The 31st International Festival of Authors (IFOA) has started and several York professors and alumni are on the bill.
York alumnus Jian Ghomeshi (right) (BA ’95) of CBC Radio will host and moderate “Celebrating 40 Years of the Juno Awards”, which will launch the new book Music from Far and Wide: Celebrating 40 Years of the Juno Awards (Key Porter Books, 2010) Saturday, Oct. 23 at 9pm at the IFOA. The event will feature three of the book’s co-authors Karen Bliss, Nick Krewen and Jason Schneider, along with special guests Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo – who wrote the book’s foreword – singer-songwriter Dan Hill and musician Emm Gryner.
The following day, another York alumnus Nino Ricci (left) (BA Spec. Hons. ’81) will be at the IFOA as one of three authors participating in The Word Doctors Are In: Master Class on Sunday, Oct. 24 at 11am. Ricci will speak about “What Every Writer Should Know”.
Poet and York creative writing alumna Meaghan Strimas (right) (Hons. BA ’00), editor of The Selected Gwendolyn MacEwen (Exile Editions, 2007) 
and author of the poetry collection Junkman's Daughter (Exile Editions, 2004), will read from her latest collection A Good Time Had by All (Exile Editions, 2010). Strimas, who works at Quill & Quire magazine and for the University of Guelph's Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing, will read on Sunday, Oct. 24 at 1pm and again on Friday, Oct. 29 at 8pm.
York English Professor Michael Helm (left) will read from his latest book, Cities of Refuge (McClelland & Stewart, 2010), Wednesday, Oct. 27 at 8pm, along with the other finalists for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.
York English Professor Priscila Uppal (right) will be part of a roundtable discussion with IFOA Ontario in Milton Wednesday, Oct. 27, and will read 
from her newest work Winter Sport: Poems (Mansfield Press, 2010) Friday, Oct. 29 at 8pm at the IFOA in Toronto.
The IFOA will once again bring writers of contemporary world literature for 11 days of readings, interviews, lectures, round table discussions and public book signings from Oct. 20 to 30.
For more information, visit the IFOA website. To purchase tickets, call the Harbourfront Centre Box Office at 416-973-4000 or click here.