In Review: The Week of February 24th

On the Blog

~ Author Ruth Daniell talks fairy tales, community, and happiness: “If the power in fairy tales lies in their ability to connect and build communities, we need to think about ways to make communities that support everyone. Who gets to have a happy ending?”~ Author Laisha Rosnau discusses B.C’s Okanagan, the setting of her novel Little Fortress (Wolsak and Wynn) as a place of contradiction that offers both freedom and a feeling of confinement:“The Okanagan is a valley so small it’s enveloping, the mountains and changing skies suggesting a bigger, wider world. Vernon is the kind of place one longs to escape, and longs to return to – and so I did.”~ For #PinkShirtDay, we shared a list of books about bullying and empowerment for teens and adults alike. ~ ALU staffer Tan Light takes on BookRiot’s #ReadHarderChallenge with a debut novel by a queer author — Little Blue Encylopedia (for Vivian) by Hazel Jane Plante (Metonymy Press) — and four follow-up reads. ~ Our #weekendreads stack included three book recommendations that perfectly fit this year’s #BlackHistoryMonth theme: Going Forward, Guided by the Past.

Around the Web

~ From New York to Thailand, here’s a list of literary hotels around the world for the bookish~ CBC Books’ list of 40 Canadian non-fiction books to watch for this spring includes lots of ALU faves~ Not satire: new on the literary mag scene is Taco Bell Quarterly, a “literary magazine for the Taco Bell Arts and Letters.” 

via GIPHY

ICYMI (last week)

On gender equality and inclusivity: An interview with Gemma Hickey

“We must look beyond Band-Aid solutions to problems in order to forge intersectional paths that lead to treating all issues related to gender equality equally and as a non-binary person I have a unique perspective. Consider this: if more than two genders are recognized, the binary is erased, and one gender can no longer be privileged over another. That’s why it’s so important to carve out the space to be more inclusive of other genders.”