Reviewed by Paul Leonard Makram Ayache (Arabic translation by Hiba Sleiman), The Green Line (Playwrights Canada Press, 2024), 176 pp., $19.95. Caleigh Crow, There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death, Or The Born-Again Crow (Playwrights Canada Press, 2023), 104 pp., $18.95...
Reviewed by Lisa Timpf Jes Battis, I Hate Parties (Nightwood Editions, 2024), 96 pp., $19.95. When I saw the title of Jes Battis’ poetry collection I Hate Parties, I knew this was a book I had to read. I Hate Parties is described in Nightwood Editions’ promotional materials as a collection that...
Reviewed by Anne Perdue Zoe Whittall, Wild Failure (HarperCollins Canada, 2024), 176 pp., $18.00. Through three books of poetry and six novels, Zoe Whittall’s been a wry, fearless chronicler of urban contemporary times, often through the lens of queer culture. In May, Whittall published her tenth...
Reviewed by Kegan McFadden Hannah Godfrey, Oubliette (Nevermore Press, 2023), 112 pp., $22.00. Grief is a punctuation mark. For some, it’s a period, and for others more lucky, a semi-colon… No matter what you find yourself grieving, there is a before and an after. In her recent collection...
Reviewed by Shannon Page Jade Wallace, Anomia (Palimpsest Press, 2024), 230 pp., $21.95. Readers of Jade Wallace’s poetry will recognize a familiar vibrancy of language and surrealism in Anomia. Sitting comfortably in the liminal space between genres, Wallace’s debut novel defies easy...
It’s a Pride mashup! For Vancouver Pride on August 1, Plenitude Magazine is pairing with the Vancouver Public Library for a literary reading and speed friending event! At 7pm, hear local Plenitude contributors read their poetry and prose. Readers include Shaelin Bishop, Meghan Kemp-Gee, Catherine...
Reviewed by James K. Moran Hannah Templer, Cosmoknights (Book One) (Top Shelf Productions, 2019), 216 pp., $25.99, and Cosmoknights (Book Two) (Top Shelf Productions, 2023), 280 pp., $33.99. Readers will find Hannah Templer’s Cosmoknights a delightfully colourful queer space opera and heartfelt...
Reviewed by Jeffrey Canton Guy Babineau, Channel Surfing (Cormorant Books, 2024), 272 pp., $24.95. With a gift for potent characterization, a penchant for quirky detail, and a deep sense of LGBTQ2S+ history, Channel Surfing in the Sea of Happiness, the debut short-fiction collection from Vancouver...
Plenitude Magazine’s Genre Bender category is a new call for submissions of hybrid writing. Our aim is to publish work that bends boundaries, to offer a space for literature that doesn’t fit standard conventions of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction. Does your work blur the lines between...
Reviewed by Shannon Page Christina Cooke, Broughtupsy (House of Anansi Press, 2024), 240 pp., $22.99. Born in Jamaica, Christina Cooke is now a Canadian citizen living in New York City. Broughtupsy, her debut novel, is both a gritty, queer coming-of-age tale and a nuanced dissection of grief...
Plenitude Magazine is once again increasing payment to its writers! Paying LGBTQ2S+ writers an industry-standard honorarium for their poetry and prose continues to be very important to us. Thanks to a generous grant boost from the Canada Council for the Arts, Plenitude will increase payment to...
Reviewed by Andrew Woodrow-Butcher Greg Kearney, An Evening with Birdy O’Day (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024), 336 pp., $24.95. At 69 years old, Roland is long past the peak of his hairdressing career. And after 25 years together, he and his handsome, chronically ill boyfriend Tony have settled into a...
We are excited to announce that Shawn Syms has joined the Plenitude team as our new Book Reviews Editor! Shawn comes with a wealth of experience in the Canadian literary sphere, including past associate and contributing editor to The Winnipeg Review and reader for The Ex-Puritan and This Magazine...
