Author: ALU Editor
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Under the Cover: Seizure the Day and Epilepsy Awareness
For Epilepsy Awareness Month this March, philosophy professor at the University of Waterloo Brian Orend—who himself has epilepsy—discusses the ups and downs of writing Seizure the Day: Living a Happy Life with Illness (Freehand Books), a guidebook for people experiencing ongoing, chronic illnesses. Here, Brian tells us about everything from feeling like a fraud when he…
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Where in Canada: Who Belongs in Quebec?
Raquel Fletcher, the National Assembly reporter for Global News, has some critical questions for Quebec, the place she calls home since 2016. In her new book, Who Belongs in Quebec? (Linda Leith Publishing), Raquel takes a look at identity politics in Quebec’s national identity, posing the question “what does it mean to be a Quebecer?” Below, she talks…
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In Review: The Week of March 9th
Between terror-reading about Coronavirus, we soothed our fears with reading books and chatting with authors. Scroll on to see what we got up to this week.
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Writer’s Block: Fanie Demeule
We talk with Montreal-based author Fanie Demeule of the haunting, minimalist novel Lightness (Linda Leith Publishing) — which won the Best First Novel Prize in French and has since been translated into English by Anita Anand — about the opposite of writer’s block, her influences, and how her writing rituals mirror what she writes.
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Poetry in Motion: Lost Lagoon/lost in thought
Betsy Warland returns to poetry with her 13th book, Lost Lagoon/lost in thought(Caitlin Press) – drawing inspiration from Mohawk poet and writer Pauline E. Johnson. In this collection, Betsy writes of the Lost Lagoon in Vancouver’s Stanley Park–given its name by Pauline– as a way to explore how urban living alters our sense of the…
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Two Poems from Everyone at This Party
Set in the seemingly-quiet suburbs of Vancouver, Tanja Bartel’s poetry debut, Everyone at This Party (Goose Lane Editions) highlights the lives of people whose everyday is anything but mundane exploring themes of regret, guilt, empathy, fear and failure. Scroll on for two poems from the collection that CBC Books deemed Canadian poetry to watch for in spring 2020.
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Character Study: Operation Stealth Seed
Signature Editions rolls out their casting call of stars to turn George Amabile’s Operation Stealth Seed into a blockbuster hit fit for the theatres. In this book-to-film adaptation, Robert Downey Jr. takes the lead roll as Nicola Cortese, an Iraqi war vet turned city detective who finds himself embroiled in an international conspiracy to control the…
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In Review: The Week of March 2nd
This week we talked accessibility in the writing community, got a peek into a publishing intern’s experience at a small press, considered a philosophical take on writer’s block, celebrated women and body positivity in advance of International Women’s Day, and more.
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Reflections from the contributors of BIG: Stories about Life in Plus-Sized Bodies
Of all the subjects a writer can tackle, our own lives are both the most intimidating and the most rewarding. It requires a unique vulnerability to share our private moments, joys, traumas, and memories. Talking about our own bodies, in particular, can be overwhelming – but also transformative. In creating BIG: Stories about Life in…
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In House: Journey Into The Realm Of Bookselling
Cambrian College student Cory Gaudette gives us a peek into his personal and working experience with books—first as a book seller for his favourite local bookstore and then as publicity intern for the Northern Ontario-based publisher Latitude 46 Publishing, where he learned the ropes on the process of making books and getting them into readers’…
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Kept Out is Kept Down: Writing Retreats and the Indefensible Retreat of Canlit
Would you patronize a bakery with this sign in the window: “No wedding cakes for same sex couples”? Would you like, share and retweet any artist who participated in and praised an event advertised as “TERF proud”? Would you support arts councils using tax-payer money to fund literary events openly advertised as, “For and by…
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Writer’s Block: Tyler Enfield
We electronically chatted with multiple-award-winner Tyler Enfield, author of Like Rum-Drunk Angels (Goose Lane Editions)—a Coen Brothers meets Kurt Vonnegut retelling of Aladdin as an American western—about a book that changed his writing, a philosophical take on creativity, and what he’s working on now.
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In Review: The Week of February 24th
This week included fairy tales and feminism, B.C.’s Okanagan as a place of freedom and confinement, books for Pink Shirt Day, another Read Harder Challenge, and more.
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Weekend Reads: 3 Picks for Black History Month
This weekend we’re bringing you three reads that perfectly fit this year’s Black History Month theme: Going Forward, Guided by the Past. In these books, the past serves many different purposes—as inspiration from the leaders that came before, as a path to discovering ones identity through the deep-roots of culture and ancestry, and as a…
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Read Harder Challenge #4: Read a debut novel by a queer author
Throughout 2020, All Lit Up-er Tan Light is participating in BookRiot’s Read Harder Challenge—a reading task designed to expand readerly boundaries—and doing so with an indie twist. Each entry in this series will highlight one of her completed challenges along with a list of books from All Lit Up to have you reading harder, too!