I came to Toronto with a single motive but left with a unexpected feeling.
Last weekend, I had the privilege of taking part as a Featured Author at The Word On The Street Toronto, with The Second Half.
Between the conversations, the signings, meeting other authors, and walking through a city that never sits still, something caught me off guard. Canadians really love their books. Not just buying them.
Talking about them, arguing gently over which ending worked better, discovering a writer theyd never heard of an hour earlier. There was something very beautiful about watching thousands of people gather around the written word in the middle of a busy city, on a weekend they could have spent doing anything else. I met authors whose paths looked nothing like mine.
Readers who, in the middle of a two-minute conversation at a signing table, told me pieces of their own second half, others walked up not knowing me at all and walked away as something closer to a friend.
Some of those conversations lasted two minutes. A few might last years. Thats the part of relationship capital nobody can predict in the moment. You rarely know, while youre standing there, which exchange is going to matter five years from now and which one is just a nice memory.
I flew in with boxes of The Second Half. Im flying home with something I didnt pack for. New stories, new friendships, a few new ways of seeing things. And a reminder, the kind that sticks with you longer than a good sales quarter ever does, that connection really is an asset, not just a nice phrase.
Thank you, Toronto.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by the table, picked up a book, told me a piece of their story, or just said hello on their way past.
You probably dont know it, but that mattered more than youd think. Sometimes growth starts with a strategy.
And sometimes it just starts with a conversation on the street.
