Canadian Entertainment News
News and features from across Canadian entertainment, arts and culture
We Are Water and Light anthology set for October 16 LitFest presentation
The Edmonton Chinese Writing Club’s anthology We Are Water and Light: Anti-Racism Stories Rooted in Chinese Wisdom and Other Asian Traditions will be featured at LitFest Alberta on Friday, October 16.
LitFest opens Oct. 14 with Trina Moyles discussing Black Bear in Edmonton
LitFest will open its 2026 festival in Edmonton on Wednesday, October 14, with Alberta-raised author Trina Moyles in conversation with writer Conor Kerr about her memoir Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival.
Nisha Patel’s For the Record counts Alberta’s COVID-19 deaths in poetry
Edmonton poet Nisha Patel has built her third poetry collection around a number that changed as she worked: the recorded deaths from COVID-19 in Alberta.
Dundurn anthology Monsters brings 14 writers together for unsettling short fiction
Dundurn anthology Monsters brings 14 writers together for unsettling short fiction
Clara Hughes brings Learning to Breathe to Calgary, Winnipeg and Ottawa
Clara Hughes has a new memoir arriving October 13, 2026, with launch-week events in Calgary, Winnipeg and Ottawa.
Chris Banks’s Bureau of Useless Splendour arrives from ECW Press
Kitchener, Ont., poet Chris Banks will release his eighth poetry collection, Bureau of Useless Splendour: Poems, on Oct 13, 2026, through Toronto-based independent publisher ECW Press.
Daniel Gawthrop’s Cutting Edge gets audiobook release as queer hockey book heads to Toronto
Daniel Gawthrop’s Cutting Edge: Hockey as Queer Culture gets a new release on Oct 13, 2026, when ECW Press’s Bespeak Audio Editions publishes an audiobook narrated by Ivan Lo.
Adrick Brock’s debut novel Islanders arrives October 6
Adrick Brock’s first novel, Islanders, arrives Oct 6, 2026 from Nightwood Editions, with a story that begins on Toronto Island and later follows its characters to Whitehorse.
Becca-Willow Moss’s Her Last Supper heads to Forest City Film Festival
Toronto-shot feature Her Last Supper will screen at the Forest City Film Festival in London, Ont., on Oct 21, 2026, giving Canadian filmmaker Becca-Willow Moss a confirmed fall festival date for her first feature as writer-director.
Trudy J. Morgan-Cole returns to seventeenth-century Newfoundland in Beyond the Brightening Sea
Newfoundland author Trudy J. Morgan-Cole will release her eighth historical-fiction novel, Beyond the Brightening Sea, through St. John’s-based Breakwater Books on Oct 6, 2026.
Five Canadian novels named to 2026 Giller Prize shortlist
The Giller Prize has named five Canadian novels to its 2026 shortlist, narrowing a field of more than 140 submissions ahead of the winner announcement in Toronto next month.
R.F. Kuang’s Ottawa Writers Festival appearances, from Babel to Taipei Story
R.F. Kuang has appeared at the Ottawa International Writers Festival three times in the festival’s current author archive: in 2022 for an event built around Babel, in 2023 for Yellowface, and in 2026 for Taipei Story
George Sully’s Designing in the Dark puts a Canadian design career into memoir
Toronto designer George Sully’s memoir, Designing in the Dark: A Memoir of Vision, Resilience, and Redefining Canadian Design, arrives Oct. 6 from ECW Press.
Atwood Gibson Prize names five finalists for 2026 fiction award
Five books are in the running for the 2026 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, with novels by Zak Jones, Téa Mutonji, Lisa Robertson, Blair Palmer Yoxall and Ashraf Zaghal making this year’s shortlist.
Jody Chan’s Madness Belongs to the People turns to psychiatric-survivor histories and resistance
Jody Chan’s third poetry collection, Madness Belongs to the People, was published by Brick Books on Sept. 22.
Penguin Canada acquires Emma Knight’s Dolly after breakout debut
Penguin Canada has acquired Canadian rights to Dolly, the second novel from Toronto-based author Emma Knight, whose fiction debut became a Canadian and New York Times bestseller, a Read with Jenna selection and a Giller Prize finalist while also selling internationally and moving into television development.
R.F. Kuang’s Canadian book tour runs through festivals and independent bookstores
R.F. Kuang returns to the Vancouver Writers Fest Saturday night with a sold-out event for her new novel, Taipei Story, her third appearance with the festival since 2023 and one of five Canadian dates on the book’s wider international tour.
Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley turns a family cat into an Anishinaabemowin language book
Mooz is a cat with the name of a moose and, at least on the page, the habits of several other animals.
Before the records and JUNOs, Colin James was a Saskatchewan kid sneaking into clubs to play the blues
Long before Colin James had eight JUNO Awards and multi-platinum record sales, he was a Saskatchewan teenager playing clubs he wasn't legally old enough to enter.
Alberta’s book awards spotlight queer history, Indigenous scholarship and independent publishing
Alberta’s book publishing community gathered in Edmonton on Sept. 17 for the 2026 Alberta Book Publishing Awards, with this year’s winners spanning literary fiction, poetry, children’s books, graphic novels, scholarship, regional history and book design.