After launching on Saturday evening (November 22) with a gala featuring best-selling Israeli novelist Zeruya Shalev, this year’s edition of the Cherie Smith JCCGV Jewish Book Festival—which runs until November 27—aims to cover acclaimed fiction from across the continent, not to mention books about everything from landscape architecture to healthy diets.

The writers themselves—including Montreal’s Claire Holden Rothman and Vancouver’s own Steven Galloway, author of The Cellist of Sarajevo and The Confabulist—will be there to discuss, meet, and sign. And you can set out to join their ranks with a workshop on memoir-writing, or sit in on talks about such topics as the history of great Jewish opera librettists and the enormous challenges of translating Yiddish literature into English.

Throw in a generous helping of writing for young people by the likes of Aubrey Davis and Anne Dublin, as well as a giant used-book sale, and your literary calendar for next week is full. See the JCCGV website for the entire picture.