Penguin Canada launched Brad Smith’s new novel, Big Man Coming Down the Road, with a country songwriting and performing competition at Toronto’s Cadillac Lounge on Feb. 28. (Photos by Penguin Canada.)

Musician Stella Panacci warms up the crowd.

Laura Fetterley, Ashley Burns, and Jennifer Notman from Penguin Canada get into the spirit.

Penguin publicity manager David Leonard shows off his cowboy shirt. (Leather chaps not visible in picture.)

Marc Glassman of Pages Books & Magazines, Penguin publicist Lia Lyons, the Toronto Star‘s Phil Marchand, and Penguin’s David Leonard talk about putting their own band together; the fight over who gets to play banjo commences immediately.

Smith tells Marchand he will have to sing, since the event falls under This Is Not A Reading Series. Marchand tries to remember the words to “I Fall to Pieces.”

CHUMFM broadcaster Ingrid Schumacher, Marchand, Cadillac Lounge owner Sam Grosso, Glassman, and Smith judge the country song competition. “Not quite pitchy enough on the chorus,” says one of them.