TPL Teens

Teachers are invited to bring their students to Toronto Public Library’s YA Author Day. We have planned a stellar lineup of award-winning authors.  The event is conveniently located at the North York Central Library, right at the North York Centre subway station on Line 1.

Tues Dec 10, 2019
10 am – 2 pm
North York Central Library

Morning Sessions

Vikki VanSickle: Behind the Scenes of Publishing

Vikki VanSickle is the author of a number of acclaimed books, including the picture book If I Had a Gryphon and novels Words That Start With B, Summer Days, Starry Nights and the 2018 Red Maple Award winner The Winnowing. After obtaining an MA in Children’s Literature from UBC, Vikki’s career began in bookselling at The Flying Dragon Bookshop, which earned her the 2011 CBA Young Bookseller of the Year award. She is frequently called upon to speak about kids’ books for panels, conferences, and as Lainey Gossip’s YA mentor! Currently she balances writing with her duties as the Associate Director of Marketing and Publicity for Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers.

Susan McClelland: Writing Nonfiction and International Stories

Susan worked for The Miami Herald and interned at The New York Times. Susan went on to Maclean’s, Canada’s weekly news-magazine. There, she began to do both investigative reporting and feature writing. Her first investigative story at Maclean’s examined the exotic wildlife trade in North America and was nominated for a National Magazine Award. In 2007, Mariatu Kamara, a child victim of the Sierra Leone war, asked Susan to write her memoir. That book, Bite of the Mango, went on to become an international hit. Every Falling Star was a Red Maple Award nominee.

Hadley Dyer: Writing Fiction

Hadley Dyer is the author of the novels Here So Far Away, longlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, and Johnny Kellock Died Today, winner of the Canadian Library Association’s Book of the Year for Children Award, as well as numerous acclaimed nonfiction titles for young readers. Also an editor, she has collaborated with many of Canada’s finest writers for children and teens and has worked with multiple organizations that promote literacy and reading, including CODE, IBBY Canada, and the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. She lives in Toronto.

Willow Dawson: Cartooning Workshop

Willow Dawson graduated from The Ontario College of Art and Design Illustration program in 2006. Her illustrations have been published in Canada, The US, the UK, Italy, China and Germany. She has exhibited with Museum London and Library and Archives Canada. She has been a finalist for many prestigious awards including The TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, The Ontario Library Association Blue Spruce and Red Maple Awards, and the recipient of grants from The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council, and The Toronto Arts Council. She is a satellite member of the RAID Creative Agency and collaborates with award winning, world renowned authors. She is the author and/or illustrator of several books, most recently White as Milk, Red as Blood by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth. Her highly acclaimed picture book The Wolf-Birds is in its third printing, with a Chinese edition on the way.

Afternoon Session

Adrienne Kress & Joel Sutherland: Writing Horror

Adrienne Kress is an actor and author residing in Toronto, Canada. She has an honours BA in theatre from the University of Toronto and is a graduate of LAMDA’s post-graduate classical acting programme in the UK. She’s the author of the award winning and internationally published children’s novels Alex and the Ironic Gentleman and Timothy and the Dragon’s Gate. She has also published several YA novels: Outcast, her quirky paranormal romance and the Steampunk adventure The Friday Society. Most recently she has completed her absurdist adventure trilogy The Explorers.

Joel A. Sutherland is the Silver Birch and Hackmatack Award-winning author of Be a Writing Superstar, Haunted Canada 4 to 8, and Summer’s End, a Red Maple Award Honour Book. His new series, Haunted, including The House Next Door, Kill Screen, Night of the Living Dolls and Field of Screams, has been praised by Goosebumps author R.L. Stine. He is a two-time juror for the Bram Stoker Award, the John Spray Mystery Award, and the Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction & Fantasy.