Science Fiction and Fantasy Events in Toronto, April 2011

These events are from the science fiction & fantasy calendar I've started.  If you have an event that's not listed, email me and I'll put it on the calendar.  While I try to get the details correct, always check the links to confirm event information. And I'll be updating this post as I learn of more events.

Sunday April 3

Kelley Armstrong Reading from her young adult novel The Gathering.
Where: Indigo Yorkdale, 3401 Dufferin, Toronto, chapters.indigo.ca
When: 2 pm
Admission: Free

Friday April 8

Meet Sci-Fi Author Glenn Grant
Where: Lillian H. Smith Library (239 College St), Merril Collection
When: 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Canadian sci-fi writer Glenn Grant - who is also the co-editor of the Canadian science fiction anthology series Northern Stars - reads from his novel and answers questions about submitting work to anthologies.

Friday April 8 - Sunday April 10

Ad Astra Conference
Where: Toronto Don Valley Hotel and Suites (1250 Eglington Ave. East)
When: Friday 5 pm - 12 am, Saturday 10 am - 12 am, Sunday 10 am - 5 pm
Cost: $30/day Friday and Sunday, $50/day Saturday, $70 weekend + HST

Saturday April 9 - Sunday 10

Toronto ComiCon (Note, this is not the Wizard's World Comic Con, which was in March)
Where: Metro Toronto Convention Centre (North Building) 255 Front Street. West  (*Note: their site says North Building, the MTCC site says South Building)
When: Saturday 11 - 6 pm, Sunday 11 - 5 pm
Admission is FREE on both days. No coupons required! 

Monday April 11

TINARS PRESENTS CHIZINE'S BLACKJACK, LOST MYTHS AND OTHER FANTASIES LAUNCH
Where: The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom (1214 Queen Street West)
When: 7 - 10 pm (doors open at 7, event starts at 7:30)
Cost: $5 or Free with book purchase
Dark genre fiction authors Gemma Files, Claude Lalumière, Brent Hayward and David Nickle become dealers in a fans vs. authors Blackjack game to launch new ChiZine publications A Rope of Thorns, The Door to Lost Pages, The Fecund’s Melancholy Daughter, and Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism. Enjoy a performance of “Lost Myths” as Claude Lalumière reads against a soundscape composed and performed by Matthew Burton aka DJ Komodo accompanied by artwork by Rupert Bottenberg.

Tuesday April 12

Chiaroscuro Reading Series: The Robs Take Toronto (Robert Shearman, Robert-Paul Weston & Robert Priest)
Where: Augusta House (152 Augusta Avenue, Toronto)
When:8 - 11 pm

Thursday April 28 - Sunday May 1

Globe and Mail Open House Festival
Writers and thinkers including Izzeldin Abuelaish, Jim Bryson, Karen Armstrong and Jane Urquhart come together for readings and discussions.
Benefit for: Child Soldiers Initiative/Frontier College/Toronto Public Library
Where: multiple locations
When: varies by talk
Cost: $15/talk, $100 Salon Passes for all talks

Science Fiction and Fantasy Events in Toronto, March 2011

So I don't bore people not in the Toronto area with numerous event listings, I'll do one post on the last day of the month for upcoming events.  These are from the science fiction & fantasy calendar I've started.  If you have an event that's not listed, email me and I'll put it on the calendar.  While I'll try to get the details correct, always check the links to confirm event information. And I'll be updating this list as I learn of more events.

Friday March 4
The Great Extraterrestrial Debate: Seth Shostak, Ray Jayawardhana, Bob McDonald, and Robert J. Sawyer
Sponsored by the Centre for Inquiry Ontario, and
Hosted by the University of Toronto Secular Alliance
University of Toronto
Where: J.R.R. MacLeod Auditorium | University of Toronto, Medical Sciences Building
1 Kings College Circle, Toronto ON
When: Friday, March 4, 2011 from 7:00 to 9:30 p.m.

Admission varies between $10 and $20. See website to purchase advance tickets.

Sunday March 6
Chiaroscuro Reading Series: Cory Doctorow Comes to Town
Where: Augusta House (152 Augusta St.)
When: 8-11 pm
Book readings by Cory Doctorow, Karl Schroeder and David Nickle.

Monday March 14
Strange New Worlds With Ray Jayawardhana
Where: Northern District Library (40 Orchard View Blvd)
When: 7 - 9:30 pm
"In "Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond Our Solar System", renowned astronomer Ray Jayawardhana brings the latest news from the forefront of research, including some of his own findings, and tells a tale rich in history and personalities. Jayawardhana is a professor and Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. His discoveries make headlines internationally and he has won many accolades."

Friday March 18 to Sunday March 20th
Wizard World Toronto Comic Con
Where: Direct Energy Centre, (100 Princes' Boulevard)
When: Friday 4-9pm, Saturday 10-7, Sunday 11-6pm
See site for ticket information, guests, etc.

Saturday March 19 & Sunday March 20
Toronto AnimeCon
Where: Metro Toronto Convention Centre (North Building)
255 Front Street. West
When: 11 - 6 pm Saturday, 11-5 Sunday
Admission only available at the door during the show hours of Animecon
Fan Expo Canada VIP Ticket holders admitted FREE!
Flat rate admission $15.00 for Saturday and/or Sunday. Children age 10 and under admitted FREE with adult ticket purchase! (proof of age required)

Sunday March 20th
Space-Time Continuum Discussion Group
Where: Bakka Phoenix Books (84 Harbord St)
When: 1 pm
Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse Edited by John Joseph Adams  
Focus on Stories: Bread and Bombs by M. Rickert;
Speech Sounds by Octavia E. Butler;
Killers by Carol Emshwiller;
The End of the World as We Know It by Dale Bailey;
A Song Before Sunset by David Grigg;
Episode Seven� by John Langans


Tuesday March 29
Robert J. Sawyer Book Launch for WWW: Wonder (scroll down for launch details)
Where: Dominion on Queen Pub (500 Queen Street East)
When: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 7:00 p.m.
Bakka Phoenix will be onhand to sell books

PYR Starts Author Round Tables

Starting today, PYR books will be doing periodic author round tables.

