by Matthew Walsh Arleen Paré, author of Paper Trail, Leaving Now and the Governor General’s Award-winning book Lake of Two Mountains (Brick Books, 2014), has a new collection out this year, landing right on the heels of her last book. He Leaves His Face in the Funeral Car (Caitlin Press...
Latest Stories
Gabriella Goliger, Ottawa
“Arleen Paré’s Leaving Now is a deeply thoughtful, courageous work that transgresses boundaries, challenging the lines between poetry and prose, memoir and fiction, realism and fantasy, the acceptable and the taboo. “Set in Montreal and Vancouver in the 1970/80s, it’s about...
Plenitude’s Journey Prize Story
Congratulations Ron Schafrick on being one of just twelve short story writers selected for the Journey Prize Stories (Penguin Random House, 2015). Schafrick’s tender and funny story, “Lovely Company,” appeared in Issue 5 of Plenitude magazine (Fall 2014), and we are thrilled that...
Mette Bach, Vancouver
“When I was nineteen, I lived in a rented room in a house that I shared with eight other people. The place was constantly noisy and hopping. Then winter break came and my housemates all left and I had the place to myself for the first time. My friends and family were far away. In the eerie...
Farzana Doctor’s All Inclusive Finds Love in All the Right Places
by Matt Loney Alternating between Ameera, a sexually adventurous resort worker in Huatulco, Mexico, and Azeez, her father’s wandering South Asian ghost who tries to connect with his daughter, Farzana Doctor’s third novel, All Inclusive, is a rare, somewhat whimsical but vibrantly coloured...
Barry Webster, Montreal
“I once attended a panel discussion where the topic was ‘Canadian Literature: Quiet Writing for a Quiet Nation.’ Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers is anything but quiet. It rants, seethes, and uses humour as a machete. The hyper-sensual language and extravagant fantasy of the...
Bears, Flamingos, and Kids’ Lit: Affirming Queer Stories from Around the Kitchen Table
by DJ Fraser This is the second installment of a series on Canadian queer publishers by DJ Fraser. This series explores Canadian queer publishing across genres, houses, and provinces. For this children’s literature month, we are looking at Flamingo Rampant, the children’s publisher started...
Sarah Ellis on Writing for Young People
by Matthew Walsh Sarah Ellis is a YA and children’s literature writer whose work has garnered her some notable awards, including the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence and the Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature. She has also worked as...
Trevor Corkum, Toronto
“I’ve always been a fan of restraint, in both literature and life—what’s held back, what’s not said, the untold story unfolding and germinating underneath the main action. I’m a fan of the short stories of Adam Haslett, Amy Hempel and Neil Smith (among many, many others) for this reason...
