Author: ALU Editor
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In House: 3-Day Novel Contest
Ready, set, WRITE! Anvil Press gives us the historical deets on how the International 3-Day Novel Contest was established as a way to encourage writers to push their boundaries + how YOU can take part in this years contest, set to take place over the upcoming Labour Day weekend!
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Where in Canada: Orphans of Empire
Before Vancouver there was Gastown, and before Gastown there was New Brighton, only 5 kilometres east. Set in New Brighton from 1858 to 1885, Orphans of Empire (Touchwood Editions) is a deftly crafted trio of narratives that converge at the site of the New Brighton Hotel on the shores of Burrard Inlet. Featuring some of BC’s most…
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In Review: The Week of August 24th
This week we bid farewell to our ALU summer book club with four follow-up reads, got a little Off/Kilter, shared reflections from Indigenous authors, and more!
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First Fiction Friday: You Will Love What You Have Killed
In this edition of First Fiction Friday, we take a peak beneath the cover of Kevin Lambert’s prize-winning debut novel You Will Love What You Have Killed, recently published in a new english translation from Biblioasis. This book is many things – a ghost-filled queer coming-of-age revenge story that, at it’s heart, is also a…
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Reflections on Indigenous Voices and Issues from the Contributors of In Our Own Aboriginal Voice 2
Published by Rebel Mountain Press, In Our Own Aboriginal Voice 2 collects short fiction, non-fiction, personal essay, poetry, and original Indigenous artwork by thirty Indigenous authors and artists across the many traditional territories throughout Canada. Recently, the anthology’s editor Michael Calvert asked some of the contributors for their perspectives on Indigenous Peoples, issues, and the importance of…
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ALU Book Club: Follow-up Reads After Seeds and Other Stories
If you loved our August Book Club read Seeds and Other Stories by Ursula Pflug, we’ve got a few recommendations to keep the last vestiges of your summer full of the fantastical.
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Off/Kilter: Interview with Madeline Sonik
This month Off/Kilter sits down with Madeline Sonik to chat about her newest short story collection Fontainebleau (Anvil Press). Set in the mythical city of the same name, Fontainebleau is a place where something dark lurks – from poison in the soil all the way up to something menacing in the sky. In our interview,…
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In Review: The Week of August 17th
This week includes author interviews, books recommendations for all kinds of summer moods, book picks for armchair travel in the time of quarantine, and more!
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5 Quarantine-Approved Books for When You Miss Travelling
Fulfill your wanderlust as you armchair travel across time and space to unfamiliar places with these five quarantine-approved books.
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On Beauty: An Interview with Bahar Orang
In her hybrid book of lyric essay and prose poetry, Where Things Touch (Book*hug Press), poet and physician-in-training Bahar Orang considers the meanings and possibilities of beauty, reimagining what it really is and how we define it. A thoughtful, meditative book that explores intimacy, care, queerness, and love, this a debut that goes on a search for beauty beyond…
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ALU Summer Book Club: Interview with Ursula Pflug
One of the highlights of book club is going straight to the source: this week we electronically sat down with the inimitable Ursula Pflug, author of Seeds and Other Stories (Inanna Publications), to chat about dreams, alternate realities, surrealist influences, and more. Plus, we share a clip of Ursula reading from her collection, below.
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5 Books for 5 Summer Reading Moods
We’ve got a roundup of five books for all kinds of summer reading tastes—from a page-turning action-adventure to the “Fast Car” of novels to a queer slice-of-life drama, our book recommendations will fit all of your summer reading moods.
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In Review: The Week of August 10th
This week we bookclubbed, completed another Read Harder Challenge, chatted with authors, and more!
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On compositional improvisation and Music at the Heart of Thinking: An interview with Fred Wah
Fred Wah’s Music at the Heart of Thinking (Talonbooks) is is a lifelong poem project that responds to readings in contemporary writing, art, and ideas from the past forty years. It works through language as a practice of thought and improvisation as the tool that listens to and notates thinking. Below, poet James Lindsay (Double Self-Portrait, Wolsak & Wynn) talks…
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Writer’s Block: John Gould
Giller-Prize-finalist John Gould who has just published his new book The End of Me (Freehand Books)—a collection of flash fiction about death—joins us to talk about his influences (from Ernest Becker to Basho), how the phrase “We and the beasts are kin” set him on a path to writing, and more.Photo credit Sandy Mayzel