In Review: The Week of June 18th

On the Blog

~ For Pride Month, Playing Into Silence: “Pride has become a chance to reflect on where we’ve been, what our community has come through in such a short amount of time and to celebrate where we are today and what lies ahead.”~ ALU book club is back for another summer with Paige Cooper’s Zolitude (Biblioasis) and Ali Bryant’s The Figgs (Freehand Books) bringing you interviews, staff discussions, and follow-up reads. 

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~ Publisher Brindle & Glass wrote a beautiful tribute to philanthropist Herb Belcourt who devoted decades to improving the lives of Aboriginal Albertans.~ On National Indigenous People’s Day we launched Indigenous Litspace featuring Indigenous content, including books, interviews, and artwork all in one place. Plus we got to know the four visual artists whose work make up the colours on the site.~ We sought out award-winning poet Hider/Seeker (Anvil Press), stories that are “like a mini-meditation on the modern condition of existence.”

Around the Web

~ A new Slate podcast, Shakespeare and Politics, explores what the Bard’s plays might teach us about our present political moment starting with Julius Caesar, and the fall of the Roman Republic.~ Lit awards dominated this week: Biblioasis author Pino Coluccio won a 2018 Trillium Book Award for his poetry collection Class Clown; the 2018 League of Canadian Poets Awards saw wins for Emily Nilsen for Otolith (Goose Lane Editions) and Lesley Belleau for Indianland (ARP Books); Coach House Books poet Ben Ladouceur won the 2018 Dayne Oglivie Prize honouring outstanding emerging writers from the LGBTQ+ community; and the 2018 Manitoba Book Awards were given to Jennifer Still for Comma (Book*hug) and Michael Kaan for The Water Beetles (Goose Lane Editions).~ Because the dog should never die, Electric Lit so the dogs lived to bork again. 

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What Else We’re Reading

Mandy is reading Martha Baillie’s 2014 novel The Search for Heinrich Schlögel (Pedlar Press): Everyone I know who’s read this book—it was published in 2014—has been left with a deeply satisfying memory of it.