Highlights of our 2013 Festival

So the 2013 Festival's been over for over a week now and I am finally resurfacing. Every year it amazes me: build up build up build up for over a year and then boom, it's over so quickly.

But we had an amazing Festival: our ticket sales were phenomenal, our events were well-attended, good media coverage.

Some highlights with the benefit of hindsight:

Introducing Colm Toibin

Colm Toibin at the Grande Bibliotheque, interviewed on stage by Eleanor Wachtel. (Sold out!)

The Walrus Talks at McCord Museum. (Sold out!)

The incredibly charming Hisham Matar on-stage with Paul Kennedy (Sold out!) and chatting with him in the authors suite over the weekend.

Janna Gur at Appetite for Books. (Sold out!)

This Really Happened! (Sold out!)

Alain Mabanckou on stage with Marie-Louise Arsenault.

And much more...

At any rate, we are putting 2013 to bed now and already well into our 2014 planning!

In the meantime, I've been reading something completely unrelated to Festival planning: Junichiro Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters. Nice escape ...