Book Launch for I Remember Lights

Come out for the book launch for Ottawa’s own Ben Ladouceur, presented by Ottawa Writers Festival in partnership with Library and Archives Canada and the Ottawa Public Library! Hosted by Dave Currie.

Ladouceur’s anticipated debut novel, I Remember Lights depicts a time when the world promised everything to everyone, however irresponsibly. This book is a vital reminder of forgotten history and a visceral exploration of the details of queer life: tribulation and joy, exile and solidarity, cruelty and fortitude.

Free tickets for this limited seating events are available at writersfestival.org

Canadian Independent Bookstore Day!

April 26th is Canadian Independent Bookstore Day! You can celebrate with The Ottawa Indie Bookstore Crawl, April 25-27! Have a fun, book-filled weekend, all while supporting all your favorite, indie, local booksellers!

Here's how to participate:

Starting April 25, pick up your passport at a participating store and visit 7 out of 8 participating bookstores by April 27. No purchase necessary!

Submit your competed passport for your chance to win:
• $200 to spend at Ottawa indie bookstores, OR
• One of eight secondary prizes of $25 to spend at an indie.

Partipating Ottawa indies:

Perfect Books
Mill Street Books
The Spaniels Tale Bookstore
Octopus Books
Singing Pebble
Books on Beechwood
Westboro Books
World of Maps

Ottawa Writers Festival Day 1

Day One of the 2025 Spring Edition Edition of Ottawa Writers Festival kicks off and we are excited to be the bookseller once again! Head over to writersfestival.org for full details on all the readers and to snag your tickets. Thursday evening includes authors like Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Eliza Reid!

Ottawa Writers Festival Day 2

Day Two of Ottawa Writers Festival features highlights such as a historical fiction panel with Gwen Tuinman, Jack Wang, and McQuaig, before wrapping with a compelling discussion with Nora Loreto.

Grab your tickets and more information at writersfestival.org

Ottawa Writers Festival Day 3

Start Day Three of Ottawa Writers Festival with a science afternoon, featuring authors like Neil Shubin and Timothy Caufield. The evening moves on to politics, with discussions on everything oil with Don Gilmour, to what defunding the police actually means with Sandy Hudson. Then end your evening with some new fiction with Iryn Tushube, Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, and local favorite superstar Amal El-Mohtar.

Tickets and more info at writersfestival.org

Ottawa Writers Festival Day 4

The final day of Ottawa Writers Festival offers an array of events and topics: discussions on truth and reconciliation with Bruce McIvor and Rose LeMay; book banning with Ira Wells; the art of short fiction with Andre Alexis, Catherine Bush, and Bill Gaston; and more!

Get your tickets at writersfestival.org

Professor Alice Roberts: From Cell to Civilization (SOLD OUT)

Acclaimed author, anthropologist and broadcaster Professor Alice Roberts delivers a brand-new live show, From Cell to Civilization.

This state-of-art multimedia experience will take us on the thrilling journey of humankind from the first spark of life 3.8 billion years ago, to the rise of early civilizations across the globe. It will explore the connectivity of all things and examine our past and our present through the lens of genetics and archaeology. We will learn how we know what we know, and why we think what we think. This is the story of us, from a single cell to civilization.

As seen on BBC and Channel 4, Professor Alice Roberts is an award-winning anatomist, anthropologist and author. She has been the recipient of the Royal Society's David Attenborough Award and has presented over one hundred TV series on human biology, history, and archaeology such as Digging for Britain, The Incredible Human Journey, Origins of Us, Ice Age Giants, Ancient Egypt by Train, Curse of the Ancients, and Royal Autopsy.

More information and tickets here

Seed Beetle and Myth Double Launch

Join us as Terese Mason Pierre and Mahaila Smith launch their respective, highly-anticipated, debut spectulative poetry collections together!

