Why I Wrote This Book: Issue #62
Featuring Alex Boyd, Brent van Staalduinen, André Narbonne, and donalee Moulton
fiction
The Longest Death by Kevin Jagernauth
As a Neo-noir Neo-pulp (to coin a term), The Longest Death impressed and entertained me.
Brown Girls, Grown Up: Stories by Sima Qadeer
Though focused on Muslim Pakistani Canadian women, there’s some DNA of Bushnell/Star in Sima Qadeer’s story collection, Brown Girls, Grown Up.
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.
The Lost Queen by Heidi von Palleske
It’s rare to read a story which manages to handle full lives like that, instead of focusing only on that which serves the primary story.
Why I Wrote This Book: Issue #61
Featuring Maria Giesbrech, Jane Doucet. Adriana Oniță, and JoAnn McCaig.
Temporary Palaces by Jeff Miller
It is perhaps in the valleys between each ripple, not the peaks, that Miller does his best work. The real emotional substance of the book thrives in the quiet moments, the silence before and after the bangs.
The Fall-Down Effect by Liz Johnston
Once a family experiences a wholly destabilizing trauma, and is fractured—how does it heal or reform in the proceeding years, and is this recovery ever sufficient?
There’s Always More to Say by Natalie Southworth
With her debut collection There’s Always More to Say, Natalie Southworth demonstrates that she not only understands the skills necessary to write powerful short stories, she has no shortage of them.
Black Cherokee: An Interview with Antonio Michael Downing
So there was this moment for me where I thought: my God, everything in my life has changed, but the one thing that has held true is the presence of the Crown, and of colonialism.
The Chorus Beneath Our Feet by Melanie Schnell
Mary’s brother Jess has just returned to his hometown after serving eight years in the military in Afghanistan. His sight has been compromised by an injury, and he brings with him the body of his close friend, a fallen soldier.
Wild People Quiet by Tara Gereaux
As epigraphs go, Gereaux’s identifies commonplace racism circa 1869. The novel’s subsequent pair of historical settings, about four and eight decades later, suggest cultural change that could be measured in teaspoons.
On boxing with Nadia Ragbar
From the beginning, even with them being conjoined, I didn’t want the conflict to come from discrimination or an overtly ableist world. That never felt like the story to me.
Why I Wrote This Book: Issue #58
Featuring Marie-Josée Poisson, Alison Gadsby, Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho, Natalie Southworth
