Festival Book Club with Carly Watters, Kerry Clare, and Mai Nguyen

Ottawa Writers Festival presents the Festival Book Club!

Podcaster Carly Watters, a literary agent, representing award-winners and bestsellers in a variety of categories, will spill the tea on what she thinks makes for a great read as she and Mary Taggart, author and founder of #marysmustread book club discuss what makes a good book club pick. They’ll also share their top book club recommendations.

Then, Mary takes the stage for a conversation with two of the country’s hottest authors, Mai Nguyen and Kerry Clare, to get a taste of their newly released books and find out how they bring a story to life.

Mai Nguyen ’s Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead is a darkly humorous yet uplifting novel about a grieving mother who starts working at a funeral home and discovers that the best way to honor the dead is to live. All Cleo has ever wanted was to be a mother. The day she discovers she’s pregnant is the happiest of her life, but something goes very, very wrong. Now a grieving Cleo must navigate life after losing her baby. Forced to quit her demanding job as an actuary, Cleo manages to find a job at a funeral home where she meets a revolving door of bereaved locals and discovers the power of confronting grief.

A novel about friendship, community, and church jumble sales,  Definitely Thriving  by Kerry Clare , is a celebration of people who are perfectly imperfect, and all the love and support that’s required for one woman to make it on her own. After accidentally-on-purpose exploding her listless marriage, Clemence returns to her hometown resolved to build a life for herself. It’s supposed to be Eat, Pray, Love, without the love part. But no woman is an island, and soon Clemence finds herself embroiled in neighbourhood drama.

This special event will not be live-streamed. Tickets include welcome beverage and nibbles. Cash bar available.

Book sales by Perfect Books.

The Chip Stand Book Signing

Join Joel Kimmel and Chantal Bennett for a book signing for their book, The Chip Stand!

The humble chip stand is an iconic symbol of Canada and a welcome sight to hungry tourists and locals alike.

Eating at a chip stand is an unpretentious experience. No white tablecloths or extensive menus here. The chip stand is where down-to-earth, real Canadians go to indulge. It's the quintessential Canadian road trip food. From coast to coast, these colorful shacks, sheds, buses, vans and trucks dish out delicious French fries, poutine, hamburgers and steaming hot Pogos.

For 10 years, illustrators Chantal Bennett and Joel Kimmel have taken road trips around Canada searching for the best chip stands, interviewing the owners and celebrating the colorful stands in drawings and paintings. Their beautiful illustrations capture the eclectic aesthetic of chip stands from British Columbia to Newfoundland.

Sadly, many chip stands are disappearing or being replaced with shiny food trucks. This book serves as an archive of Canada's disappearing chip stands that so many people cherish. It offers up a fresh-cut serving of over 130 illustrations of the best-looking chip stands in the country.

Once you've read this book you'll never look at a chip stand the same way again.

JOEL KIMMEL is an illustrator who specializes in portraits, maps, athletes and travel postcard illustrations. He is a graduate of Sheridan College's illustration program. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Maroon Magazine, Maclean's, Scientific American, Time and the Wall Street Journal. He shares a studio with his wife, illustrator Chantal Bennett.

CHANTAL BENNETT is an editorial illustrator who enjoys illustrating portraits, icons and other things that reflect her passion for history, fashion history and cute vintage things in general. She also has a soft spot for fairytales and turn-of-the-century illustrations. She studied illustration at Parsons the New School for Design in NYC. When not working she enjoys historical sewing, plein air painting, printing on an 1800-pound letterpress and hanging out with her husband, Joel Kimmel, and their beagles, Peanut and Pistache.

House of Anansi Poetry Bash

Join Ottawa Writers Festival for an evening of poetry and conversation celebrating new titles from House of Anansi Press.

Part self-interrogation, part confession, part hospital diary, the intense, heartbreakingly frank poems in BRANDI BIRD'S second collection, Pitiful, detail the author’s ongoing struggles with eating disorders and depression, conditions that disproportionately afflict Indigenous girls, women, and two-spirited persons.

A.F. MORITZ'S twenty-third book of poems originated with an impulse, beginning in April 2019, to write a series of continuous poems. The first goal was to keep them short. The second was to make them separate, in the process reflecting the whole of human life, stable in moments and bodies. In The Wren, Moritz arranges 70 short poems in a sort of galaxy: an apparent scatter, not of stars but of poems, of feeling-thoughts.

GRAEME BEZANSON'S debut collection, Ultra Blue, is a book-length sequence of poems about the emotional lives of boys and the challenges of growing up within contemporary constructions of masculinity. These intense, insistently strange poems developed from Bezanson's struggles with guiding his young son through a culture of toxic masculinity and violence.

Special thanks to our friends at the Great Canadian Theatre Company. With book sales by Perfect Books.

Reserve your free tickets to this limited seating event here!

Murray Mollard Book Signing

Don’t miss Murray Mollard in store signing copies of Winning Pitch: The Canadian Men’s Soccer Team at the World Cup and Beyond ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup!

