On to Ottawa! Toronto! Oshawa! Hamilton! New York!

What's the big idea?

In Ottawa, at the International Writers' Festival, Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington Street, Saturday, April 22, 8 p.m.:

BIG IDEA #2: Our Unnatural Relationship with Nature and the Future of Life on Earth featuring Wayne Grady, Terry Glavin and Elizabeth May $15 / $12 Student or Senior / $8 Festival Member.

Three of Canada's finest minds examine our relationship with nature. Wayne Grady's Bringing Back the Dodo delves into the forces of evolution and extinction that shape the living world. Terry Glavin's Waiting for the Macaws chronicles the history of extinctions and the human struggle to conserve living things and Elizabeth May's How to Save the World in Your Spare Time gives us the tools we need to protect our communities and the planet. "A wonderful observer of the complex and mysterious."- Canadian Literature on Wayne Grady. "Wise and eloquent...urgent, important, and well said." - Ronald Wright on Terry Glavin. "A compelling case for an urgent national debate"- Ottawa Citizen on Elizabeth May.

That's what they say, anyhow. I promise to be well-behaved (Keefer took in the Vancouver reading I mentioned here a couple of days ago). This time, no Jameson's.

Big Idea #1 is this: Is God A Man? With Tim Ward, Anne Hines and Tom Harpur. But for me the bigger idea for earlier in the day Saturday would be my pal Karsten Heuer who reads from his new book Being Caribou, and also Tim Flannery, who will be reading from his tremendous The Weather Makers, which features prominently in an essay of mine that's just shown up at Dooney's Cafe.

In Toronto I'll be reading at a University of Toronto Readings Series event, again with Wayne Grady, and this time also with Mark Jaccard, on Wednesday, April 26th, 7:30 pm, at the Hart House Library, Hart House Circle.

It's free, and here's something that's just too weird: Jaccard and I are not only from the same high school (Burnaby South. Go Rebels!), we're both recipients of the alumni award. Small world or what.

I'm not sure what I'm doing in Oshawa or Hamilton. I don't know what else I'm up to in TO yet but I'm told the week's pretty packed. Then Yvette's flying out and we pick up Zoe (take in her Readable Ink gig at Rancho Relaxo, 300 College St., doors at 8:30 p.m., cover $5) and then it's off to New York to hook up with John Parsley, my editor at Thomas Dunne, who is also an editor at Lost Mag, about which New Yorkers read about today here.