Here at SheDoesTheCity, we love to celebrate (and help other people celebrate) Toronto, and the amazing talent this city has nurtured and produced, from sharing cool events in our city, to introducing you to local exhibits and artists. And now, we want to celebrate some incredible Toronto-based (or near-Toronto-based) authors and their books.
There’s something extra special about reading a book based in your city, or written by an author from nearby. It’s the care used to write about local haunts and favourite landmarks; the possibility of having walked by or encountered these characters going about your day-to-day; the celebration of someone from your community having gone out to create something beautiful, to create art that moves people.
We wanted to help you #ReadLocal by introducing you to some excellent books by Toronto-based authors. Pick up these and more great books by Toronto authors at your favourite local Toronto bookstore. Plus, if you get these books after December 14th, you can save a little bit of money with the upcoming GST tax break!
To help you get started on your own #ReadLocal era, one of our favourite Canadian publishers, Arsenal Pulp Press, is helping us celebrate Toronto writers by offering our readers a giveaway, featuring 4 books from some of our favourite Toronto authors. You could win:
- Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez
- Shut Up, You’re Pretty by Téa Mutonji
- Beast at Every Threshold by Natalie Wee
- Vantage Points by Chase Joynt
Read on to learn more about the books up for grabs and other amazing reads from Toronto-based authors:
Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez
Catherine Hernandez is the bestselling author of several books, including her breakout hit Scarborough, which was then adapted into an award-winning movie by the same name. Set in the low-income, culturally diverse neighbourhood of Scarborough, Ontario, this book uses several different voices, in order to paint the picture of a tight-knit neighbourhood under fire. Short-listed for several awards, including Canada Reads in 2022, this is an empathetic and intimate exploration into a troubled community that refuses to be undone. Full of heart and compassion, this is a love letter to community.
Shut Up, You’re Pretty by Téa Mutonji
Téa Mutonji is a poet and writer based in Toronto, and her debut short story collection, Shut Up, You’re Pretty, was the first title from Vivek Shraya’s VS. Books imprint. Her impressive debut received several accolades, including winning the Trillium Book Award, and being named a Globe and Mail best book of the year, as well as a Canada Reads 2024 finalist. This is a brilliant and disarming story collection that explores womanhood and identity, using humour and prose. In these stories, a young woman decides to shave her head in the waiting room of an abortion clinic; a teen seeks happiness inside a pack of cigarettes, and a mother and daughter reconnect over their shared interest in fish. Together, these stories blur the line between longing and choosing, written with care and thoughtfulness. You’ll tear through this short collection quickly, but it will stick with you for a while.
Beast At Every Threshold by Natalie Wee
Natalie Wee is a queer cultural worker who’s deeply informed by grassroots communities. She’s written two poetry collections, including Beast at Every Threshold, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the Audre Lorde Award, and Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Beast at Every Threshold is a formidable and imaginative collection that deconstructs the notion of “otherness” through myth and folklore. Haunting and intimate, these poems weave together pop culture, folklore, and memories, intersecting queerness, diaspora, loss, and ferocity. Delicious and lyrical, this is a brilliant and imaginative collection you’re going to love.
Vantage Points by Chase Joynt
Chase Joynt is an award-winning non-fiction filmmaker and writer. Vantage Points is his latest book, and was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writer’s Trust of Canada Prize for Nonfiction in 2024. Vantage Points is a provocative book that combines memoir and media, as seen through a trans lens. After the death of the family patriarch, a box of family documents reveal Joynt’s previously unknown connection to Canadian media maverick Marshall McLuhan. In this book, Joynt writes about difficult pasts, connecting them to contemporary politics, and ways of being. Vantage Points is a reckoning, exploring the impact of media and masculinity on the stories we tell about our families and ourselves. Genre-defying and experimental, this is a book unlike any you’ve read before.
More Sure by A. Light Zachary
A. Light Zachary is a writer, artist, editor, and Lambda Literary Fellow. Their debut, More Sure, is a collection of poetry and prose about self-realization. These poems explore what it means to locate oneself, over and over again, within gender, language, family, labour, sexuality, fear, and love. Poignant and evocative, in 2024, this visionary and beautiful collection won the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and was also awarded the ALA Stonewall Honor. Tender, remarkable, and thought-provoking, you’ll be thinking about this collection long after you finish it.
