By Margot Berner
I am not a spring-enjoyer.
I love summer for the festivals, autumn for the When Harry Met Sally sweaters, and winter for the complaining about winter. Spring in Montreal is all about the revealing of dog poop in ice-melt gutter-rivers and slipping on secret ice hidden under slush.
There’s nothing good about spring. Or, there wouldn’t be if we weren’t so fun and clever here.
Montrealers have come up with several life-saving maneuvers to wade through the season and keep morale at a survivable level. Because of the general unpleasantness intrinsic to a Montreal spring, we emerge as soon as temperatures are higher than -12°, simply pretending being outside isn’t painful, and we gear up for the smorgasbord of summer happenings by having a smaller, more tasteful buffet of events to whet our appetites. The literary community is no exception: we are out there, organizing indoor gatherings, picking out our favourite turtlenecks and opening our doors to writers and book-lovers alike.
Book people, rejoice. You will be seeing us all in our light jackets and oddly cropped sweaters very soon. But you’ll have to know where to find us:
Festivals & Conference
Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival: You may have seen the call for submissions to their writing contest, “Planet, My Love.” The winner (whoever that may be) is set to read at the festival, which takes place April 23-26. Blue Met puts on live interviews, roundtable discussions, readings, debates, workshops, and performances; it sounds like there will be over 100 invited authors in attendance from across the world. It’s a Big Festival. Most events are free, and those requiring tickets range from $8-$30. The main space is HOTEL10 (10 Sherbrooke Street West), with some events happening offsite throughout the month of April.
They’ll be announcing the full roster of events and headlining authors at their press conference on March 18. Stick around afterwards for the Montreal Review of Books Spring 2026 launch – more information below under “Readings & Book Launches”!
Montreal Mystery Book Festival: On May 29-30 we have this wonderful little bite. Do you love whodunnits? A fan of Noir? Have you read an Agatha Christie novel in one sitting in the bath until the water was cold and you didn’t notice because you needed to finish before you could move? The full ticket gives you access to 10 panels featuring over 20 authors. It’s also extremely bilingual and their website is very proud of that fact.
Open Books, Open Minds Conference: This is a professional development conference run by the Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec (AELAQ); it will take place at the Centre culturel Georges-Vanier on April 23. Expect a series of speakers, panels, and workshops to help you become the writer/publisher/big-book-lover/chic turtleneck-wearer you were meant to be. More information is forthcoming on their website to see exactly which events appeal to your sensibilities.
Montreal Comic Arts Festival: This festival does it up right every year. They shut down St Denis from May 15-17 and set up tables covered in graphic novels, zines, snacks, and prints that you can leisurely peruse. The Comic Arts Festival is another free event that I always (somehow) forget about (even though I put it in my calendar) and then I magically end up there when the sun is at its height and everyone still has their art available for me to buy. What I’m trying to say is the universe always wants me to be there, and I’m sure it wants you to be there as well. Let’s try to take the burden off the universe and show up on our own steam this time.
Queer Reader Fest: This is a brand new festival from a true range of brilliant minds across Montreal. From May 14-24 all I will be doing is reading Queer books in English, Spanish, and French over ten days. At least eleven book meetings are in the works; the idea is that we don’t read everything, but instead we get a little sample of what this beautiful literary city has to offer. We will probably also meet some nice and extremely literate people along the way. Some of the book meet-ups include: The History of a Difficult Child by Mihret Sibhat (Sapphic Arts & Letters; Violet Hour Book Club), Il faut beaucoup aimer les femmes qui pleurent par Martine Delvaux (Lucioles et morilles), Prince Faggot by Jordan Tannahill (Gay Writes, Pulp Books & Café),Les passions du samedi par André Roy (Mes pants de queer), Jack the Modernist by Robert Glück (Librairie Saint-Henri Books), Firebugs by Nino Bulling (Librairie Drawn & Quarterly’s Graphic Novel Book Club), The Good Arabs by Eli Tareq El-Bechelany Lynch (Argo Bookshop; Violet Hour Book Club), and Gender Trash from Hell edited by Mirha-Soleil Ross (Dicks Lending Library). I’m very excited.
Launches, Readings & Workshops
Spring 2026 Montreal Review of Books Launch: Following the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival’s programming announcement, the Montreal Review of Books will launch their Spring 2026 issue. Come raise a glass with us at 5:15 p.m., and stick around for readings at 6 p.m. from Francine Pelletier (Dream Interrupted), Karine Rosso (Between the Island and the Turtle, translated by Anita Anand) and Marianne Ackerman (Oyster). More information here!
