The original “fun-gal” of CanLit is back for a Power Q & A. We welcome the exubriant Ariel Gordon to the blog to talk about how she selected the home for her newest book, Fungal: Foraging in the Urban Forest (June 4, 2024).

Both personal and entertaining, Fungal: Foraging in the Urban Forest is the highly anticipated second book of a trilogy and shows Gordon at her best: interweaving the personal with the easily overlooked local and natural and local world around her, and passing on her contagious delight for the world at—and under—our feet.

We’re delighted to host Crime Writers of Canada Award-winning author Joanne Jackson on our blog. Her thrilling new novel, Sunset Lake Resort (Stonehouse Publishing, June 1, 2024), is a captivating narrative full of thrilling twists, exciting reveals, and gorgeously drawn characters. It is inspired in part by Joanne's own life. leaving the city to go to the lake, and her observations about the importance of community, and the cost of technological progress to our peace of mind.

This book is a perfect pick for an exciting and poignant summer read, and on this Power Q & A, we’re asking Joanne about one of our favourite parts of the book: namely, the championing of an older woman as a protagonist.

May is Asian Heritage Month and we are honoured to be sharing an excerpt from the award-winning novel, Dancing in the River (Guernica Editions) by Vancouver lawyer and author George Lee.

Dancing in the River, won the Guernica Prize, and draws on Lee’s own life experiences growing up in China. It tells the coming-of-age story of a young boy during Mao’s Cultural Revolution—a boy named Little Bright living in a small, riverside town who is heavily indoctrinated by the anti-Western sentiment of the time and place. The perspectives afforded in this stunning novel—the insights into culture, politics, and personal experience—are crucial to a national and global understanding of Chinese history.

By its very nature, reading embodies two things so many mothers could use more of: downtime and connection. That’s why we’ve created a list of some of our favourite forthcoming and recently released books by Canadian authors. From wildly absorbing novels to tender, poignant poetry, to nonfiction that evokes reflection and joyous, kindred solidarity, these are reads that circle and explore ideas of mothering and motherhood for people who know you never stop growing up: there are always new things to learn, and perspectives to share.

The jury of the Guernica Prize called Borrowed Memories, Mark Foss’s third novel, “an evocative and nuanced story.” Borrowed Memories (8th House Publishing, 2024) juxtaposes a Canadian couple in their winter years against the rage and hope of the Arab Spring. In this tale of shifting identities, Ivan Pyefinch—a divorced translator—cares for his aging parents in the Thousand Islands while trying to find room in his heart for Mia Hakim, an immigrant filmmaker exploring her lost childhood in Tunisia. When Mia turns up unexpectedly at the Pyefinch home on the eve of Remembrance Day, a family health crisis puts all their stories on a collision course.

This poignant novel is about memories in all their forms—the ones slipping through our grasp, the ones we hold onto for others, the ones we never had but are trying to find, the ones we are trying to create.

Dave Margoshes’ new novel, A Simple Carpenter (Radiant Press, 2024) , is one of our most anticipated fiction releases of the year, and today, we are honoured to have this Saskatoon-area poet and fiction writer on our blog to speak to his remarkable book.

Set in the early and mid-‘80s in the Middle East, A Simple Carpenter plays out against a backdrop of strife in Lebanon and ethnic/religious tensions between Jews and Arabs in Israel and Palestine. This historical backdrop serves as an empathetic and thoughtful commentary on our modern political climate. 

We’re tickled to be sharing an excerpt from the lastest book from the original “fun-gal”, mushroom hunter and author extraordinaire, Ariel Gordon.

Both personal and entertaining, Fungal: Foraging in the Urban Forest is the highly anticipated second book of a trilogy and shows Gordon at her best: interweaving the personal with the easily-overlooked natural world around her, and passing on her contagious delight for the world at—and under—our feet.

Author and attorney George Lee’s novel, Dancing in the River, won the Guernica Prize, and draws on Lee’s own life experiences growing up in China. It tells the coming-of-age story of a young boy during Mao’s Cultural Revolution—a boy named Little Bright living in a small, riverside town who is heavily indoctrinated by the anti-Western sentiment of the time and place. The perspectives afforded in this stunning novel—the insights into culture, politics, and personal experience—are crucial to a national and global understanding of Chinese history.

Erasure poetry—it’s one of the best ways to get almost anyone to try creating a poem. All you’ve gotta do is black out some words and leave others. Simple right? Well yes. Simple, but not easy. Erasure poetry, also known as blackout poetry, isn’t burdened by many rules but it’s no small feat to turn a text saying one thing into a poem saying something different.

Elena Bentley (MA English, University of Toronto) is a multi-genre writer and proud Métis aunty. Her ecent poetry chapbook, taliped (845 Press), was a finalist in the 2022 Vallum Chapbook Award. And the poetry is all erasure.

