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July/August 2023

Books behind bars

Incarcerated people in Canada are often without access to information. Prison librarians are working to change that

Leslie Sinclair

  “I still remember everything about it,” Zakaria Amara says, sketching the library inside Millhaven Institution, a maximum-security prison located in Bath, Ontario. He maps the librarian’s glass office inside the door from a controlled-movement hallway. An inspirational sign about reading hangs on the wall (he can’t recall what it says exactly). Next, the law […] More »
May-June 2022

Retro read

Novel looks at social issues faced by newcomers

Jean Marc Ah-Sen

Photo by Dimitri Nasrallah Dimitri Nasrallah’s Hotline (Véhicule Press) transports readers to mid-eighties Montreal when weight-loss centres were a burgeoning industry, and “body image” and “health consciousness” were terms just entering the vocabulary of self-care. Muna Heddad, a French teacher by trade, takes a job as a hotline phone operator at meal delivery company Nutri-Fort […] More »
May-June 2022

Spotlight on storytellers

Podcast uplifts Indigenous voices

Michaela Stephen

Photos courtesy Jennifer David & Waubgeshig Rice When Jennifer David decided to start Storykeepers, a podcast that spotlights Indigenous literature, she knew Waubgeshig Rice was her only choice for a co-host. He was an experienced journalist with CBC, a published author—most recently of the bestseller Moon of the Crusted Snow (ECW Press, 2018)—and they were […] More »
January-February 2022

Party time

New ebook press prioritizes inclusion

Jessica Rose

  When Natahna Bargen-Lema and Megan Fedorchuk launched Party Trick Press, they didn’t shy away from lofty goals. With a mission of revolutionizing eLiterature and bringing higher standards of diversity, accessibility, and inclusion to the publishing process, the digitally focused press aims to challenge the publishing industry’s complicated reputation. Soft launched in October 2020, Party […] More »
November-December 2021

Holding it together

New Brunswick poet writes about mental health from personal experience

Ashley Fish-Robertson

“Bent out of joint / in order to hold every-thing together. Won’t snap, won’t dissolve in an acid bath.” These are the opening lines of Self-Portrait as Paperclip, from Fredericton-based writer Triny Finlay’s third book, Myself A Paperclip, in which she transforms an inconspicuous office article into a clever metaphor for those attempting to hold […] More »
September-October 2021

Post-apocalyptic prose

Premee Mohamed explores the future at a local level

Kate Heartfield

In These Lifeless Things, by Edmonton writer Premee Mohamed, a character looks at her partner in a post-apocalyptic landscape. “We could make love right here!” she thinks. “Who, in this dead city, would stop us?” Amid pandemics, rising fascism and climate disaster, science fiction writers are imagining new futures in new ways. Mohamed is a […] More »
July-August 2021

A no frills approach to poetry

Victoria Mbabazi's poems feel like a conversation with a friend

Jo Ramsay

Black lesbian poet Victoria Mbabazi’s poetry collection, chapbook, was published by Anstruther Press in January 2021 and is now in its third printing. Their poetry’s No Name Brand design and style was inspired by the advertisements they saw commuting to the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus last summer, a time when they were also searching […] More »
July-August 2021

Broadcasting books

Glass Bookshop Radio amplifies marginalized voices

Michaela Stephen

The magic of a bookstore arises not only from books and stories, but from community and conversation. Glass Bookshop Radio, the new podcast from Edmonton’s Glass Bookshop, founded by Jason Purcell and Matthew Stepanic, celebrates its first year this fall. Purcell, Stepanic, and podcast producer and co-host, Makda Mulatu, have built their working relationship on […] More »
January-February 2021

Writing through pain

Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch’s epistolary poems confront chronic pain

Shazia Hafiz Ramji

In the opening letter of their debut poetry collection, knot body, Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch writes: “The days get brighter but somehow I don’t. A dilemma, right? I thought I was swayed by the light, moods lifting as the clouds lift, yet this pain is fingers deep.” El Bechelany-Lynch’s writing is at once an intimate […] More »
November-December 2020

A Black queer feminist press is born

Introducing Hush Harbour

Christelle Saint-Julien

Alannah Johnson and Whitney French know the world needs more Black literature. That’s why the Toronto-based writers have launched Hush Harbour, a literary press dedicated to imagining Black feminisms and uplifting works of short fiction. “There are so many Black writers and storytellers to uphold and affirm,” says French. “Among the many nuanced stories within […] More »

Interview with Jean Marc Ah-Sen

RM Vaughan talks to the author about his new book, In the Beggarly Style of Imitation

RM Vaughan

Jean Marc Ah-Sen’s new “novel”, In the Beggarly Style of Imitation, is a novel for people who are bored by conventional A to B storytelling. Comprised of dozens of different forms of communication and fictive formats – from horny letters to academic essays – Beggarly Style is ultimately about the fractured ways in which we […] More »