrating Newfoundland’s storied past and its ever-vibrant present with musician, actor and writer Alan Doyle.
 
Few Canadian musicians are as synonymous with their home province as Alan Doyle is to his—and even fewer once worked as tour guides. In The Smiling Land: All Around the Circle in My Newfoundland and Labrador, Alan reprises his tour-guiding role to welcome the rest of Canada to his home and take readers on an adventure: a freewheeling road trip through Newfoundland, its history, and its culture. From Fogo Island to the Southwest Coast, Labrador to Ferryland, and everywhere in between, Alan's Newfoundland awaits you.

With book sales by Perfect Books.

More details and tickets available here: https://writersfestival.org/events/fall-2025/the-smiling-land

Ottawa Writers Festival presents Terry O'Reilly

Don’t miss Terry O’Reilly, bestselling author and host of CBC Radio’s Under the Influence as he returns to the Festival stage with his latest, Against the Grain: Defiant Giants Who Changed the World.
 
In Terry’s bestseller, My Best Mistake, he uncovers the surprising power of screwing up. Now, he turns his incredible eye to the mavericks who go “against the grain” in their work to see what makes them tick and to explore what lessons we can learn from them.
 
People who chose to ignore conventional wisdom, found or invented a better way, questioned the status quo at great sacrifice and pushed for change against all odds. Some were drummed out of their careers for it but in the end were proven right (Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis). Some were celebrated but had to fight every inch of the way (Norman Lear). Some re-invented their industry but preferred to stay an outsider (Tom Laughlin—aka Billy Jack). Some confounded their competitors with ingenious strategies (NHL coach Roger Neilson). One even saved millions of people around the world, but was humiliated, demoted, and dismissed for her entire career (Dr. Katalin Karikó—co-creator of the COVID vaccine). All persistent visionaries, each covered in battle scars.

With book sales by Perfect Books.

Details and tickets here: https://writersfestival.org/events/fall-2025/against-the-grain