From Ragged Ass Road to Rideau Hall: Stories of Canada by Whit Fraser
How fortunate we are to have a Canadian like Whit who experiences such adventures and dares to tell about them.
Indigenous
Reframing Healing: Indigenous Voices for the Future
Two recent collections, You Were Made for This World: Celebrated Indigenous Voices Speak to Young People and A Steady Brightness of Being: Truths, Wisdom, and Love from Celebrated Indigenous Voices, offer something rare in conversations about Indigenous experiences: a shift away from narratives that confine us to trauma, and toward stories that illuminate healing, agency, and responsibility to one another.
The Return of the Nish by Tyson Stewart
In Tyson Stewart’s debut novel, themes of broken family ties, reconnection, and ethical dilemmas are explored within an Anishinaabe family in northern Ontario.
A Steady Brightness of Being, edited by Sara Sinclair and Stephanie Sinclair
A Steady Brightness of Being is a moving collection of letters by celebrated Indigenous Voices from across Turtle Island (North America) with titles like “Dear Relative,” “Letter to Clouds,” and “Dreaming, Listening, Belonging.”
Throwback: Island by Douglas Walbourne-Gough
This is a particularly raw collection of poetry, I felt, the blank verse tumbling across the page in a cry to be read and felt.
Horses by Jake Skeets
Here, Skeet’s invasion of white space picks up where Eyes Bottle Dark left off and begins with the haunting image of a herd of 191 free-roaming horses found dead, thigh and neck-deep at a stock pond on the Navajo Nation, evaporated through extreme drought caused by “decades-long aggression by the United States and the changing climate”.
On Wholeness: Anishinaabe Pathways to Embodiment and Collective Liberation by Quill Christie-Peters
It is, for a lack of a better term, a living explanation, one which comes to the reader in images and feelings, delivered with a logic that is not static but flowing. For me, it was an exhausting but beautiful reading experience, intense and unforgettable.
procession by katherena vermette
Having returned to the literary scene with her third poetry collection, procession, vermette welcomes readers into the intricacy of genealogy, of honouring one’s ancestors and future kin while navigating one’s identity—both spiritually and through art.
The Story of ii’ taa’poh’to’p: University of Calgary’s Journey Towards an Indigenous Strategy
The Strategy sets out a framework for the actions the University is taking and will take as it decolonizes itself and becomes a more equitable institution.
The Good Walk: Creating New Paths on Traditional Prairie Trails by Matthew R. Anderson
This is a remarkable book about a remarkable — and ongoing — project.
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation 2024
September 30th is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in so-called-Canada.
When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance by Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel with Sean Carleton
How many of us took “The Oka Crisis” at face value of media portrayal? Something along the line of lawless warriors in masks opposing the police in the summer of 1990? There were blockades and a militarized zone. Traffic inconveniences going into Montreal. You may recall that a golf course was set to dig up an Indigenous graveyard.
The behind the scenes story is more complex, and long-standing, with not a lot of overlap with what was told in the media.
THINGS YOU MAY FIND HIDDEN IN MY EAR: POEMS FROM GAZA by Mosab Abu Toha
Political poetry is crucial to the Palestinian literary tradition, embodied perhaps most famously by the poet and author Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), who was displaced as a child during the Nakba. This rich literary tradition also includes Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972), displaced to Lebanon in 1948 and assassinated by the Mossad at the age of 36. Many readers are familiar with Refaat Alareer, the poet and literature professor whose poem “If I Must Die” was circulated widely after his assassination in 2023. His colleague and close friend, Mosab Abu Toha, enters this impressive lineage with his debut collection, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear.
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
In 1962, a Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq family travels to Maine, where they have gone for many years to spend the summer picking berries. That year there are five children, the youngest, Ruthie, just four years old. One day, Ruthie and six-year-old Joe go off together to eat their lunch. Joe, distracted by something, leaves his sister on her own, and Ruthie goes missing.
