Word On The Street is… you should really go!
A review of the 2024 Word On The Street Toronto festival and the diversity it inspires.
Out of all the experiences I’ve written about for The Medium, I have to say that Word On The Street was a favourite. Anyone who loves anything to do with the written word should check this event out next year because I had a blast.
Word On The Street is an annual celebration of literacy and Canadian literature. The outdoor festival took place at Queen’s Park and was a long winding path of booths filled with writers, publishers, and literary enthusiasts. Stalls boasted wide selections of books across genres for people to buy, opportunities to interact with writers and publishers, and a variety of workshops and freebies.
Catching my eye among these displays was the Our Public Library stall, which handed out free picket signs that you could design to your liking to spread awareness of the government’s reduction in funding school libraries. Further down, Poesy was handing out personalized typewriter poems at a pay-what-you-can rate, and MET Radio allowed visitors to make zines. A shout out also to the University of Toronto Bookshop, who was tabling there, as well as the Toronto Public Library Bookmobile.
Interspersed between the displays were four tents where authors came to talk about their work. Titled individually as “Contemporary”, “Across the Universe”, “Vibrant Voices of Ontario”, and “Kids Literature”, each tent hosted Canadian writers who read excerpts out loud of their works, discussed their writing processes, and spoke in depth about the aspects of their lives that influenced their writing.
I had the pleasure of attending multiple seminars, including, “The Horror in The Home,” “How Imaginary Worlds Influence Our Own,” and the “Indigenous Horror Spotlight”. At these seminars, common themes arose of power dynamics in writing echoing power dynamics of society, horrors of daily life interweaving within the genre of horror itself, and how every piece of writing is an establishment of a perspective that may be stifled in society. Listening to these seminars made it clear that writing is a form of activism to push against the boundaries we find ourselves confined to.
All in all, the entire experience was a wonderful way to connect with the people around us over our differences, similarities, and shared love of the written word. I cannot wait to attend again next year.
You can learn more about Word On The Street and ways for you to support at toronto.thewordonthestreet.ca.
