Toronto Urban Book Expo is hoping to attract a few Caribana revellers this weekend for its inaugural summer event.

For its first three iterations, TUBE was held in February at the Toronto Public Library as part of its Black History Month celebrations. For this year’s one-time event, which takes place Aug. 6 at the Toronto Studio for the Arts, organizer Stacey Marie Robinson partnered with the Nia Centre for the Arts – a non-profit dedicated to promoting cultural works from the African diaspora – as part of its Blowout Fest. The event also coincides with the Toronto Caribbean Carnival, which attracts more than one million tourists to the city annually.

Robinson, who is also the founder of Kya Publishing, was inspired to launch TUBE after attending the National Black Book Festival in Houston, which draws more than 150 writers annually. This year, approximately 40 self-published authors and small publishing houses from across North America have registered for TUBE. “Over half of the participating writers are independent authors – from as far as Texas and South Carolina, and many from closer states like New York and Ohio – who are so dedicated to spreading the word about this genre, and building the urban fiction audience, that they are making the journey to Toronto,” says Robinson.

TUBE has grown slowly by exponentially since it launched in 2014. Last year, it brought in close to 200 people, whom Robinson describes as “readers who are searching for urban content, members of the artist community who come out to support the indie authors/publishers, as well as aspiring writers who just want to chat with the authors about their process and experiences.”