In what we intend as a regular Pyr-o-mania feature, we will be asking our authors a few questions about writing and their books.

For their first one, they welcome authors: Mark Chadbourn, Jasper Kent and James Barclay.

TOR Books Starts Monthly Twitter Chat Series

From the Tor/Forge website:

Calling all Tweetgeeks: science fiction stars Greg Bear, Steven Gould, and M.J. Locke to kick off first #Torchat next Wednesday, 2/16 at 4 PM EST

New York, NY – Wednesday, February 9, 2011 – Tor Books is excited to announce the launch of #Torchat, a new SF/f genre-themed, hour-long chat series hosted on Twitter. Guest authors will join fans in lively, informative and entertaining discussions of all that’s hot in genre fiction (140 characters at a time) from 4 – 5 PM Eastern on the third Wednesday of every month. Each #Torchat will revolve around a different genre topic of interest, with new guest authors and exclusive fan giveaways from @Torbooks.

Next Wednesday’s first #Torchat will revolve around a discussion of “hard” science fiction, that ambiguous and often narrowly defined subgenre of SF that purports to extrapolate from “real science.” Special guest authors Greg Bear (@spacegriz), Steven Gould (@StevenGould), and M.J. Locke (@MorganJLocke) will lead a fan chat on what Hard SF means, whose really doing it (and whose not…), and the science behind the fiction, using the Twitter hashtag #Torchat.

The chat will be introduced and (loosely) moderated by Tor publicist Justin Golenbock (@jgolenbo), with giveaways of advance copies of upcoming summer SF releases from @TorBooks preceding and following the 4 PM chat.

Our Author guests:

Greg Bear has won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards and is the acclaimed author of some of SF’s most iconic novels, including Eon, The Forge of God, and last fall’s Hull Zero Three.  His most recent novel, Halo: Cryptum, is a current New York Times bestseller. He is new to Twitter.

Steven Gould is the national bestselling author of Jumper, adapted by Hollywood as a major motion picture in 2008, as well as Wildside, Helm, Blind Waves, Reflex, Jumper: Griffin’s Story, and the forthcoming SF novel 7th Sigma (July 2011). He is the recipient of the Hal Clement Young Adult Award for Science Fiction and has been nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

M.J. Locke is the author of the forthcoming SF novel Up Against It (March 2011), about a deep space mining colony in the midst of a lethal resource crisis. She works as an environmental engineer in the American Southwest, a really cool job that lets her to apply real experience to her SF writing.

 Sounds cool.  Will you be tweeting along?

(And the teacher in me would like to point out that it should be who's (as in, who is), not whose (which means owner of).)

ChiZine Publications Starts Monthly Reading Series in Toronto

The Chiaroscuro reading series, sponsored by CZP, runs the second Tuesday of the month, normally at the Augusta House (125 Augusta Ave.) in Toronto.

Their mandate:

at the Augusta House

152 Augusta Avenue, 2nd Floor

(link to google map? or jpeg of google map?)

Toronto, ONery available between 21-24 of this month

 Emerging from early magic realism, mythology and fable, from the work of science fiction authors who cut their teeth during the 1950’s golden age of pulp science fiction, and from the disturbing literary forays of horror writers inspired by Shelley, Poe, and Stoker, Canadian speculative fiction has begun to move in strange and provocative new directions, becoming something altogether different from its American counterpart and wholly itself. 

 We believe that Canadian authors may well prove to be the kind of rejuvenating force necessary to revitalize the “pulp” genres of fantasy, science fiction and horror writing.  As Canadian publications including Neo-Opsis, OnSpec, Ideomancer, Challenging Destiny, the long-running Tesseracts collections, and our own ChiZine Publications become increasingly prominent markets for speculative fiction, we want to establish a dialogue between senior and junior authors, between authors and editors, and between authors and readers in order to encourage the growth of this important literary domain. 

If you're in town, their next event * takes place at Bakka Phoenix Books will be honouring Bakka Phoenix Books (84 Harbord St.) as it features several of their alumni, on Tuesday, February 8th, 8-11pm.  It will still take place at Augusta House.  Here are the authors participating, from the event page on facebook:

ROBERT J SAWYER is one of only seven writers in history (and the only Canadian) to win all three of the science-fiction field's top honors for best novel of the year: the Hugo Award; the Nebula Award; and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

ED GREENWOOD is an award-winning Canadian writer, editor, game designer, columnist, and librarian best known as the creator of The Forgotten Realms® fantasy world. 

LEAH BOBET has a degree in linguistics from the University of Toronto, edits at Ideomancer Speculative Fiction, and moonlights at Bakka-Phoenix Books, Canada's oldest science fiction bookstore.

MICHELLE SAGARA WEST, a 1992 Campbell Award nominee, started her first novel, Into the Dark Lands, in 1986, which was eventually published by Del Rey books at the tail end of 1991. She has also published the House War with DAW and the Chronicles of Elantra.

If you want more information about the reading series or the workships they offer, head on over to their website.

* Thanks to The Quiet One who corrected me on the venue in the comments.