The Latest News & Reviews
Chemical Valley by David Huebert
From refinery operators to long term care nurses, dishwashers to preppers to hockey enforcers, Chemical Valley’s compassionate and carefully wrought stories cultivate rich emotional worlds in and through the dankness of our bio-chemical animacy.
The Sydney Warner Brooman Interview
Sydney Warner Brooman (they/them) was raised in Grimsby, Ontario. They attended Western University in London, Ontario, and currently live in Toronto. The Pump is their debut short fiction collection. Their story “The Bottom” was shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s 2020 Open Season Awards, and they have recent work in American Chordata, Thorn Literary Magazine, and other literary journals.
I Am the Earth the Plants Grow Through by Jack Hannan
Introspective and lyrical, I am the Earth the Plants Grow Through by Jack Hannan takes us on a cross-country trip through time, away from Montreal of the 1970s and Montreal of the present day, following a love story and an art story.
Pull Focus by Helen Walsh
When Jane’s partner goes missing she needs to find out if he’s in danger while also contending with the politics of a large international film festival: Hollywood power brokers, Russian oil speculators, Chinese propagandists, and a board chair who seemingly has it out for her.
Even So by Lauren B. Davis
Angela Morrison has it all. She’s married to a wealthy man, adores her son, grows orchids, and volunteers at Our Daily Bread Food Pantry. What more could she want? More — much more. And she’s willing to risk everything after meeting Carsten, the landscaper with the glacier-blue eyes
Open Your Heart by Alexie Morin, Translated by Aimee Wall
In this frank and unforgettable book, celebrated Québécois writer Alexie Morin becomes the subject of her own story as she places a childhood friendship under a microscope.
Amid the Splintered Trees by Heather McBriarty
A sweeping novel of the Canadian experience in the First World War, Amid the Splintered Trees is loosely based on author Heather McBriarty’s own family history.
Excerpt: Reversing Time by Charlotte Mendel
Reversing Time: One Boy’s Quest to Change History is the full title of a new work of fiction by Charlotte Mendel. It is being published by Guernica Editions and will be released on December 1st, 2021.
The Body On The Beach by Patrick J. Collins
Inspired by a true event in Harbour Grace, 1920 Frank Fallon, a veteran policeman, finds himself demoted and transferred back to his hometown. Having left the community in 1905 after being rejected by his first love, Constable Fallon never wanted to return to the place of his childhood. Although they were young budding lovers, Marie Callahan’s denial of him for the love of another is still a painful memory.
Ridgerunner by Gil Adamson
Set against the backdrop of a distant war raging in Europe and a rapidly changing landscape in the West, Gil Adamson’s follow-up to her award-winning debut, The Outlander, is a vivid historical novel that draws from the epic tradition and a literary Western brimming with a cast of unforgettable characters touched with humour and loss, and steeped in the wild of the natural world.
The Genevieve Chornenki Interview
An interview with Genevieve Chornenki, author of “Don’t Lose Sight” her memoir about dealing with a retinal detachment and its aftermath.
The Junta of Happenstance by Tolu Oloruntoba
Tolu Oloruntoba’s The Junta of Happenstance is an impressive debut. It has many qualities I find admirable in a first collection: passion, a large number of poems, and a certain playfulness (of music and tone) that relays poetic confidence.
A Canadian Nurse in the Great War: The Diaries of Ruth Loggie, 1915-1916 Edited by Ross Hebb
A Canadian Nurse in the Great War grants a peek, through the diary of Ruth Loggie, into a little-known moment of our history. It also offers a glimpse into forbidden territory-women at war.
Dusty Dreams & Troubled Waters: A Story of HMCS Sackville and The Battle of the Atlantic by Brian Bowman and Richard Rudnicki
This striking graphic novel is a high-stakes adventure, a love story, and an important historical lesson. Features meticulously detailed black and white drawings, an illustrated diagram of the Sackville, information on wartime propaganda, glossary, and an illustrated map.
Don’t Lose Sight: Vanity, incompetence, and my ill-fated left eye by Genevieve A. Chornenki
When Genevieve Chornenki escapes a brush with blindness, things never looked better-city pigeons, people, stainless steel pots. But questions about her experience linger: Who was responsible for her close call? Can she safeguard other people’s eyesight? How do our eyes work, anyway, and why do they give so much pleasure?
