This weekend was a big one on Toronto's literary calendar. Queen's Park Circle was taken over by authors, book sellers, publishers and, most importantly, avid readers for The Word on the Street festival. We got there just as they were setting up.

By 1:00pm, the place was jammed.

I picked up one of the fabulous tote bags, which makes the Anya Hindmarch carryall look so yesterday.
(I do not know what the bags are made of. They feel a lot like the Loblaws bags so I'm assuming they are environmentally-friendly. Given the attention spent to ensuring the festival was as green as it could be, and given that David Suzuki seemed to be hiding around every corner, I'm assuming that the bags are not made out of the inside of bunny ears or some such thing.)
I wish I had the time to take in all of the writers' workshops on offer but alas the only session I was able to take in was session on book reviews in the Toronto Star Tent featuring The Star's very talented book reviews editor Dan Smith* (to whom I submitted my book review for The Other Mother**) and Quill And Quire's very talented reviews editor Nathan Whitlock*. I learned all sorts of things about the world of book reviews. And based on the crush of people waiting for the session to follow, I also learned that the Kielburger brothers have groupies.
I wandered over to the Harper Collins tent to see if the Dish Entertains publicist was there and noticed that they were giving out these bags:
How awesome is that? Torontonians were walking around carrying bags emblazoned with the cover of my pal Andi Buchanan's*** new book, The Daring Book for Girls, which is being released at the end of October.
All in all, it was a satisfying day.
xoxo
Book Girl****
Key:
* indicates shameless flattery
** indicates shameless self-promotion
*** indicates shameless name-dropping
**** indicates obvious homage to Gossip Girl in attempt to get picked up by Google.