Myth (House of Anansi), by Terese Mason Pierre, asks: How can myths manifest themselves in our daily lives? What do we actually mean when we say we love ourselves and others? And how do we pursue/create futures that honour our truths, histories and legacies? In three movements and two interludes, the poems in Myth move symphonically from tropical islands to barren cities, from lucid dreams to the mysteries of reality, from the sea to the cosmos.

Seed Beetle (Stelliform Press), by Mahaila Smith, is a collection of illustrated poems told through queer and femme perspectives, lays bare the social implications of a technological savior, and creates a blueprint for co-opting technology in the name of community and connection. Seed Beetle explores the risks inherent in utopia and the idea that through science alone we can solve our environmental problems.

Salmon Run Book Launch

It's a new chapter release launch event! Join Jeff McIntyre as he launches chapter four of six in the graphic novel series Salmon Run, hosted by writer and editor Kimberly Lemaire (arts journalist for Apt 613).

Salmon Run is a compelling rock’n’roll road story; about being on the run to shake off and outpace the wolves that hunt mental health.

Learn more about Jeff: https://www.jeffmcintyreart.com/news-events

Ottawa Writers Festival, May 14th Events

Join Ottawa Writers Festival for two crime fiction events, featuring authors Uzma Jalaluddin, Nita Prose, Sue Hincenbergs, Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti!

Tickets and details available at writersfestival.org

Mike Martin Double Book Launch

Mike Martin returns to Perfect Books to launch two brand new books:

-Friends are Forever, the new Sgt. Wildflower Mystery

and

-Hope, Love, and Other Dreams, a collection of poetry

He'll be joined by special musicial guest Victoria Vlad! Join us for an evening of poetry, readings, and music.

Ottawa Writers Festival presents Happily Ever After

Ottawa Writers Festivals brings together three romance authors for discuss their different takes on love and the promise of happily ever after. Join Emma Theriault, Uzma Jalaluddin and Jackie Lau, with host Jennifer Whiteford!

Tickets and more details at writersfestival.org

Ottawa Writers Festival, May 16th Events

Ottawa Writers Festival brings you another double-header evening featuring authors David A. Robertson, Mélikah Abdelmoumen, and Catherine Khordoc. A fantastic evening you don't want to miss!

More details and tickets at writersfestival.org

No One Knows Us There & Familial Hungers Double Book Launch

Christine Wu and Jessica Bebenek grace Perfect Books with a double book launch of their debut poetry collections! Don't miss it! With special guest and host Ellen Chang-Richardson.

Familial Hungers (Brick Books) by Christine Wu is a book of poems that reckon with identity, race, and fractured relationships through the lens of food. Bittersweet, numbingly spicy, herbal and milky, Familial Hungers is a lyric feast. Wu relentlessly searches the grocery shelves for the hard-to-digest ingredients of identity and belonging, offering us her nourishing honesty and courage pulled from the marrow.

No One Knows Us There (Book*hug Press) by Jessica Bebenek, presents two distinct and moving portraits of early womanhood. The first is that of the devoted, caregiving granddaughter navigating hospital hallways and the painful realities of palliative care. The second is that of a woman a decade older, compassionately looking back on her younger self. In this second half, Bebenek rewrites poems from the first, honouring unimaginable loss and turning it into genuine healing.

Book Launch: The Crisis of Canadian Democracy

Join Andrew Coyne as he launches The Crisis of Canadian Democracy, in conversation with journalist Paul Wells.

Is a River Alive? with Ottawa Writers Festival

Ottawa Writers Festival brings celebrated writer, observer and naturalist Robert Macfarlane to Ottawa, with his brilliant, perspective-shifting new book, which answers a resounding "yes" to the question of its title.

At the heart of Is a River Alive? is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings, who should be recognized as such in both imagination and law. Macfarlane takes the reader on a mind-expanding global journey into the history, futures, people and places of the ancient, urgent concept.

Tickets and details at writersfestival.org