This year's IFOA - the International Festival of Authors - takes place in Toronto from October 20 to 30th at the Harbourfront Centre. The 2010 festival includes authors such as Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections, Freedom), David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob Zoet), and William Gibson (Neuromancer, Spook Country).

Now in its 31st year, the festival provides a great forum to discover new and buzzed-about Canadian fiction. Highlights from the schedule include Etobicoke-raised Dave Bidini who will read from his recent novel Home and Away: In Search of Dreams at the Homeless World Cup of Soccer. It's a story about a ragtag group of individuals who overcome the odds of poverty and addiction through sport.

Montreal's Miguel Syjuco's reading of Ilustrado: A Novel is another one not to miss. The award-winning debut fuses creative non-fiction, biography and crime fiction with a large dose of Filipino politics and history. For those with a keen interest in mystery and crime fiction there's also a special programming stream called IFOA Noir.

Some of my other top picks for what to check out this year include:

• October 22, 8pm: Reading/Interview: John Waters
• October 23, 9pm: Celebrating 40 Years of the Juno Awards with host Jian Gomeshi
• October 24, 4pm: Ben McNally Travellers Series: Bidini, Grady, Simonds
• October 26, 8pm: Penguin Group: Celebrating 75 Years in Publishing
• October 27, 8pm: Bridges Over Time: William Gibson & David Mitchell in Conversation


• October 28, 8pm: READING: Franzen, Gruen, Heighton, Hodgins
• October 29, 8pm: Real Life: A Night of Literary Non-fiction

For the full schedule and list of authors, check out the official IFOA website.

Writing by Michael Esteras. Photo by Authors at Harbourfront Centre via Flickr.