Reviewed by Trevor James McNeil Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer, Flung Out of Space (ABRAMS, 2022), 208 pp., $24.99 US. Greg Lockard and Tim Fish, Liebestrasse (Dark Horse Comics, 2022), 128 pp., $19.99 US. There is a notion among conservatives that LGBTQ2S+ folks have only existed since the 1960s—a...
This position has now been filled. Thank you for your interest! Plenitude Magazine is seeking a permanent, part-time book reviews editor! The candidate will work to oversee the regular online publication of book reviews from prominent and up-and-coming LGBTQ2s+ authors. Plenitude publishes one...
Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic Marcus McCann, Park Cruising: What Happens When We Wander Off the Path (House of Anansi, 2023), 352pp., $21.99. For the literal and figurative connotations alone, Marcus McCann chose a subtitle with broad appeal for Park Cruising, his book of eleven essays (and “In...
Reviewed by Anuja Varghese Steacy Easton, Daddy Lessons (Coach House Books, 2023), 160pp., $21.95. Content warning for childhood sexual abuse Steacy Easton’s memoir in “lessons” opens with a prologue that pulls no punches. Referring to the book, they state bluntly: “This is pornography in the sense...
Reviewed by Madelaine Caritas Longman T. Liem, Slows: Twice (Coach House Books, 2023), 96pp., $23.95. “[I]f you think an apocalypse // will eliminate the wealth gap, let us hold together the / premonition it will not,” reads a phrase from the poem “In Response to Feeling Alone; Or, Before and...
Plenitude is excited to announce that Meghan Kemp-Gee’s poem, “A Newly Discovered Species of Lizard with Distinctive Triangular Scales,” has been selected for inclusion in Best Canadian Poetry 2024. Congratulations, Meghan! We are thrilled that our queer poets continue to be recognized for their...
Reviewed by James K. Moran Daniel Allen Cox, I Felt the End Before It Came: Memoirs of a Queer Ex-Jehovah’s Witness (Penguin Random House Canada, 2023), 240pp., $32.95. Daniel Allen Cox’s memoir I Felt the End Before It Came is an inditement of the Watchtower Society and the Governing Body of the...
Reviewed by Cara Kauhane Andrew Kushnir & Khari Wendell McClelland, Moving the Centre (Talonbooks, 2022), 160 pp., $19.95. Moving the Centre consists of two documentary plays, “Small Axe” by Andrew Kushnir and “Freedom Singer” by Khari Wendell McClelland, as well as accompanying essays. Relying...
Reviewed by David Ly Meghan Kemp-Gee, The Animal in the Room (Coach House Books, 2023), 80 pp., $23,95. As a poet who is always interested in incorporating animals into my poetry—as they lend themselves particularly well to vivid imagery and nuanced metaphors—my curiosity was instantly piqued when...
Reviewed by Manahil Bandukwala Jhani Randhawa, Time Regime (Gaudy Boy LLC, 2022), 144 pp., $16 US. Jhani Randhawa’s debut poetry collection Time Regime is, as the title hints, a slow meander through time. This is evident from the very first poem of the collection, “Primavera,” in which Randhawa...
Reviewed by Micah Killjoy Carellin Brooks, Learned (Book*hug Press, 2022), 120 pp., $20. “Don’t you ever want to disappear?” asks Carellin Brooks’ Learned, a collection of bildungsroman poems that explores the world of a girl-turned-woman living as a Rhodes Scholar in mid-90’s Oxford. Learned’s...
Reviewed by Shannon Page Lor Gislason, Inside Out (Darklit Press, 2022), 112 pp., $19. Inspired by classic horror movies like Chuck Russell’s 1988 remake of The Blob, Lor Gislason’s debut novella Inside Out is gross and visceral. The story opens in a remote mining camp in British Columbia, as a...
Are you passionate about queer and trans literature in Canada? Do you want to support the growth and development of Plenitude Magazine? Plenitude Publishing Society is seeking volunteers to bring unique skills and experiences to its Board of Directors, and we want to hear from you. Our Mandate:...
