Press Playbacks: 4 Books from the Kegedonce Press Backlist

Books You Might Have Missed – Let’s Fix That!

I know, I know–it’s impossible to keep on top of the exciting frontlist titles coming out, yet here I am about to recommend gems from the backlist! But I myself have often found it profitable to periodically put a pin in my new book buying to hunt down older works, especially if they never got the love they deserved on release. So allow me to present four backlist Kegedonce titles so good you should buy multiple copies to hand out on the street.

A Gentle Habit by Cherie Dimaline

You probably know Cherie from 2017’s The Marrow Thieves, which was a phenomenon. But by then she had already published four books, one of which is A Gentle Habit from 2015. And what a book it is! A Gentle Habit brings together six exquisitely written stories of personal obsession, loneliness, unlikely allegiances, love, and so much more–all written in Cherie’s signature style, at once incisive and sensitive. I can’t recommend this one enough.

When she wasn’t talking, her jaw kept moving, swivelling about on its hinges like a revolving door, waiting for new words to be conceived so they could exit.

The Colour of Dried Bones by Lesley Belleau

Another jewel is the collection of linked short stories, The Colour of Dried Bones, goes back to 2008. It tells the story of a young Anishinaabe woman trying to negotiate the rapids of lovers, friends, family, community and culture. It’s by turns brooding and sensual, angry and joyful, and ultimately uplifting. And the writing is spot-on–gritty as gravel and smooth as the velvet on a white-tail’s antlers. A must read.

Today there is only the small hint of morning, lush sounds of autumn and the hot imprint of your hands on my flesh.

That Tongued Belonging  by Marilyn Dumont

That Tongued Belonging is celebrated Cree/Métis poet Marilyn Dumont’s third collection, and appeared in 2007, winning the McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year. It is a profoundly moving take on what it means to be an Indigenous woman in middle age, in a world full of distractions, impositions, tragedies and successes. Kegedonce Press has always prioritized poetry, and this is the type of poetry we feel most strongly about: poetry that situates the individual in the currents of history – social, cultural, personal.

I coil, a wire following itself
round and round the same 26 letters
of loss

You Are Enough: Love Poems for the End of the World by Smokii Sumac

Winner of the 2019 Indigenous Voices Award for poetry, You Are Enough is a collection of profound tenderness. It is a book that does many things. It invites you to “give generously without worrying where more will come from.”  It interrogates colonialism from a Two-Spirited point of view. It celebrates warrior qualities. And it shares the good stories alongside the tough ones.

You once told me the kitchen floor is the best place to cry;
recommended crawling to the refrigerator and crying to the beat of its hum

If that’s not enough, we have a whole website full of exciting titles, new and new-to-you, to explore. After all, we’ve been at it since 1993, publishing some of the finest Indigenous literature in the country. And we’ll keep on doing it so long as there are Indigenous stories to tell and Indigenous perspectives to celebrate.

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Thanks to Richard-Yves Sitoski at Kegedonce Press for sharing this list of backlist gems. You can order any of these books through All Lit Up, or click the “Shop Local” button on the book listings to discover them at your local indie bookstore.