Author: ALU Editor
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Writers’ Block: Gurjinder Basran
Award-winning novelist Gurjinder Basran – whose most recent novel Help! I’m Alive – talks to us about the vulnerability intrinsic to being a writer and the immense gratification of writing under- or unrepresented characters out into the world (and we get to meet her adorable dog, too).
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Short and Sweet: Elizabeth Allua Vaah + Maame
A celebration of womanhood and inside look at Nzema culture, Elizabeth Allua Vaah’s collection Maame (Mawenzi House) follows three generations of Ghanian women in linked stories. In our interview, Elizabeth shares her appreciation for the form as well as an excerpt from “Aso: Mother of Angels.”
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Short and Sweet: Silmy Abdullah + Home of the Floating Lily
Shortlisted for the 2021 Danuta Gleed award for debut short fiction, Silmy Abdullah’s Home of the Floating Lily (Dundurn Press) follows characters between Bangladesh and a Bangladeshi neighbourhood in Toronto, navigating the meaning of culture and home.
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Short and Sweet: Phoebe Tsang + Setting Fire to Water
Phoebe Tsang discusses the myriad influences – from Chekov to Sharon Butala – that went into her debut short story collection Setting Fire to Water (Thistledown Press). We learn how the short story can be like a “perfectly seasoned hors d’oeuvre” and read an excerpt from “Model Shown Is Actual Size.”
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Poetry in Motion: ky perraun + Miraculous Sickness
Shortlisted for the Stephan G. Stephansson Poetry Award, ky perraun’s Miraculous Sickness (At Bay Press) is a poetic history and contemporary critique of society’s view and treatment of people with schizophrenia, and how far we have left to go. ky shares her hopes for enlightening readers about severe mental illness, and how poetry – in its defiance…
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The Clock Tower of Jaffna: Frozen and Unfrozen Times of History
In observance of Tamil Genocide Education Week in Ontario, translator Geetha Sukumaran shares a conversation with Tamil poet Ahlian (her translation of his book, Then There Were No Witnesses, was published in 2018), about the Jaffna Clock Tower as a conduit of childhood memory, a symbol of colonial rule, and a witness to destruction.’
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Short and Sweet: Terry Doyle + Dig
Author of the upcoming novel The Wards, we chat with writer Terry Doyle about his short story collection Dig (Breakwater Books) – featuring St. John’s, NL-ers struggling amidst the everyday, and read an ominous excerpt from his story, “Squat.”
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Short and Sweet: Alex Pugsley + Shimmer
“…in the age of TikTok, [short stories are] probably a good thing” says Alex Pugsley, author of the collection Shimmer (Biblioasis). We learn about his book and meet Twyla in an excerpt, the mouthy title character from a short story in the collection.
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Under the Cover: Letters to Singapore
Kelly Kaur’s novel Letters to Singapore (Stonehouse Publishing), brings to life Simran, who after a close escape from an arrange marriage, attends university in Calgary. The letters she writes to her mother, sister and friends reveal life is fraught with conflict, hilarity and peril. In this week’s edition of Under the Cover, Kaur shares the…
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Poetry in Motion: Tolu Oloruntoba + The Junta of Happenstance
Author Tolu Oloruntoba’s debut collectionThe Junta of Happenstance (Palimpsest Press), is a compendium of dis-ease. This Poetry in Motion feature introduces Tolu’s Griffin-prize nominated collection, and he shares how his poetic style is influenced by encounters earlier in his life.”
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Short and Sweet: H Felix Chau Bradley + Personal Attention Roleplay
H Felix Chau Bradley’s collection Personal Attention Roleplay (Metonymy Press) was recently named a finalist for the 2021 Danuta Gleed Literary Award for short stories. Read on to see why Felix says “writing a short story often feels like solving a puzzle” and catch an excerpt from their story “Surface Dive.”
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Short and Sweet: Katie Bickell + Always Brave, Sometimes Kind
Called “a loving portrait of the people you think you know, but don’t really” by Omar Mouallem, Katie Bickell’s Always Brave, Sometimes Kind(Brindle & Glass) is a collection of linked short stories following a network of people throughout Alberta. We chat with Katie on the challenge and economy of short story writing and read some of…
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Short and Sweet: Sofi Papamarko + Radium Girl
Writer Sofi Papamarko says the “immediacy and instant gratification of short stories” is what draws her to the form. We learn more about her collection Radium Girl (Wolsak & Wynn) and read some of the title story for Short and Sweet.
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“Bringing love to the children of war” – Excerpts from Why Do You Look at Me and See a Girl?
With Mother’s Day this weekend, we look beyond the flowers and platitudes to a celebration of fierce motherhood, embodied in the grandmother of writer Anvi Hoàng and recounted in her book, Why Do You Look at Me and See a Girl? (Guernica Editions). Hoàng’s grandmother Cam escorted her three children – including her mother, Cúc – over 250…
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Short and Sweet: Chih-Ying Lay + Home Sickness
Taipei-born author Chih-Ying Lay’s collection Home Sickness (published by Linda Leith Publishing and translated by Darryl Sterk) hearkens back to his youth. Says Jade Colbert in the Globe & Mail of the collection: “Psychologically, this is as high stakes as you can get. These stories can be hard to look at sometimes, but it is also hard…