Toronto, IFOA, 2000. A promotional poster for the annual Toronto literary festival, which each year since 1980 brought together the best writers of contemporary world literature: in 2000 that included J.K. Rowling, approximately three months after the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in the series. Rowling did a reading from Chapter 4, for approximately 15 minutes (plus 15 minutes for questions) at the SkyDome (now Rogers Centre) in Toronto, to a crowd of 12,000 (or 16,000, or 20,000, depending on the report). Even at the "low" estimate, it was billed at that time as the largest author reading ever, and we can find no evidence of its having been surpassed, not even by Rowling herself, who, Beatle-like, became too big for such events by the time the next book, and the first movie, had been released. In these later years of the IFOA festival, the promoter limited production of these posters to a very small number (typically five or fewer) to be given to the sponsors after being signed by as many of the participants as possible. This poster, designed by Per Kirkeby, has approximately 64 author signatures. In addition to Rowling, it is signed by Ha Jin, Ursula K. LeGuin, John Banville, Jane Urquhart, Susan Sontag, Jayne Anne Phillips, Guy Vanderhaeghe, W.P. Kinsella, Mordecai Richler, Philip Levine, Joanna Trollope, Lawrence Norfolk, Marie-Claire Blais, Aleksander Hemon, Patrick Toner, Margaret Atwood, Anne Michaels, Francine Prose, Farley Mowat, Candace Bushnell, Spider Robinson, Jeffrey Meyers, Elisabeth Harvor, Elizabeth Hay, and others. This copy is from the private collection of the promoter of the festival, Greg Gatenby. 18" x 24", framed to 20-1/4" x 26-1/2". Fine. A rare artifact from a pivotal moment in both Rowling's career trajectory and in the history of the art form that is fiction: a visible, communal outpouring of appreciation for the woman who, it has been said -- without exaggeration, saved reading for a generation. [#029756] SOLD