After Shanghai, I caught a cheap flight to Bangkok. In the sky, I met a group of Australians who joked about North Korea and Kim Jong-il the whole time and who said “g’day mate” for my pleasure. We parted ways at the airport then I travelled to Ko Phangan, where I think I was roofied at […] More »

A life-hack I read on the internet told me to avoid landlords who are late for the first meeting. If I had followed the life-hack, I wouldn’t be living where I live now, which is in the sewer. So that’s another lesson I had to learn the hard way. I was waiting for a potential […] More »

A sex addict meets another sex addict and falls in love. Sex Addict 1 needs sex all the time, but it can be with the same person as long as 1. It’s interesting 2. The person smells good 3. They both come at least once almost every time 4. It is done in many new ways […] More »

Barrelling Forward By Eva Crocker House of Anansi, $19.95 Barrelling Forward, a debut short story collection by emerging Newfoundland writer Eva Crocker, presents compelling tales of the so-called “ordinary” within Canada. Through 14 pieces, readers are acquainted with intensely realistic descriptions of both personhood and setting. The chafing, itching skin of a man is delineated […] More »

One way to examine a marriage is to look at the pattern of jokes. Fourteen years ago, when Heidi started her daily running practice, when Marley was two, terribly two, Heidi used to joke that she ran because she could pretend she’d keep running and never come back. Sometimes she ran for an hour, for […] More »

The Water Beetles By Michael Kaan Goose Lane Editions, $22.95 At times graphic and disturbing, The Water Beetles by Michael Kaan tells the heroic and poetic story of a young boy living in Hong Kong during the Second World War. Based loosely on the diaries and stories of Kaan’s father, the narrative follows 12-year-old Chung-Man […] More »

Sputnik’s Children By Terri Favro ECW, $19.95 Terri Favro follows up her award-winning novella The Proxy Bride with Sputnik’s Children, a full-length debut mixing comic book science fiction with reflections of growing up during the atomic age at the height of the Cold War. Comic book creator Debbie Reynolds Biondi finally decides to tell the […] More »

Date with Destiny By Hélène Rioux, translated by Jonathan Kaplansky Guernica Editions, $20 Ten grisly but rich descriptive short stories, Date With Destiny by Hélène Rioux glimpses at the many ways death affects our lives at any given age. From a mother with a suicidal son, to an overzealous funeral sales telemarketer, each character experiences […] More »

The Break By Katherena Vermette House of Anansi, $22.95 “In the end, all that matters is what is right here.” These words by Métis writer Katherena Vermette perfectly capture the heart of the stories within The Break. Vermette, who won the 2013 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry, offers alternative perspectives surrounding a brutal crime—each […] More »

At first, it was just a normal Saturday, and by normal, I mean basically nothing was happening. I was lying on the couch in the rec room waiting for my toenails to dry. Metallic Blueberry—that was the name of the colour. “Hey, Mom,” I called out when she walked by. “Why did you decide to name […] More »

The Nearly Girl By Lisa de Nikolits Inanna Publications, $22.95 The Nearly Girl by Lisa de Nikolits is many things, but predictable isn’t one of them. Broken into a few chapters, The Nearly Girl tells the story of an unusual family, including a daughter named Amelia, who inherited her father’s peculiarities and is confronted with […] More »