Enlarge Image
To embed a link to this book on your own website, please copy the code below.
NEWS
By Drew Hayden Taylor
In this collection of short humourous essays originally written for the popular media, playwright, novelist and screenwriter Drew Hayden Taylor sends his readers fascinating and exotic postcards from his globetrotting adventures, always on the lookout for the NEWS about aboriginal ... Read more
Overview
In this collection of short humourous essays originally written for the popular media, playwright, novelist and screenwriter Drew Hayden Taylor sends his readers fascinating and exotic postcards from his globetrotting adventures, always on the lookout for the NEWS about aboriginal peoples around the world. Organized around the thematics suggested by the four cardinal directions central to the Ojibwa peoples—East for beginnings and youth; South for journeys both physical and spiritual; West for maturity and responsibility; and North for contemplation and wisdom; these communiqués are sent not so much to instruct as they are to delight.
Never without a healthy dose of irony, humour and often unabashed laughter, these “postcards” offer their readers unexpected insights into the intense and often hilarious complexities of our new multicultural reality. Throughout his travels, Taylor has discovered that the four cardinal points are central to most First Nations’ teachings concerning the landscape and how to live on it to survive, build families and communities, create cultures and develop notions of spirituality and identity. This is not, however, a seamless or even necessarily recognizable paradigm from place to place throughout North America, and there is plenty of room for doubt, misunderstandings and unintentional social faux pas even among and between aboriginal peoples themselves. One of the great discoveries of this collection is that each of our First Nations boasts its own traditions—go a hundred miles in any direction and you are no longer on certain ground with respect to the meanings, attributes, even the colours definitive of these cardinal points of the social compass.
Drew Hayden Taylor
Ojibway writer Drew Hayden Taylor, hailed by the Montreal Gazette as one of Canada’s leading Native dramatists, writes for the screen as well as the stage and contributes regularly to North American Native periodicals and national newspapers. His plays have garnered many prestigious awards, and his beguiling and perceptive storytelling style has enthralled audiences in Canada, the United States and Germany. Although based in Toronto, Taylor has traveled extensively throughout North America, honoring requests to read from his work and to attend arts festivals, workshops and productions of his plays. One of his most established bodies of work includes what he calls the Blues Quartet, an ongoing, outrageous and often farcical examination of Native and non-Native stereotypes.
Among Taylor’s many awards are: the Canada Council Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for Theatre (2009); the Governor General’s Award for Drama, Nominee (2006) In a World Created by a Drunken God; the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, Nominee (2005); James Buller Aboriginal Theatre Award for Playwright of the Year (1997) Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth; and the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, Small Theatre Division (1996) Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth.
Reviews
“Drew Hayden Taylor has a deft touch for mixing comedy and commentary in an entertaining … form of social satire. ”
— Vancouver Sun
“… delivers the special combination of being gutbustingly funny while leaving you with deep realities to mull. ”
— Telegraph-Journal
Reader Reviews
Tell us what you think!
Sign Up or Sign In to add your review or comment.
Related Blog Posts
You're Not Superwoman and That's Okay
In honour of Mother's Day, we're excited to share an essay from Erin Pepler's incisive and hilarious collection Send Me Into the Woods Alone: Essays on Motherhood (Invisible Publishing). Moms of the world: read and commiserate (and children and partners of the world, read ... Read more
Try Poetry: Chores + Maggie Burton
Try Poetry: Frank's Wing + Jacob McArthur Mooney
As part of the Try Poetry series, we're asking our featured poets to let us know how and when they got into the form: today's poet Jacob McArthur Mooney gives us an exact date and time in today's interview. Find out when, as well as what collection comes eagerly recommended by ... Read more
Women Asking Women: Corinna Chong and Taslim Burkowicz
These two British Columbia based authors, Corinna Chong ( The Whole Animal, Arsenal Pulp Press) and Taslim Burkowicz ( Ruby Red Skies, Roseway Publishing) interview one another about their novels that grapple with alienation and self-discovery. Both stories have protagonists ... Read more
Black Writers' Series: Focus on Nonfiction
Our Black Writers' Series continues: this time, with four books that speak the truth. These nonfiction picks are penned by writing partners and collectives, as well as an accomplished businesswoman-turned-politician.
Gift Guide Week: Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch and H. Felix Chau Bradley
For this instalment of ALU Gift Guide Week, writers Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch and H. Felix Chau Bradley have teamed up; they each recommend two faves, and then join in on a recommendation (let's call it doubly-recommended). In addition to being Metonymy Press authors (of ... Read more
Under the Cover: Amplifying the Stories of 60s Scoop Survivors
The 60s Scoop (sometimes written as "Sixties Scoop") was a Canadian policy beginning in the 1960s that took Indigenous children without consent from their families and put them within the child welfare system, where they were either adopted by settler (usually white) families ... Read more
Two Poems from The Oysters I Bring to Banquets
Prolific award-winning poet, writer, playwright, and editor Gary Geddes returns with a new collection, The Oysters I Bring to Banquets (Guernica Editions). We read two elegiac poems from the collection below, with introductions from the poet himself.
Off/Kilter: Weird Lit Road Trip
Pack a cooler and rev up your Google Maps. Let these quirky, literary itineraries inspire you to get out and about this summer.
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 ... Read more
- Dimensions 288 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 x 0.75 in
- Published November 30, 2010
- Publisher Talonbooks
- Category Travel
- Keywords Essays & Travelogues
Other titles by Drew Hayden Taylor
Get the All Lit Up Newsletter!
We'll send you bi-monthly updates to keep you in the loop on the best of our blog, special campaigns and offers, AND news on the latest in literary fiction, nonfiction and poetry from indie publishers across Canada.
You May Also Like