In 2026, millions of soccer fans will have their eyes on Canada as we co-host the Greatest Show on Earth: the FIFA World Cup in Vancouver and Toronto. And they will wonder—will Canada’s men’s team be heroes or heartbreakers? Winning Pitch: The Canadian Men’s Soccer Team at the World Cup and Beyond provides expert insight into the question of what it will take for Canada’s national men’s team and soccer in Canada to be successful in 2026 and beyond. Though it had recent success at the Copa América, Canada’s men’s soccer team has been here before. The incredible story of Canada’s first World Cup in 1986—featuring many players from British Columbia—and our second appearance in Qatar in 2022 were followed by big letdowns. They provide important lessons for the future.

With more books about soccer in Canada focused on memoirs from standout Canadian soccer greats, something is missing. Winning Pitch fills the gap with a more comprehensive look at the culture and systems necessary for securing Canada’s future soccer fortunes. Weaving together interviews with coaches, fans, executives and players, as well as his own reflections of more than five decades in the sport as both a player and an executive, author and lawyer Murray Mollard criss-crosses the country to understand the people and ideas that shape our history and future with the Beautiful Game.

MURRAY MOLLARD is a former UBC champion player, coach, governor, passionate supporter and observer of the sport in Canada. He is a regular contributor to the sports and op-ed pages of major newspapers such as the Vancouver Sun and The Province. He lives in Vancouver, BC.

Book Signing with Peggy Kleinplatz

Please join Peggy Kleinplatz, Ph.D for a book signing from two of her books: Magnificent Sex and New Directions in Sex Therapy: Innovations and Alternatives, Third Edition.

About the books:

Magnificent Sex is based on the largest, in-depth interview study ever conducted with people who are having extraordinary sex. It gathers the nuggets for remarkable sex from the "experts", distilling them into an attainable blueprint for ordinary lovers who want to make erotic intimacy grow over the course of a lifetime. Looking at factors including individual and relational qualities, empathic communication and the myths and realities of magnificent sex, this book offers accessible and evidence-based guidance for lovers and therapists alike.

It is replete with frank and often humorous interviews with straight and LGBTQ individuals and couples, those who are "vanilla" and "kinky", monogamous and consensually non-monogamous and healthy and chronically ill. This illuminating book explores the implications of the findings to develop a model that effectively tackles the common problems of low desire and frequency. The "cure" for low desire is to create desirable sex!

New Directions in Sex Therapy: Innovations and Alternatives, Third Edition focuses on new and cutting-edge therapy paradigms as alternatives to conventional clinical strategies, challenging practitioners to expand our thinking about how to deal with sexual concerns. In the third edition of this award-winning book, Peggy J. Kleinplatz, Ph.D., brings together the best therapists and sexologists to advance beyond predominant approaches to sexual difficulties.

PEGGY J. KLEINPLATZ, Ph.D is Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. Please see www.optimalsexualexperiences.com . She is a Certified Sex Therapist and Educator. Her research focuses on optimizing sexual experience, with a particular interest in sexual health in older adults, people with disabilities and chronic illness and other marginalized populations. Kleinplatz has edited or authored six books including New Directions in Sex Therapy: Innovations and Alternatives, winner of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counsellors and Therapists (AASECT) 2013 Book Award and with A. Dana Menard, Ph.D. Magnificent Sex: Lessons from Extraordinary Lovers, winner of the 2021 Society for Sex Therapy and Research Consumer Book Award. In 2015, Kleinplatz received the AASECT Professional Standard of Excellence Award. In 2021, Kleinplatz received the Distinguished Sexual and Gender Health Revolutionary Award from the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health of the Medical School, University of Minnesota. In 2021, she became a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. Her research, writing, teaching and clinical work have been intended to challenge, expand and diversify the field of sex therapy.

An Evening with Eckhart Tolle

We are delighted to invite you to a rare and transformational evening with Eckhart Tolle live in Ottawa.

Join us for this unique opportunity to sit with Eckhart as he points you to spiritual awakening and the transformation of consciousness.

With his hallmark warmth, humour and compassion, this evening will connect you with the peace and serenity that arises from living in the moment.

Eckhart’s profound, yet simple teachings have helped countless people from around the globe awaken to a vibrantly alive inner peace in their daily lives. The New York Times has called Eckhart Tolle “the most popular spiritual author in the United States”, and the Watkins Review named him as “the most spiritually influential person in the world”.

ECKHART TOLLE'S writings and life-changing public events have touched millions of lives, garnering fans to the likes of Oprah, the Dalai Lama and Deepak Chopra. He is the best-selling author of The Power of Now and A New Earth that are widely regarded as the most transformational books of our time.

With book sales by Perfect Books.

Tickets available here!

Book Signing with Tina Spencer

Join Tina Spencer as she signs books from her Hudson Yards series!

