Pages Books presents Toronto: A City Becoming April 14, 2008

DAVID MACFARLANE, ed. – Toronto: A City Becoming

How do you see the changes afoot in Toronto? To celebrate the launch of Toronto: A City Becoming, an anthology of essays about the ongoing growth of our fair city, Jian Ghomeshi of CBC Radio’s “Q” will moderate a lively town hall-style panel featuring such contributors as Globe & Mail columnist John Barber, author Linda McQuaig, photographer Michael Awad and collection editor David Macfarlane. — A This Is Not A Reading Series event presented by Pages Books & Magazines, Key Porter Books and EYE WEEKLY.

Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, 1214 Queen St W, Toronto

Mon, Apr 14; 7:30pm (doors 7pm) free

TORONTO: A CITY BECOMING: No one would dispute that Toronto is currently undergoing an enormous change. For award-winning author and editor David Macfarlane, the debate starts with the corollary question: “How do you see that change?“ He asked ten of our city’s leading critical and cultural voices to address this issue, then assembled the essays and images reflecting their divergent views in Toronto: A City Becoming (Key Porter Books). An outstanding array of contributors, including acclaimed academic and author, Richard Florida, Toronto's former mayor, David Crombie, urban geographer, Meric Gertler, art critic, Sarah Milroy, political economist, James Milway, architect, John van Nostrand, Opera conductor and impresario Richard Bradshaw, and best-selling author and journalist Linda McQuaig, responded with unique and compelling perspectives on Toronto as it enters the 21st century. These provocative essays debate the key issues facing Toronto today, including globalization of the economy, planning policies, environmental responsibility, ethnic diversity, land development, public transportation, and politics & justice. Toronto: A City Becoming also features visual essays from some of Toronto’s pre-eminent photographers including Michael Awad’s cityscapes, Scott Johnson’s resonating portraits of Regent Park, and David Kaufman’s exquisite architectural studies. Toronto has the power to create its own future – what will it be?
About the Editor

DAVID MACFARLANE is a Toronto-based writer and editor. Born in Hamilton, ON in 1952, he was educated at the University of Toronto. He began his career at the now-defunct Weekend magazine, and has published in most major Canadian periodicals. His writing has also appeared in GQ and Rolling Stone. He has won numerous National Magazine Awards and a National Newspaper Award for his journalism. David’s first book, The Danger Tree, won the Canadian Authors’ Association Award for non-fiction. His novel, Summer Gone, was nominated for the Giller Prize. In collaboration with the composer, Peter Skoggard, he has recently completed a libretto for the opera, Stratas, and his play, Fishwrap, was produced at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre. In 2005, he collaborated with Nancy Lang and Barbara Woolley in At the Ojibway – an illustrated history of the venerable Georgian Bay hotel. The same team is currently at work on an illustrated history of Toronto – to be published in 2009, the 175th anniversary of the incorporation of the City of Toronto. David is at work on a screenplay and a new work of non-fiction. He lives and works in downtown Toronto.

About the host

JIAN GHOMESHI is a broadcaster, writer and musical artist from Toronto. He is currently host of CBC Radio One’s “Q”. Ghomeshi has hosted various CBC programs including Sounds Like Canada, and the Gemini-award winning TV program, Play. He has written for numerous publications, including the Sunday Washington Post and The Globe and Mail. Ghomeshi first came to public attention as a singer and songwriter in the multi-platinum selling folk-rock group, Moxy Früvous.

About the contributors

JOHN ALLEMANG is a writer for The Globe and Mail and the author of Poetic Justice, a selection of his topical poems. While waiting for Toronto to develop a more European understanding of its public transit needs, he likes to walk the length and breadth of the city.

MICHAEL AWAD holds both Bachelor and Masters degrees in both Architecture and Urban Design. Michael began his lifelong passion for teaching at the age of 15. Today, his primary focus as a professor at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Architecture, is photography, video production, computer science, robotics, and most recently architectural design. Michael lives and works in Toronto, and is often invited to speak publicly on issues of architecture and urbanism. The 'city' is Michael's principle subject.

JOHN BARBER is city columnist for The Globe and Mail. His column appears four times a week, ranging on all themes, from the inner conspiracies of City Hall to the economics of globalization. As a sixth-generation Torontonian with a long-standing interest in city life, John lives in the Annex with his wife, fellow journalist Cathrin Bradbury, two children and a miniature poodle.

RICHARD BRADSHAW, 1944 – 2007, the late General Director of the Canadian Opera Company, conducted more than sixty operas in his eighteen years with the COC and established a reputation for adventurous programming and innovative productions. His cutting-edge collaborations with directors and designers from the worlds of film and theatre – Robert Lepage, Michael Levine, Francois Girard and Atom Egoyan – garnered international critical acclaim and attracted new and young audiences. He increased the profile of the COC Orchestra with successful concerts and award-winning recordings. Bradshaw was closely associated with the building of the COC's new opera house and in September 2006, conducted the first complete cycle in Canada of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the new Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Richard was Senior Fellow of Massey College, named 2006/2007 Distinguished Fellow of Massey College, Distinguished Visitor in Music and recipient of the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa, University of Toronto; Honorary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music; Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters of the Republic of France; Member of the Order of Ontario; and recipient of the 2006 Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.

DAVID CROMBIE is a former Mayor of Toronto and Member of Parliament. He has also served as Federal Cabinet Minister and as Chancellor of Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto. He has received a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) from the University of Toronto for his contribution to his native Toronto and a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) from the University of Waterloo for his contribution to the quality of life of Canadians and the environment. A member of many community organizations, he is President and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute, the Founding Chair of the Waterfront Regeneration Trust and President of David Crombie & Associates Inc. He also serves as Chair of the Nuclear Waste Disposal Advisory Committee and is a Director of the Centre for the Financial Services OmbudsNetwork (CFSON). Recently he was appointed as Chair of the Ontario Place and an Officer to the Order of Canada.

