2011 Festival put to bed: THANKS everyone!

Thanks, everyone, for your support and for making our 2011 Festival a rip-roaring success. We sold 50% more tickets in 2011 than in 2010, despite the smaller venue. In fact, we sold out 1/5 of our events and probably close to half were almost sold out.

Highlights: Eleanor Wachtel and a standing room only for Alaa al Aswany; Gore Vidal and Michael Enright; Amitav Ghosh's opening cocktail (receiving our 2011 Grand Prize) and his onstage interview with Noah Richler; touring Canada with three Indian writers and very enthusiastic crowds in Regina.

We are in the thick of our 2012 planning, believe it or not, and we have some really amazing things planned for our next Festival.

In the meantime, I will continue to post here, writing about authors, books, publishing trends and other topics related to literature and art generally, so stay tuned....