Metatron Press has TWO book launches this spring. The first launch will be for All the Time by Xiaoxuan Huang on May 23 from 2-4 p.m. Alongside the author, the event will feature poetry by Klara du Plessis and tunes from GRHM BVRL.
The second launch will be for Kawai Shen’s Wavering Futures on June 7 at Parquette from 2-5 p.m., presented in partnership with Toronto’s own MOOD Magazine. The MOOD people are SO NICE their main mood seems to be “kind and welcoming.” Go and mingle and have fun! You might be peer pressured into buying the book or subscribing to the magazine, but isn’t that kind of the point? We should all be so lucky to be peer pressured into further literacy. More details to come, be sure to check back on Metatron’s event page!
Yolk Literary: You know, the Poetry, Fiction, Visual Arts, Non-Fiction, etc etc etc publisher is hosting their six (6!!) year anniversary party at Parquette on April 9! If you keep an eye out, a little bird (the lovely person who runs their Instagram) tells me that they will be hosting their extremely cozy Two Readers and Music events throughout the spring. You’ll have to message them to see where and when because these readings are free but have limited attendance—they’re hosted in someone’s impeccably decorated apartment and are a great way to mainline a full dose of music and literature in one night.
Dick’s Lending Library has two events coming up: a community cataloguing workshop on March 15 at articule (3283 Rue St Hubert), and a virtual event on March 26 from 68 p.m. on “Zines and Literatura de Cordels: Exploring the multi-national history of zines and paradoxes in self-publishing.” That one will be facilitated by Tosin Jerugba and it sounds extremely cool. I’ll be there.
Have you heard of Dick’s Lending Library before? You may have seen their little shelf in Librairie Drawn & Quarterly—they’re a community-run library dedicated to trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit authors. All their events are great, they make great zines, and they are also one of the few groups who are still requiring K/N95s at in-person events! Which is great news for everyone who is sick of getting sick all the time.
Book Clubs
Argo Bookstore is hosting their Japan Book Club on March 26 at 7 p.m. The book is one I’ve read! The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa takes place on an island where items, people, and memories regularly disappear, and those who can’t forget are targeted and controlled by the Memory Police. THE BOOK IS GOOD. Discussion will take place online and in-person.
Librairie St Henri Books is giving us Deep Cuts Book Club w/ David: We Always Treat Women Too Well coming up on March 10 at 6:30 p.m. Then, because they never slow down, Book Club with Casey: The Brittle Age by Donatella Di Pietrantonio on March 12 at 6:30 p.m.
Oh, you thought they were done? Once we get some serious rent-control in Montreal I am moving to St Henri so I can go to all of these, because there is another book club this spring, and that’s Women on the Run Book Club w/ Iva – The Summer Book on March 18 at 6:30 p.m..
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly will be hosting their famous D+Q Cooks! Cookbook Club. The March 29 edition of the club will focus on Good Things by the love of my life, Samin Nosrat, author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. This event round-up is dedicated to you Samin Nosrat, a woman I probably will never meet. Every halfway decent meal I’ve ever cooked, I owe to you. Thank you.
Regular Open Mics
Whether you write secret poetry in your notes app or you’re applying for grants for your next chapbook, it’s good to test your work out on a real, live audience. Or how about several? Tour your work across the city or just hit the one closest to you:
Accent Open Mic is a bimonthly reading for poetry and prose! I want to hear more short stories at these so hey, write one for me, won’t you?
Chimera Open Mic is super welcoming. The events are hosted out of Phoenix Books in NDG and you don’t have to reserve a spot in advance. Show up unwilling to put yourself out there, change your mind 4-10 times, and then leave with a new coping mechanism: having a room full of strangers clap for you. It’s really great.
JRG Lit Open Mic runs out of L’Hémisphère Gauche. Get a little weird here, get messy, this is the place for it. This is not the spot for your more cutesy work. The next event is March 12!
Margot Berner is another writer and artist who fled from the chill-vibes and high rent of the unceded territories of the Tsleil-Waututh, Stó:lō, Squamish, and Musqueam people (Vancouver, BC) and is now living large in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal, QC) where they enjoy combative vibes and slightly less high rent.
Illustration by Zoë Bourget.