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...
Reviewed by Lucian Childs William di Canzio, Alec (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), 352 pp., $27.00 US. I’m a sucker for gay love stories. They’re a sensuous, sugary hit of pure emotion. William di Canzio’s Alec is not without problems—like its source material, E. M. Forster’s posthumously...
Reviewed by Namitha Rathinappillai Nisha Patel, Coconut (NeWest Press, 2021), 108 pp., $19.95. Nisha Patel’s poetry debut, Coconut, reflects on the multifaceted experiences of queerness, race, womanhood, fatphobia, and familial relationships. The collection contains moments of both introspection...
Reviewed by Annick MacAskill Arleen Paré, Earle Street (Talon Books, 2020), 96 pp., $16.95. Arleen Paré’s recent poetry collection, Earle Street, offers an affectionate yet unsentimental portrait of a neighbourhood in all its minute complexities. Surprisingly expansive in its consideration of...
Reviewed by Namitha Rathinappillai jaye simpson, it was never going to be okay (Nightwood Editions, 2020), 112 pp., $18.95. Shortlisted for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers, and the Indigenous Voices Award (2021). In jaye simpson’s debut book, it was never going to be...
Reviewed by Kegan McFadden Billeh Nickerson, Duct-Taped Roses (Book*hug Press, 2021), 96 pp., $20.00. Billeh Nickerson’s new poetry collection Duct-Taped Roses begins with the lines: “When we wrap our legs / around one another’s / I’m not sure.” This first poem, “Mermen,” is situated just...
Reviewed by Amy LeBlanc Jillian Christmas, The Gospel of Breaking (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020), 80 pp., $14.95. The opening line of Jillian Christmas’ new collection The Gospel of Breaking reads: “tell me what is a body.” This line can be read a few ways—I read it as a question or a plea. The next...
Reviewed by Noah Cain Annick MacAskill, Murmurations (Gaspereau Press, 2020), 96 pp., $21.95. Annick MacAskill’s second poetry collection, Murmurations, explores what it means to live inside a body. Driven by hunger, thirst and love, MacAskill captures powerfully instinctual feelings of longing and...
Reviewed by Jane Shi Kimiko Tobimatsu, illustrated by Keet Geniza, Kimiko Does Cancer (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020), 96 pp., $19.95. Kimiko Does Cancer, a graphic medicine memoir written by Kimiko Tobimatsu and illustrated by Keet Geniza, is a tender offering that critiques mainstream breast cancer...
As part of the Victoria Arts Council’s Poetry in Public project, Tharuna Abbu’s poem, “Emergency Measures,” has been published into five different languages! This poem first appeared in Plenitude in July 2020 as part of our Queer Isolation in a Pandemic series. Here is the full excerpt from UNTIL...
We are excited to announce that Cara Nelissen has joined the Plenitude team as our new Book Reviews Editor! Cara comes with a wealth of experience in the Canadian literary sphere, particularly as previous reviews editor for PRISM international. Cara will be taking over from Alison Dowsett, outgoing...
Reviewed by James K. Moran Adam McOmber, Jesus and John: A Novel (Lethe Press, 2020), 236 pp., $15 USD. Adam McOmber’s novel Jesus and John is a rare matryoshka doll of a horror novel. It is a queer love story inside a historical recreation of Jesus fraternizing with the Apostle John inside a...
We are excited to announce that Dominik Parisien has joined the Plenitude team as our second Associate Prose Editor! David will work alongside L’Amour Lisik to discover and publish exciting new stories from queer writers around the world. Dominik Parisien is an editor, writer, and poet. His poetry...
Reviewed by Eve Morton Amber Dawn, My Art Is Killing Me and Other Poems (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020), 128 pp., $17.95. My Art Is Killing Me is a poetry collection that feels like a wound. Amber Dawn’s latest collection of mostly free verse poetry from Arsenal Pulp Press weaves her lines with issues...
Plenitude Magazine is currently seeking a permanent, part-time book reviews editor to start January 2021. The candidate will work to oversee the regular online publication of book reviews from prominent and up-and-coming LGBTQ2s+ authors. Plenitude publishes one review per month all year round on...
Reviewed by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch Tommy Pico, Feed (Tin House Books, 2019), 88pp., $15.95 “Me and Leo yakkity yak yak’d / about writer’s / block / and the starchy long stroke of quote unquote God on the Meadow Walk and he didn’t know I was fully head over banana peels I mean in Kiehl’s I...
We are excited to announce that David Ishaya Osu has joined the Plenitude team as our second Associate Poetry Editor! David will work alongside Rebecca Salazar to discover and publish exciting new poetry from queer writers around the world. David Ishaya Osu is a poet, memoirist, street photographer...
Reviewed by Eve Morton Amber Dawn & Justin Ducharme, ed., Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019), 192 pp., $19.95. The poetry collection Hustling Verse, edited by Amber Dawn and Justin Ducharme, is a book I want to judge by its cover. The artwork is...
Reviewed by Jane Shi Kai Cheng Thom, I Hope We Choose Love (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019), 144 pp., $17.95. My dear trans kindred—weird sisters, brothers grim and gay, siblings-in arms: What kind of world do you want to live in? –Kai Cheng Thom, “How Neoliberalism Is Stealing Trans Liberation” Kai...
Plenitude Magazine mourns the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, and all others whose lives have been stolen by police violence. We condemn the murders of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour (BIPOC), and especially of trans BIPOC at the hands of white supremacist...
