International Readings at Harbourfront Centre : International Readings at Harbourfront Centre is the literary programme at the Harbourfront Cultural Centre on Toronto's waterfront. International Readings at Harbourfront presents two component programmes for adult readers (a yearly literary festival The International Festival of Authors, and a reading series, Authors at Harbourfront Centre) as well as several programmes for young readers.
Initially founded by Don Cullen as an attempt to revive the poetry readings held at the Bohemian Embassy in the 1960's, the Reading Series of Canadian Authors was managed by John Robert Colombo (1974) as a weekly poetry reading. The series was continued by Greg Gatenby (1975-2003) who expanded it to include fiction readings and later other types of writing. In 1976, Gatenby invited every living Canadian writer born before 1920 and began to systematically record these readers. He brought the first international author to the series in 1978 and founded the International Festival of Authors in 1980: presenting 18 authors from 12 countries over 6 days. The event was highly publicized because Czeslaw Milosz was awarded the Nobel Prize just as the festival was getting underway.
The IFOA and the Reading Series focus on bringing the most renowned or important emerging poets, fiction writers, dramatists and non-fiction writers to audiences in Toronto and blend Canadian and international literary talent. Young IFOA has involved young readers in the festival since 2005 as a sub-festival. A second literary festival for youth, ALOUD: a Celebration for Young Readers, was introduced in May 2005, and in 2007 the Forest of Reading Festival of the Trees (a celebration of the shared experience of reading, co-presented with the Ontario Library Association) was inaugurated.
In 1986, the Harbourfront Readings Series was incorporated as International Readings at Harbourfront. A non-profit organization, the IRH has been directed by Geoffrey Taylor (formerly manager) after the resignation of Greg Gatenby in 2003. The IRAH has its own board of directors and is a subsidiary of the Harboufront Centre. Its support comes from government funding, private sponsorship and ticket sales.
The International Festival of Authors (IFOA) is the largest and oldest authors festival in Canada, running every October. Activities at the IFOA include readings, interviews, round table discussions, talks and book signings. From 1988-1990 the International Festival of Authors was sponsored by the Wang computer company. By 2009, the festival had welcomed over 5,000 writers from more than 100 countries.
The IFOA has hosted a number of tribute events focusing on living Canadian authors: Alistair MacLeod, Al Purdy, Carol Shields, bp nichol, Austin Clarke, Mordechai Richler, Pierre Berton, Robertson Davies, W.O. Mitchell, Irving Layton and Mavis Gallant among them. A number of literary prizes are awarded at the festival's awards night: the Harbourfront Festival Prize, the Marian Engel Award, the Journey Prize and the Lionel Gelber Prize (for a work dealing with international relations). The Harbourfront Festival Prize was inaugurated in 1984 to honour individuals who have made a substantial contribution to the world of books and writing and counts among its recipients writers like Wayson Choy, Linda Spalding, Jane Urquhart, Helen Humphreys, and Dionne Brand. The Betty Ann Elliott Lecture series dealing with the book as artefact ran for several years within the IFOA. Posters for the Festival were commissioned from well-known Canadian and international artists.
In addition to the reading series and the international writers festival, Harbourfront has been host to a number of other festivals. A smaller literary festival Winter's Tales was held in the winter for a number of years. The World Poetry Festival was held in conjunction with the League of Canadian Poets (first in 1981) and included the announcement for the Gwendolyn MacEwen award for Poetry. The Earth Spirit Festival was a multi-disciplinary celebration of Aboriginal, Chinese and Japanese Cultural heritage co-produced by Harboufront in 1991. CELAFI (Celebrating African Identity) was a multi-disciplinary Festival held in 1992. Harbourfront has also co-hosted benefit readings for P.E.N. In addition literary readings of the nominees or winners of the Commonwealth Wrtiers Prize, the Governor General's Literary Awards, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Charles Taylor Prize, and the Roger's Writers Trust Fiction Prize have all been hosted by Harbourfront. The Humber School of Writers (founded in 1992 by Gatenby and Joe Kertes) presented a reading series course. Harbourfront also published a number of limited edition chapbooks and presented film premiers to fund the reading series.
The organizers recognized early the importance of the recorded voice and from 1976 onward endeavoured to record all the readings which took place at Harbourfront: in later years this took the form of video recordings. IRAH also systematically photographed readings, book signings and other events. Rogers TV, CBC, TVOntario and CJRT radio all broadcast different elements of the reading series and festival, and some readings were also rebroadcast on the Books and Writing programme of the Australian Broadcasting Network.