We welcome her to our Power Q & A series today to talk with us about choosing erasure poetry for this project.

Poems are playful, precocious, and powerful things, and these are just some of the reasons we are so giddy to celebrate National Poetry Month by hosting the incomparable Ellen Chang-Richardson on our blog, as part of our Power Q & A series.

Ellen’s poems use the power of blank space to make bold, breathtaking statements and allow room for exploration. In their just-released debut poetry collection, Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024), Ellen writes of race, of injury, and of belonging in stunning poems that fade in and out of the page. They bring their father’s, and their own, stories to light, writing against the background of the institutional racism of Canada, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the head tax and more. From Taiwan in the early 1990s to Oakville in the late 1990s, Toronto in the 2010s, Cambodia in the mid-1970s and Ottawa in the 2020s, Blood Belies takes the reader through time, asking them what it means to look the way we do? To carry scars? To persevere? To hope?

Today we welcome to our blog Patrick Connors, a poet living in Toronto and contributing to its rich poetic landscape. Patrick’s latest collection. The Long Defeat, is coming out with Mosiac Press.

In this new book, Connors explores the depths of human experience, influenced by personal challenges and global crises. Reflecting on his own experience of pandemic-induced unemployment, Connors captures universal themes of dissatisfaction and the desire for renewal.

Intrigued by the title, we asked Patrick to speak about what he hopes people will take away from this timely collection.

We love hearing from authors who move between genres, and Nicola Winstanley has some poignant insight into her transition from children’s literature to her first book for adults, Smoke (Wolsak & Wynn) a collection of short stories. Smoke is an unforgettable collection of short stories that is both searing and thought-provoking.

Smoke features a cast of characters across Canada and New Zealand, showing us glimpses into their lives of loss and heartbreak. In these eleven linked stories, Winstanley takes a hard look at intergenerational trauma and their impact on characters from multiple points of view, but her characters are not victims—anything but. Guilt, self-reflection, compassion, and forgiveness are central themes in this collection of stories that help us understand the degree of responsibility we hold toward the events that happen to us in life. 

Three-time Saskatchewan Book Award winner Michael Trussler’s latest book, Realia, (Radiant Press, 2024) grapples with the black fire of mental illness, revels in the joy inherent to colours, and probes what it means to be alive at the beginning of the Anthropocene. Perfectly clear, perfectly opaque, Trussler’s poetry implodes the lyric to channel the bright disintegration of our contemporary moment. We’re honoured to have Michael join us for this Power Q & A to speak to his experience of writing as a neurodivergent individual.

An accomplished and acclaimed writer in his own right, we first heard of Christopher DiRaddo through his work with The Violet Hour Reading Series. We were immediately struck by Chris’ openness, kindness, and generosity, and knew we wanted to ask him about his experience organizing and maintaining his vital series for queer writers in our current cultural landscape.

We’re honoured to have Chris join us for this Power Q & A.

Welcome, Chris!

Robin Pacific’s memoir, Skater Girl, (Guernica Editions, 2024) is an electric and disruptive examination of a life that challenges assumptions of not only how a memoir should read, but also, how women should act. It is definitely one of our favourite nonfiction reads this year, and we’re thrilled to have Robin on our Power Q & A to share a little bit more about her scrappy and sensational book.

Welcome Robin!

It’s National Poetry Month, and we are celebrating by showcasing poet Melanie Marttila. Her debut collection, The Art of Floating (Latitude 46) is a testament to years of honing her craft. The collection of five sections of free verse poems is wide-ranging and eclectic, bringing to life her deep connection with the earth and sky of Ontario. The aptly named collection describes her learned ability to ride the unpredictable waves of mental illness and prevent herself from drowning within it, while seeking solace in the natural world around her. These lyric poems are stunning and transportative, absorbing the reader with captivating imagery, complex diction, and highly relatable themes most pivotal in life, such as loss, grief, and hope.

In one of the year’s most anticipated poetry releases, Anatomical Venus (Radiant Press, 2024), author Courtney Bates-Hardy offers a visceral collection that invokes anatomical models, feminine monsters, and little-known historical figures. It’s a journey through car accidents and physio appointments, 18th-century morgues, and modern funeral homes. Grappling with the cyclical nature of chronic pain, these poems ask how to live with and love the self in pain. Magic seeps through, in the form of fairy tales, in the stories of powerful monsters, in the introspection of the tarot, and the transcendence of queer love. 

We’re excited to have Courtney join us for this Power Q & A to speak to the slick and writhing vitality of her work.

This doesn’t happen often around here, but we are excited to welcome a poetry reviewer to our Power Q & A series. melanie brannagan frederiksen is the poetry columnist for The Winnipeg Free Press, to our series to speak to the review landscape in Canada.

Welcome, melanie!