Reviewed by Emilia Nielsen Bahar Orang, Where Things Touch: A Meditation on Beauty (Book*hug Press, 2020), 114 pp., $20. I was first introduced to Bahar Orang’s work at Creating Space IX, the Canadian Association for Health Humanities annual conference last year in Hamilton, Ontario. Such a...
Reviewed by Amy LeBlanc Tess Liem, Obits. (Coach House Books, 2018), 88 pp., $19.95. Winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award in 2019 Obit: the announcement of a death. “It sinks like a stone, this attention to the lives of others.” Obits. opens with the above epigraph from American poet Wendy...
This call for submissions will end on June 30, 2020 All around the world, people are being asked to stay home to stop the spread of COVID-19. Self-isolate. Practice social distancing. Don’t spend time with anyone outside of your household. But how is this affecting members of the Canadian LGBTQ2S+...
Reviewed by Julia Peterson Barrie Jean Borich, Apocalypse, Darling (Mad Creek Books / The Ohio State University Press, 2018), 120 pp., $18.95. Nominated for a 2018 Lambda Literary Award (Lesbian Memoir/Biography category) I remember learning, a few years ago, that Sappho’s poetry wasn’t written...
Reviewed by Katherine Connell Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House (Strange Light, 2019), 264 pp., $24.95. Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House is a hybrid memoir that combines the author’s personal experience of queer domestic abuse with reflections on genre, literature, film, and...
Want to know your best bet at getting published? Curious about our history and favourite pieces? Look no further! Patrick Grace, our managing editor, was recently interviewed by Lambda Literary about Plenitude’s history, our focus on queer and trans lit, what we’re looking for in submissions, and...
Reviewed by Ben Rawluk Matthew Walsh, These are not the potatoes of my youth (Goose Lane, 2019), 92 pp., $19.95. I don’t want to have to use the word liminal, but all the spaces in Matthew Walsh’s debut poetry collection These are not the potatoes of my youth are absolutely liminal. Walsh is a Nova...
We are excited to announce that L’Amour Lisik has joined the Plenitude team as our new Associate Prose Editor! L’Amour is an artist, writer, and QPOC who lives on the unceded traditional territories of the Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples. She holds a BFA in Writing from the University of Victoria...
Happy New Year from Plenitude! To start 2020 off right, we’re launching a special Youth Spotlight project this month. Stories by young queer and trans authors about teen/YA (young adult) experiences don’t receive as much attention as they should, so we’ve selected two fiction and two creative...
Reviewed by Emilia Nielsen Lucas Crawford, The High Line Scavenger Hunt (University of Calgary Press, 2018), 144 pp., $18.99. Lucas Crawford’s second collection of poetry, The High Line Scavenger Hunt, undertakes to both chronicle and engage with New York City’s High Line, a reclaimed elevated...
Reviewed by Tanya Marquardt Larissa Lai, The Tiger Flu (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018), 334 pp., $19.95. Winner of the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, Larissa Lai’s novel The Tiger Flu invites us into a lyrical world that melds seamlessly with her rendering of place, telling a much...
Reviewed by Asam Ahmad Alexander Chee, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel (Mariner, 2018), 280 pp., $16. Near the end of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, Alexander Chee writes: “The story of your life, described, will not describe how you came to think about your life or yourself, nor...
Reviewed by Matthew Walsh Hasan Namir, War/Torn (Book*hug Press, 2019), 114 pp., $18. Hasan Namir, celebrated author of the novel, God in Pink (winner of the 2016 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction), is back on the literary scene with his essential debut book of poetry, War/Torn, published by...
Reviewed by Marie-Hélène Westgate Zahra Patterson, Chronology (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018), 96 pp., $14. Not by accident, Zahra Patterson grants us entry into her long-form nonfiction essay, Chronology, through failure. The action of the book centers around Patterson’s inability to translate a...
Reviewed by Lucas Crawford Emilia Nielsen, Body Work (Signature Editions, 2018), 100 pp., $17.95. My skin tells non-linear tales: a series of abandoned forays into shrinkage and growth; into sun exposure and cooking burns (reader, do not cook fatty proteins sans shirt); into stretched pores and the...
Plenitude is excited to appear at Open Space’s Small Press Fest on October 5 in Victoria, BC! Managing editor Patrick Grace will be there to speak on a panel discussion about running a small press or literary journal. He will also be hosting a table at the event alongside board member L’Amour Lisik...
Reviewed by Asam Ahmad Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin Random House, 2019), 368 pp., $28.00. In his first novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, the poet Ocean Vuong creates scenes of magisterial beauty through a heartfelt and earnest exploration of grief, desire, pain, and...
Reviewed by Jeremiah Bartram When I opened Me, Myself, They, I knew nothing about Joshua M. Ferguson. I didn’t know that as a political activist they had pioneered policy changes in Ontario and B.C. that now permit non-binary gender identification on birth certificates and driver’s licenses...
Plenitude is very happy to welcome Patrick Grace to the role of managing editor. No stranger to the literary world, he worked for The Malahat Review as publicity manager from 2013 to 2017, and has acted as one of Plenitude’s poetry editors since 2016. He has also been helping us out with...
Are you passionate about queer literature in Canada? Do you want to support the growth and development of queer literature through Canada’s queer literary magazine? Join the Board of Plenitude Publishing Society! Plenitude Publishing Society (PPS) is seeking volunteers to bring their unique skills...