Reviewed by seeley quest Trynne Delaney, the half-drowned (Metatron Press, 2022), 144 pp., $18. Near the end of Trynne Delaney’s first book, the half-drowned, comes a thematic question: What reality might hit after the end of belonging? The speculative fiction novella is set in a liminal future...
Reviewed by Melinda Roy Brian Francis, Missed Connections: A Memoir in Letters Never Sent (McClelland & Stewart, 2021), 240 pp., $24.95. I am a late bloomer. I came out as queer at 32 and was diagnosed with ADHD two years later. There were signs of both, which I can see when I look back; my...
Reviewed by Namitha Rathinappillai Manahil Bandukwala, Monument (Brick Books, 2022), 96 pp., $22.95. In her debut poetry collection Monument, Manahil Bandukwala immortalizes the historical Mumtaz Mahal, empress consort of the Mughal Empire, who is most often known as the woman for whose burial...
Reviewed by Vange Holtz Schramek Hannah McGregor, A Sentimental Education (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2022), 176 pp., $24.99. The full-scale uptake of social media since the rise of mega platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have led to many critiques of Millennials and Generation...
Reviewed by Leah Bobet Isaac Fellman, Dead Collections (Penguin Random House, 2022), 256 pp., $17 US. If Dead Collections was a space, it would be an archive, or perhaps a human heart: rich, moody, and funny, built with infinite care. This literary supernatural novel takes on the carefully...
Plenitude Magazine is increasing payment to its writers! Paying LGBTQ2S+ writers an industry-standard fee for their work is important to us. Thanks to a generous grant from Canadian Heritage’s Canada Periodical Fund, we are able to increase payment to writers as per the following: Poetry: from $35...
Reviewed by Michaela Stephen Natalie Wee, Beast at Every Threshold (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022), 104 pp., $17.95. In her sophomore poetry collection Beast at Every Threshold (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022), Natalie Wee offers an exploration of desire, grief, and history with evocative, sensual, and...
Reviewed by Anuja Varghese Helen Chau Bradley, Personal Attention Roleplay (Metonymy Press, 2021), 216 pp., $18.95. Helen Chau Bradley’s fiction debut Personal Attention Roleplay opens with the line, “I first fell in love with a girl to the theme song of Top Gun.” The story, titled “Maverick,” is...
We are excited to announce that Chris Slater has joined the Plenitude team as our second Associate Prose Editor! Chris will work alongside L’Amour Lisik to discover and publish exciting new prose from queer and trans writers around the world. Chris Slater is a former reporter turned writer living...
Reviewed by James K. Moran Adam McOmber, The Ghost Finders (JournalStone, 2021), 238 pp., $20.95 US. Adam McOmber’s third novel, The Ghost Finders, is entertaining, spooky gothic fare steeped in gas-lit (in the traditional sense) Edwardian London with a queer, character-driven story arc. His...
Reviewed by Manahil Bandukwala Isabella Wang, Pebble Swing (Harbour Publishing, 2021), 112 pp., $18.95. In her debut collection Pebble Swing, Isabella Wang writes with remarkable and lyrical skill that echoes the influences of literary forebearers such as Li Bai and Phyllis Webb. The poems span...
Reviewed by Khashayar Mohammadi Anahita Jamali Rad, still (Talonbooks, 2021), 112 pp., $16.95. “It is true, poetry still cannot stop tanks,” Ma Yan writes in I Name Him Me, “but that poetry attempts to stop tanks is its reach.” It is perhaps pessimistic to begin at the limits of poetry; it may seem...
We are excited to announce that Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin has joined the Plenitude team as our second Associate Poetry Editor! Rhiannon will work alongside David Ishaya Osu to discover and publish exciting new poetry from queer and trans writers around the world. Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin (she/her) is a...
Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic Kate Cayley, Householders (Biblioasis, 2021), 235 pp., $22.95. An exceptional volume of stories, Householders warrants applause—and readers, of course. Following How You Were Born (2014), Toronto’s Kate Cayley showcases virtuosic writing and captivating settings...
