The Hard Return, a book of poems by Marcus McCann, is a lover that confesses into your mouth during sex. It creates space inside the reader; spelunkers through you, cool and disconnected, then suddenly seizes something precious. It creates a new and almost extrapolated kind of literary criticism...
I was in a magic realist phase, reading a lot of Latin writers, mostly women, in translation. I loved the way these writers defied North American literary conventions. Anything could happen: a broken hearted loverās tears fell into batter and made all those who ate the cake sob inconsolably;...
I was twenty-one in 1992, living in Toronto with my first boyfriend. Weād spent our last two years in high school dating in secret, so by early ’92, I was relieved to be out, proud, connected. The public streets were still hostile. Dangerous. Bedrooms were dangerous. Sex was dangerous. That...
All of the essays in Brazen Femme do just that–help ‘good girls’ reach down and grab hold of our wild selves, throw out what we have been taught in favour of what we innately know. That to be femme is to be a survivor, an unbending battle ax. And it helps ‘bad girls’...
“First I found myself daughter, then granddaughter, and eventually, femme. Anna Camilleriās I Am a Red Dress: Incantations on a Grandmother, a Mother and a Daughter is a poetic meditation on identity, empowerment, personal history, sexuality and abuse. Part mythic storytelling, part...
“When I first read Sunnybrook: A True Story with Lies by Persimmon Blackbridge, I couldnāt stop holding my breath, this hard ache in my chest solidified like a fierce, red hot ember throbbing through every page. Itās impossible to ask an author to pick only one favourite Canadian...
