The 10th anniversary edition of Scotiabank Toronto International BuskerFest hits Toronto starting tomorrow (Thursday, August 27th), and ends on Sunday, August 30th. BuskerFest this year features over 100 different street performers (clowns, contortionists, aerialists, silent comedians, and many, many more).
In the past ten years, BuskerFest has raised almost one million dollars in support of Epilepsy Toronto. The festival this year takes place in the St. Lawrence Market area (Front Street between Jarvis and Church Street). For a full list of events, performers, and locations, please see the BuskerFest website.
Descant is currently accepting submissions for the 2010 Winston Collins/Descant Prize for Best Canadian Poem. The winner, announced on February 20th, 2010, will be awarded $1000 Canadian; two runners-up will receive $250 Canadian. All three poems will be published in an upcoming issue of Descant.
This prize was first awarded in 2007, two years after the death of Winston Collins, who was a writer and enthusiastic teacher of literature at the universities of Cincinnati, Princeton and Toronto. Through his teaching, Collins was able to continually encourage self-expression through writing. As Andrew Smith recalled in his endowment remarks at the inaugural presentation of the Winston Collins prize, which were reprinted in Descant 136:
“Winston was the first person I’d ever met who recited poetry out loud just for the fun of it. He had not only a sonorous voice, perfect for recitation, but also an obvious and overwhelming love of the written word . . . Winston’s favourite poet for recitation was probably Yeats, but he also read from the works of poets such as Tennyson, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, Auden, and — on occasion — Allen Ginsberg.”
For more information on the Winston Collins/Descant Prize, click here.
 
The fourth annual Toronto After Dark Film Festival kicks off its 2009 group of horror, sci-fi, action and cult movies on Friday, August 14th, with a showing of critically acclaimed movie Black Dynamite. Seventeen films will be making their Toronto debuts over the following week.
The complete lineup has been announced, and full schedules are available. Tickets are available through the Festival’s webiste.
The charity that brings you Descant magazine, the Descant Arts & Letters Foundation, will be holding its sixth annual Garage Sale fundraiser on Saturday, August 29th (with a Sunday, August 30th rain date) from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Garage Sale will be held at 245 Markham Street, near the corner of Bathurst and College. Items for sale will include:
- houseware
- antiques
- pottery
- clothing
- vinyl
- books
- and much, much more!
We hope you’ll join us, support Descant, and go home with some treasures.
Descant‘s outreach program, NOW HEAR THIS!, is proud to introduce the third installment of the HEAR/HEAR reading series. The event takes place on Wednesday, August 19th, at the Free Times Cafe (320 College Street, 2 blocks west of Spadina). This FREE, ALL-AGES show will begin at 6 p.m.
This month’s lineup features NHT! Writers-in-Residence Rebecca Rosenblum, Mariko Tamaki, Andrew Daley, and Colin Frizzell.
We hope you’ll join us.
