As an avid reader that may or may not live in Toronto or Ontario, I hope you guys have heard about Word on the Street (WOTS), because as that same person, I went years without knowing that my dream book street fest was happening literally under my nose for so long. I got the chance to visit Word on the Street this year before work, and let me just tell you, little me would have been so excited to have attended all throughout the years had I known.
Word on the Street is Canada’s largest (and Free) book and magazine street festival. I don’t know a lot about what they had done in previous years but this year there were author panels, book signings (both offered around the main stages and by various vendor tables) and a lot of books and book-related merch that you can buy.
As a broke college student and bookworm, going to a street festival like this was a dream for me. Maybe not my wallet though. I would have loved to have the entire day out there however I had been scheduled a closing shift at work uptown, so I had to leave by 2 pm to make it to work. But those 2 almost 3 hours were so worth it.
Prior to attending the festival, my friend and I devised a plan to kind of limit the number of books I could buy. This was because I am very weak when it comes to books and tend to want both favourite titles, upcoming ones and hyped books too. But since I had to lug them to work, I couldn’t imagine carrying a whole stack of them. We settled for a max of 5.
The festival itself was very chill and what I was expecting, but there were many more vendors and booths than I was expecting, so that was exciting! The first booth we visited was the WOTS booth and I got a bookmark there to more or less commemorate my first WOTS festival, and I always don’t have enough bookmarks.
The next stop was the Toronto Public Library booth to pick up a copy of The Red Palace by June Hur, my best friend and I were both highly anticipating this book for our little book club and I came across a post on Instagram the night before WOTS saying that they were giving away free copies and that June Hur would be there to sign them. We both got a signed copy and are very excited to start the book!
Afterwards, we kinda wandered around between the booths a little bit and I made a note to visit certain shops once we started heading back to the front area (by Queen’s Park Station). On our way back, I stopped by the Happily Ever After Books booth, I saw a lot of books that I’d read and heard about and finally settled on Set on You by Amy Lea.
The next stop was Book Bubbled Shop’s booth, I’d noticed the array of bookmarks and there were so many that I wanted. It was pretty hard to choose which bookmark I’ll get but I prioritized getting bookmarks for books that I have a physical copy of; Twisted Hate and Love Hypothesis. So I got the Twisted Series set bookmarks, one for love hypothesis, a sushi bookmark, a dark cabin bookmark and a pink Japanese cherry blossom one. These are very good quality and I’m already using one or two now.
Bookmarks are something that I always run out of quickly, I either lose them, they break/rip on me or I forget them in a book and etc. But there were a few booths at WOTS that were giving away a lot of freebies, bookmarks, pins and etc. Some places also gave bookmarks with a book purchase too (or you get a free one with a copy of The Red Palace).
My final stop of that day was Harper Collins’ booth if I’m not mistaken, and that was to pick up a copy of Tessa Bailey’s Secretly Yours. I’ve been obsessed with Tessa Bailey’s books so far, and it also didn’t hurt that it was discounted ($16). I also picked up one of the Another Story Bookshop Raccoon Totes at that booth too, mainly because my own tote was bursting.
I do have to mention that there were a lot of other shops with their own tote bags with beautiful designs, but based on size and personal preference I did end up choosing this one.
Overall, it was an amazing event and I’m going to be eagerly awaiting WOTS next year! I cannot wait to see what the next year would bring honestly.