Render by Sachiko Murakami
Sachiko Murakami is a literary worker, who has edited poetry, organized conferences, sat on juries and judged prizes. She’s the author of four poetry collections, and Render is her latest. These poems are intimate and searing, as they share a history of trauma, addiction, and recovery, through dreamscapes. This poetic memoir travels the non-linear path of addiction and recovery, looking beyond the typical “happily-ever-after” narrative. This heartfelt and intimate collection was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2021. Vital, powerful, and sharp – this collection will take your breath away.
The Tiger Flu by Larissa Lai
Larissa Lai is the author of four novels, including the Lambda Literary Award winner, The Tiger Flu. The Tiger Flu is a visionary novel following a community of parthogenic women, sent into exile by the corporate and patriarchal Salt Water City, as they go to war against the systems that threaten their extinction. Kirilow is a doctor apprentice whose lover Peristrophe is a “starfish”, a woman who can regenerate her own limbs and organs, which she uses to help her clone sisters, whose organs are failing. When a denizen from Salt Water City suffering from a mysterious flu comes into their midst, Peristrophe becomes infected and dies. Kirilow must now travel to the city in order to find a new starfish, only to learn that the flu is now a pandemic here. And this deadly flu isn’t even the most dangerous thing in the city. The Tiger Flu is an imaginative story – part cautionary tale, part cyberpunk thriller, and wholly unforgettable.
Something More by Jackie Khalilieh
Jackie Khalilieh lives just outside of Toronto, and her young adult debut, Something More was celebrated in 2023 as one of Audible Canada’s best of the year, and one of CBC’s Best Canadian Books for Kids and Teens. Something More taps into the very specific yearning, angst, and growing pains of teendom in such a delicious and accurate way. This is a contemporary romance novel, and coming-of-age story about a young Palestinian-Canadian girl trying to navigate her first year of high school, while also hiding her recent autism diagnosis. Fifteen-year-old Jessie is a quirky loner who’s obsessed with the nineties, and when she is diagnosed with autism just weeks before starting high school, she decides, in order to get a fresh start, she should keep her diagnosis a secret, and start a list of goals to get her through high school… but her list can only prepare her for so much when two very different boys steal her heart.
May It Have A Happy Ending by Minelle Mahtani
Minelle Mahtani is a professor, scholar, and former radio host, while she now lives and works in Vancouver, her hometown is Scarborough, Ontario. May It Have A Happy Ending is her debut memoir — an honest and intimate book about mothers and daughters, grief and healing, and what it means to find your voice. Minelle Mahtani had taken a leap of faith. As a new mother in a new life, she’d moved across the country for love, and was soon faced with the prospect of hosting her own radio show. But as she tried to find her place in the majority white newsroom, she learnt devastating news — her Iranian mother had been diagnosed with tongue cancer. Just as Minelle was finding her voice, her mother was losing hers.
Hi, It’s Me by Fawn Parker
Fawn Parker is a 2022 Giller Prize and 2024 Atwood Gibson Writer’s Trust Fiction Prize nominee, who splits her time between Toronto and Fredericton. Hi, It’s Me is a brilliant and beautiful novel depicting fresh grief. Shortly after her mother’s death, Fawn arrives at the farmhouse, where she will stay in her mother’s bedroom, in a house that’s occupied by four other women. As she grapples with her grief, as well as longstanding harmful behaviours, Fawn is confronted by her responsibility to catalogue the furniture and possessions in her mother’s room, and then sell or dispose of them. Instead, she soon becomes fixated on archiving her mother’s writing and documents, searching for answers to help her better understand the enigmatic woman in these pages. An engrossing and wholly original story that’s both devastating and mesmerizing in equal parts.
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Ameema Saeed (@ameemabackwards) is a storyteller, a Capricorn, an avid bookworm, and a curator of very specific playlists and customized book recommendations. She’s a book reviewer, a Sensitivity Reader, a book buyer at Indigo Books & Music, and the Books Editor for SheDoesTheCity, where she writes and curates bookish content, and book recommendations. She enjoys bad puns, good food, dancing, and talking about feelings. She writes about books, big feelings, unruly bodies, and her lived experiences, and hopes to write your next favourite book one day. When she’s not reading books, she likes to talk about books (especially diverse books, and books by diverse authors) on her bookstagram: @ReadWithMeemz
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