Dundurn Press is thrilled to announce that Leafs 365 by Mike Commito, Lost in Cabbagetown by Terry Burke, The Suicide Magnet by Paul McLaughlin, These Days are Numbered by Rebecca Rosenblum, and Toronto Mayors by Mark Maloney have been selected as official nominees for the Book category for the 2024 Heritage Toronto Awards. Congratulations, everyone!
Leafs 365 shares daily stories from the ice that highlights the unforgettable history of the team so you can chear them on yearly — even when they’re out of the NHL playoffs.
From the tenements of Dublin to the slums of Toronto, Terry Burke paints a graphic picture of his boyhood, as part of an Irish immigrant family struggling to survive at the beginning of the 1960s in Lost in Cabbagetown.
The Suicide Magnet explores the inside story of the grassroots fight to have a suicide barrier erected on Toronto’s “bridge of death.”
Praised by Saleema Nawaz, author of Songs for the End of the World, as “an intimate portrait in which moments of pandemic grief and anxiety are always matched by humour, tenderness, and curiosity,” These Days Are Numbered is a love letter both to the outside world that she misses so desperately, and the little world inside St. James Town that she can see from home.
Toronto Mayors gives readers the first-ever look at all 65 Toronto mayors — the good, the bad, the colourful, the rogues, and the leaders — who have shaped the city in one way or another.
The Heritage Toronto Awards celebrates individuals, organizations, and the projects they create in order to champion the importance of heritage to city building. The 49th Annual Heritage Toronto Awards will take place on Monday, October 28. Learn more here.
Mike Commito is a hockey historian and author of the Hockey 365 series. His work has been featured on the Athletic and Sportsnet and in the Hockey News and the Sudbury Star, his local newspaper. Mike has also had the opportunity to regularly cover the LA Kings and has penned stories for four other NHL teams. In 2018, one of his articles received the Paul Kitchen Award from the Society for International Hockey Research. Mike has a Ph.D. in history from McMaster University. In 2003, he became eligible to be drafted to the NHL but is still waiting for the call. Mike lives in Sudbury, Ontario.
Terry Burke immigrated to Toronto’s Cabbagetown in the late 1950s. His two previous books, Cold War Soldier and Under the Blue Beret, deal with his time in the military. He is retired and living in London, Ontario.
Paul McLaughlin is a highly experienced and award-winning freelance writer, broadcaster and teacher. The author of 2022’s Asking the Best Questions, he has written numerous books, articles and playscripts. He lives in Toronto, where he teaches professional writing at York University.
Rebecca Rosenblum is the author of the short-story collections Once and The Big Dream, and the novel So Much Love. Her work has been shortlisted for the Trillium Award and the Amazon First Novel Award. Rebecca lives with her husband, author Mark Sampson, and their two cats in Toronto.
Mark Maloney is a government relations professional specializing on the City of Toronto, and has worked closely for three of Toronto’s mayors. He has also been a municipal affairs reporter and served as an Ottawa City Councillor and Board of Health chair. He lives in Toronto.