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Author: ALU Editor
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Lunging into the Underbrush: Interview with David Homel
Linda Leith Publishing sits down with author David Homel to discuss his new memoir Lunging into the Underbrush: A Life Lived Backward, and how a catastrophic accident and the story of his own life brought him to the discovery of aging backwards and facing his vulnerabilities.
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5 Books About Women in History
While Womens History Month celebrations are happening in other parts of the world, we couldn’t resist adding Canadian stories with a roundup of books about women making waves in history and today. Scroll on for our picks!
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Two Poems from Run Riot
During a ninety-day stay at a Vancouver rehab centre, Ash Winters wrote a poem a day—a body of work that would later become their debut collection Run Riot (Caitlin Press). In this vulnerable, powerful portrait of the struggle against addiction, Ash takes the reader through moments of determination, anger, hilarity, and heartbreak. Below, we share two poems…
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Beautiful Books: Pretty Goblins
Starting with a list of words that evoke the mood of the play, illustrator Myriam Wares was able to draft the first sketches of what would become the cover design for Beth Graham’s Pretty Goblins (Playwrights Canada Press), about two perfectly different twin sisters who must relive their past—confronting addiction and trauma through a found…
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You can’t fake respect: Interviewing trauma victims
I grew up watching movies and TV shows portray journalists as something akin to packs of wild animals. Whenever a reporter appeared in a scene, they would be aggressively shoving microphones into someone’s face and yelling unbelievably insensitive questions at them. And that’s not just the old days. In recent shows, like House of Cards,…
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Off/Kilter: Interview with Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler
Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler joins us in this edition of Off/Kilter to discuss his second collection of speculative short stories, Ghost Lake (Kegedonce Press), all set on a fictional reserve in Northern Ontario. Below, Nathan shares more about how the setting, inspired by a mash-up of places, takes on the role of main character, his work…
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Under the Cover: Adoption and personal history in Atlas of Roots
Beth Kope’s third collection of poetry Atlas of Roots (Caitlin Press) is a moving and personal reflection on the many facets of adoption. Tugging at the threads of her missing family history, Kope shares her quest to find her adoption records and the truth of her own conception. Beyond the personal, Kope explores the larger world of…
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Where in Canada: The Crash Palace
Andrew Wedderburn is a saint in these isolating times—offering holy views of a Calgary landscape, held in nostalgic memory, for all those yearning for the forgotten freedoms of the open road. Andrew joins us in this edition of Where in Canada to tell us more about the scenic western routes that inspired his newest novel…
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Five Books for I Read Canadian Day
I Read Canadian Day celebrates great Canadian books and underscores the importance of reading from an early age. We’re joining in on this special day by highlighting five fab reads for young people plus a list packed with a whole lot more—sure to fill shelves and growing imaginations alike.
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Lit Locale: The Cat Possessed
Cozy mysteries call for cozy locales—even more apt in a pandemic meets polar vortex. Make it a bingeable weekend with Louise Carson’s cozy cat mystery series starting with The Cat Among Us (Signature Editions) and ending with latest book in the series, The Cat Possessed.
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Off-Beat Valentine’s Day Reads Guaranteed Not to Bore You With Clichés
Are you sick of cliché greeting cards and empty capitalist gestures? Flowers and chocolates not doing it for you? Here’s a Valentine’s Day reading list featuring some fantastically unconventional indie books that challenge and expand our definition of “love.” Dark, moving, critical, and big-hearted, these reads are anything but standard-issue romance narratives. They’ll make you…
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Test Kitchen: Bookish Valentine’s Day
Whether your modus operandi is hopeless romantic or you’re more Galentine’s Day than Valentine’s Day, we have books to suit your flavour and drink pairings to match!
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Poetry in Motion: Emily Skov-Nielsen
In her debut poetry collection The Knowing Animals (Brick Books) Emily Skov-Nielsen introduces us to dark theory of ecology that no longer sees nature as “other”—in which the constant thrum of human technologies can be mistaken for the trill of birdsong and the human body imagined as a vast and complex ecosystem.
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Drama in Motion: A Scene from Trapsongs
When we asked playwright and poet Shannon Bramer to record a scene from her collection of plays Trapsongs (Book*hug Press)—three dark comedies that navigate the realm of the surreal and absurd—she delivered with a fun, behind-the-scenes recording of a scene from The Hungriest Woman in the World featuring outtakes and scene partner (and husband) Dave Derry. Scroll on to…
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First Fiction Friday: The Fifth: A Love(s) Story
The love triangle trope is a cliché for the past with the arrival of MP Boisvert’s debut novel The Fifth: A Love(s) Story, translated by Monica Meneghetti (Caitlin Press), which introduces some contemporary flare into romantic storytelling with a love pentagon worth all of your readerly attention. Dynamic, complicated, loving relationships unfold under the roof…