Why I Wrote This Book: Issue #63
Featuring Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Jo-Ann Roberts, Jacqueline Halsey, and Marjorie Simmins
nonfiction
On Music | Interview with Niko Stratis
Hi Niko! Thank you so much for your time. I must be a fangirl first and let you know I’ve been following your work for some time and I am thrilled to be talking to you today. There are so many exciting themes in “Dad Rock” that I want to ask you about! Though, I’m going to begin with a bit of a bummer question because lately I am so often thinking about grief and mental wellness amongst my peers. When you discuss Jason Molina’s Farewell Transmission in your essay We’re all Supposed to Try, you capture your own memories with the song and you also present bits of Molina’s story. But I was moved by how careful you were to discuss his life and work without overly romanticizing his struggles, while still acknowledging the reality that he lived with alcoholism and ultimately died quite young.
Why I Wrote This Book: Issue #62
Featuring Alex Boyd, Brent van Staalduinen, André Narbonne, and donalee Moulton
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.
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.
Do It Wrong: How to be a Poet in the Twenty-first Century by Derek Beaulieu
Beaulieu asks, why are we writing?
The Translation Chain Project by Logan Kennedy
The Translation Chain Project by Logan Kennedy is a literary experiment that began with a spontaneous question: what happens if a piece of prose is translated repeatedly, with the previous translation used as the source? But what began as a playful idea led Kennedy to consider one the most pressing matters of our time: the rise of artificial intelligence.
The Golden Generation: How Canada Became a Basketball Powerhouse | Interview with Oren Weisfeld
In The Golden Generation: How Canada Became a Basketball Powerhouse, basketball journalist Oren Weisfeld looks past the highlights and toward the hard, often uncomfortable work of building a national basketball ecosystem – one shaped by immigration, resistance from governing bodies, U.S. prep schools, grassroots rebels, and decades of tension.
Unshaming: A Memoir of Recovery, Relapse, and What Comes After By Jowita Bydlowska
As if arriving fresh from the fever dream of her sensational memoir Drunk Mom Jowita Bydlowska sways toward us with a new tale, a different one, and on the first page she is as drunk as ever, but just as surefooted in her prose.
Why I Wrote This Book: Issue #57
Featuring David Martin, Mallory Tater, Kasia Van Schaik, and Barbara Emodi
A Love Affair With the Unknown by Gillian Deacon
Gillian brings forth the notion that we, as humans, try to seek control and predictability because it makes us feel comfortable. She explains that while we all feel uneasy with life’s uncertainties, we often fail to recognize that most others feel the same way.
Looking for Anne of Green Gables: L.M. Montgomery and Her Timeless Heroine by Irene Gammel
Gammel traces her way through Montgomery’s life, journals, and early works to determine the leads for how Anne of Green Gables was born, and how Montgomery related to Anne throughout her life.
Why I Wrote this Book: Issue #55
Featuring Joanne Culley, Dena Jackson, Shelagh Meagher, and Dr. Jacques A. Frigault
Something to Hold Onto by Kate Robson
Something to Hold Onto: Simple Metaphors, Images, and Practical Tools to Transform Your Life is a personal and relatable look at life, struggles and the grief we all endure to come out on top.
The Miramichi Reader’s Best Nonfiction of 2025
Here are our best nonfiction titles of the year, chosen by our contributors!