RICHARD FLORIDA has written two national bestsellers, The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class. His previous books, The Breakthrough Illusion and Beyond Mass Production, paved the way for his provocative looks at how creativity is revolutionizing the global economy. Richard has also written articles for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Economist, The Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The Chronicle for Higher Education, U.S. News, World Report, and more.

MERIC GERTLER is Professor of Geography and Planning, and Goldring Chair in Canadian Studies, at the University of Toronto. He co-directs the Program on Globalization and Regional Innovation Systems at the Munk Centre for International Studies, and currently serves as Vice-Dean, Graduate Education and Research in the Faculty of Arts and Science. Meric is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and was the 2007 recipient of the Award for Scholarly Distinction from the Canadian Association of Geographers.

DAVID HAYES is an award-winning magazine feature writer, author and teacher. His articles, essays and reviews have appeared in Toronto Life, Saturday Night, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times Magazine, The Walrus, Reader’s Digest and Chatelaine, among others. He has published three books and co-written a fourth. David teaches Advanced Magazine Writing at Ryerson University’s G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Studies.

SCOTT JOHNSTON was born 1966 in Toronto and educated in photography at Ryerson University. Scott is becoming increasingly recognized for his unique ability to reveal and inform on the ever- changing social and physical landscape of Toronto, whether exploring abandoned homes in the Bridle Path, the demolition of several Toronto churches or, most recently, the dying days of the Regent Park housing complex, infused with a creative vision all his own.

DAVID KAUFMAN is both a fine-art photographer and documentary filmmaker. For eighteen years he was a producer/director/writer for two of the CBC's leading programs, The Journal and The Fifth Estate. Since 1999, he has directed films which have appeared on the CBC, the History channel, Bravo! Canada, and PBS. As a photographer, David has concentrated on large-format architecture-based imagery.

MARK KINGWELL is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine. His books and articles on politics and culture have been widely published and garnered many awards, including the Spitz Prize for political theory and National Magazine Awards for both columns and essays. Mark’s most recent books are, Nearest Thing to Heaven: The Empire State Building and American Dreams and Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the City.

PETER KUITENBROUWER is the National Post’s Toronto columnist and the author of two books, 7 Secrets of Highly Successful Kids and the bestseller, Our Song: The Story of O Canada. He lives in downtown Toronto with his wife, Mimi, and their two children, Tallulah and Frits.

LINDA MCQUAIG is the author of seven national bestsellers on politics and economics, including Shooting the Hippo (nominated for the Governor General’s Prize for non-fiction), It’s the Crude and Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet. Her most recent book is Holding the Bully’s Coat: Canada and the U.S. Empire. She won a National Newspaper Award for uncovering the Patti Starr affair, and currently writes a political column in the Toronto Star.

SARAH MILROY is the art critic for The Globe and Mail and the former editor and publisher of Canadian Art magazine.

JAMES MILWAY is the executive director of the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity, an independent think tank focused on understanding Ontario's economic performance and how it can be improved for the benefit of all Ontarians. Jim and his wife were both drawn from outside the city to the University of Toronto's St. Michael's College where they met. Along with their five children they've made their home in the Toronto over the past several decades.

IAN PEARSON is a veteran Toronto writer, editor and radio producer. He has worked as an editor at Macleans, Toronto magazine and Saturday Night. His articles have appeared in most major Canadian magazines, winning five National Magazine Award nominations. He was books producer for CBC Radio's Morningside for three seasons and was a contributing editor of Saturday Night during the 1990s. Ian is an editor in the Banff Centre's Literary Journalism program and the proprietor of the Zedtone record label.

PHILLIP PREVILLE is a National Magazine Award winner and a former Canadian Journalism Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto. He is currently the politics columnist for Toronto Life Magazine and a compulsive jaywalker.

SIOBHAN ROBERTS is the author of King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, The Man Who Saved Geometry. She has won two National Magazine Awards, and is currently a Director’s Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton.

WILLIAM SAUNDERSON-MEYER is a South African political columnist. He is also the curator of the African Millennium Foundation, a not-for-profit, established to promote African sculptors and artists.

TABATHA SOUTHEY writes the Elle Girl column for Elle Canada and the Tart column for The Globe and Mail Focus section. She's been nominated for six National Magazine Awards. Tabatha lives in Cabbagetown, Toronto.

PETER TABUNS is currently the member of provincial parliament for Toronto-Danforth, and the Ontario NDP’s energy and environment critic. Previously he has served as councilor and deputy mayor of the City of Toronto. He co-founded the city’s Better Buildings Partnership, an energy efficiency program that has been adopted by jurisdictions like London England, and helped Toronto earn the international Low Carbon Award in 2005. Prior to his entry into provincial politics, Peter served as executive director of Greenpeace Canada and climate advisor to federal NDP leader, Jack Layton.

JOHN VAN NOSTRAND is an award-winning architect and planner, and a partner in Architects Alliance and Planning Alliance. He has been responsible for the planning and development of major urban projects in Canada and overseas including the Central Pickering Development Plan, St. George Street Revitalization, Toronto's Olympic Village 2008, and Post-Tsunami Reconstruction in Indonesia. John is currently working on a master plan for Amman (Jordan) and a new community in Fort McMurray (Alberta).

MEDIA CONTACTS

Toronto: A City Becoming: Debby de Groot, debby@mdgassociates.com, or Martine Quibell, martine@mdgassociates.com, (416) 368-3763

This Is Not A Reading Series: Chris Reed, tinars@pagesbooks.ca, (416) 598-1447 ext 221
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