TINA SPENCER is an international bestselling Canadian romance author known for her dark, emotional, and addictive stories that blur the line between love and obsession. When she’s not writing about dangerous men and fierce heroines, she’s spending time with her family, trying to take a nap, or wrestling with her never ending to-do list. You can find her at www.tinaspencerbooks.com. 

Rod Phillips Book Launch for Cats: A History

Cat lovers, turn up! We know you are out there! Rod Phillips is here to launch his sweeping and fascinating history of cat-human relationships, Cats: A History.

For more than 10,000 years, cats have prowled at the edges of human life. But, starting only a few decades ago, hundreds of millions of them became pets. In Cats: A History, Rod Phillips shares a sweeping cultural and social history of felines, tracing their shifting place across societies and centuries, from ancient Egypt's revered hunters to Europe's suspected familiars of witches and from shipboard rodent controllers to cherished internet icons.

ROD PHILLIPS is a professor of History at Carleton University. Cats is his first, but almost certainly not his last, venture into animal history. His earlier books include histories of marriage and divorce and histories of alcohol and wine. He wrote a weekly wine column for the Ottawa Citizen for 17 years.

Maude Barlow Book Launch: Earth for Sale

Join renowned activist Maude Barlow and researcher Stuart Trew to celebrate Maude’s latest book, Earth for Sale!

Activist Maude Barlow argues against the financialization and commodification of the natural world — including carbon credits, conservation bonds, and pollution trading — as a false climate solution and yet another erosion of public spaces and resources.

MAUDE BARLOW is the bestselling author of 21 books. She co-founded the Council of Canadians, chairing its board for over three decades, sits on the board of Food & Water Watch, and the board of advisors of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature. She served as senior water advisor to the UN General Assembly and was a leader in the campaign to have water recognized as a human right. She is the recipient of 17 honorary doctorates and many awards, including the 2005 Right Livelihood Award. She lives in Ottawa, ON.

STUART TREW is a researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives where he directs the centre’s Trade and Investment Research Project. 

Book Signing with Ann Cavlovic

Please join Gatineau-based author Ann Cavlovic for a book signing for her novel, Count On Me.

Filled with hope and humour amid hardship, Count on Me exposes how a family can fracture when aging parents grow frail and debts from the past resurface. When Tia’s brother helps himself to their ailing parents’ money, Tia struggles through a complex web of legal and emotional hurdles to protect them while trying to raise her own child. Count on Me is a story about how we come to feel entitled to someone else’s money, and how human relationships can rise above the transactional.

This novel explores issues that so many families face yet are rarely talked about. Evidence suggests that 10% or more of seniors experience some form of elder abuse (financial, emotional, physical, or medical), with over 400,000 seniors living in nursing or retirement homes and nearly 2 million Canadians “sandwiched” between caregiving for both elders and children. 

 Ann will have resource sheets to distribute to families and elders to help navigate these waters.

ANN CAVLOVIC’s fiction and creative non-fiction have appeared in the CBC, Event, The Fiddlehead, The Globe & Mail, Grain, PRISM international, Room, and elsewhere. She wrote Emissions: A Climate Comedy, which won “Best in Fest” at the 2013 Ottawa Fringe Theatre Festival. She lives in Western Quebec. Find out more at: anncavlovic.com.

Book Signing with Ayla Vejdani

Join Ayla Vejdani for a book signing for her debut novel, YOU X ME!

YOU x ME is a series of modern entanglements: Noura swipes right on Luna with a little help from her group-chat, Maryam and Nilou fall for each other between shared playlists, while Paz and Ale reminisce about the sweat-soaked dance floor of their youth. Set in cosmopolitan settings from Los Angeles to Montréal, this hot and hopeful QTBIPOC contemporary romance offers escape, self-discovery, and a dose of glamor. As Maya Angelou encourages, this book calls readers to “have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.” YouxMeBook.com

“You x Me is a remarkable kaleidoscope of the tangled and tender terrain of human relationships. With nuance, emotional precision and vulnerability, Ayla Vejdani renders queer, cross-cultural dynamics to reveal how intimacy can at once unsettle and sustain us.” — Zaina Arafat, author of the award-winning novel YOU EXIST TOO MUCH

“The poetic language and thoughtful representation offer a smart, sexy panorama of what love can look like. … This book is unlike any other romance.” — KIRKUS Reviews 

AYLA VEJDANI (she/her) is a storyteller, holder of space and curator of experience. Raised and educated all over the world, she has a master’s in human rights, is an inclusive leadership consultant, and the co-host of The SHIFT podcast. She speaks four languages and laughs in all. Ayla is a queer Iranian-Canadian from Tkaronto/Toronto living in Tiohtia:ke/Montréal, raising her two young children. She is an insatiably creative, romantic realist who believes in magic. Her forthcoming novel YOU x ME is a series of queer, BIPOC love stories. These modern entanglements are the kind of romances that make us lose sleep, love letters to the friendships we can’t live without, and a celebration of our endless journeys of self-discovery. @ayla.author