McClelland & Stewart Fiction Night

We are excited to announce the inaugural McClelland & Stewart Fiction Night!

For more than 100 years, McClelland & Stewart has helped to shape and champion Canada’s cultural conversation. In partnership with Another Story Books, we are extremely proud to begin this annual spring series that gathers readers, writers, media, festival and agency partners in celebration of our community, our authors, and our dynamic and internationally acclaimed fiction list. Join us on June 13 for an engaging evening of conversation with five captivating authors. Omar El Akkad will reveal what the global refugee crisis looks like through the eyes of a child. Amy Jones will transport you to an aquarium-in-a-ship in Florida with a surprising star attraction. Harriet Alida Lye will take you back to the creation of the atomic bomb. Janika Oza will follow one Indo-Ugandan family’s search for a place of their own across generations and continents. And Reema Patel will introduce you to a former Mumbai street child fighting for redemption.

Moderated by Ismaila Alfa, host of CBC's Fresh Air, we hope you will join us in this celebration of storytelling, our author community, and page-turning literary work that confronts some of the most urgent questions of our times.

Books available for purchase courtesy of Another Story Bookshop.

Tickets are general admission and do not guarantee seating.

For guaranteed seating reserve a table to enjoy Lula’s tropical fusion menu before the show.

https://www.lula.ca/reservations or call 416-588-0307.

This event is co-presented with Another Story Bookshop and Lula Music and Arts Centre.

OMAR EL AKKAD, Giller prize winning author of WHAT STRANGE PARADISE, is an author and a journalist who was born in Cairo Egypt. He was raised in Doha, Qatar, until his move to Canada with his family. Omar has reported from Afghanistan, Guantánomo Bay, and many other locations around the world.

REEMA PATEL holds a BA from McGill University and a JD from the University of Windsor. She has spent the past ten years working in provincial and municipal government. Such Big Dreams is her debut novel, and it was informed by her work in the youth non-profit sector and in human-rights advocacy in Mumbai. The novel was named a Loan Stars Top Ten Pick, a CBC Canadian Fiction title to watch, one of Audible's Best Debuts of 2022, and an Amazon Best Book of 2022. Patel lives in Toronto, where she currently works as a lawyer.

JANIKA OZA is the winner of a 2022 O. Henry Award and the 2020 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Award. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications such as The Best Small Fictions 2019 Anthology, Catapult, The Adroit Journal, The Cincinnati Review, and Anomaly, among others. She lives in Toronto.

AMY JONES is the author of three novels and a collection of stories. Her short fiction has won the CBC Literary Prize for Short Fiction, appeared in Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Stories, and been selected as Longform’s Pick of the Week. Originally from Halifax, she now lives in Hamilton.

HARRIET ALIDA LYE is the author of the novel The Honey Farm, the memoir Natural Killer, and co-author of the picture book Serge the Snail Without a Shell. Her work has been published in the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, The Happy Reader, Hazlitt, Vice, Catapult, and more. She lives in Toronto.

Host or Publisher Penguin Random House Canada