Listen to the whole story here:
The Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) announced a new romance festival on Instagram, set to take place later this month and follows the opening of Toronto’s first romance-only bookstore, Hopeless Romantic Books, in October.
“The genre has been huge over the past couple of years. The romance events we’ve done at different festivals have brought in a younger, more diverse audience,” said Roland Gulliver. Gulliver has been the director of TIFA since 2020, and says launching a romance-centric festival was a “very obvious” next step for them. “It’s the genre that has really kind of benefitted from social media and BookTok [the bookish side of TikTok].”
The love for romance books in Canada has been building for a while, as romance book sales increased by 42 per cent from 2017 to 2022, according to data from BookNet Canada.
The new festival, called ‘Ever After,’ will feature the standard events that TIFA is known for, like author panels and workshops, as well as new events, such as the Ever After Ball, High Tea, and Tarot workshops.
Gulliver says making the festival genre-specific and including events that might appeal to romance fans is a way to make TIFA more accessible to different kinds of readers.
“Historically, romance readers haven’t had the spaces to come together. So, the fact that we’re beginning to do that is really exciting,” he said.
This message–of inclusivity and giving attention to a previously neglected community of readers–is resonating with some readers, like 23-year-old Natasha Babcock.
Babcock is a long-time reader and bookish content creator, who got into the romance genre over the past year. She says she’s glad that romance readers are finally getting some attention.
“I think for a long time, romance was seen as ‘not as good’ or ‘as literary’ as literary fiction. So, it’s nice to see that romance is being respected as a genre and that people [who read romance] are being seen as readers,” she said. “[Before,] I felt like I was being looked down upon sometimes [for reading romance], even though I’ve been a reader for my whole life.”
The announcement of the festival has been well-received, and ticket sales are “going really well,” Gulliver says.
Even though TIFA is an “international” festival, as the name says, and will include romance authors from Ireland, Scotland, and the USA, according to Gulliver, they’re also making sure to spotlight Canadian romance authors.
“I think, for us, to make it an international festival that also celebrates Canada, as well, [is] a really important part of everything that we do,” he said.
Ever After will also feature Hopeless Romantic Books, who will be the bookseller on site at the festival, according to the co-owner, Serena Goodchild.
The bookstore was previously located at STACKT Market, but outgrew the space, says Goodchild. So, they decided to relocate and opened their flagship store at 1080 Queen St. W, back in October.
The team is excited to have a bigger space, Goodchild says, which will allow them to host in-store events, like book launches and book clubs. The majority of events they held in October were sold out, according to Goodchild.
“We’re mainly just excited to be at our new space and have a little more permanent impact on the city and on our fellow romantics, and hoping we can provide that safe, fun, comforting space for everyone,” she said.
The Ever After festival will run at the Yorkville Royal Sonesta Hotel from November 21 to 23.
Janna Abbas is a Masters of Journalism student at TMU and a reporter for On The Record.
No AI tools were used in the production of this piece.
