In Review: The Week of May 13th

On the Blog

~ We shared two poems from Natalee Caple’s Love in the Chthulucene (Cthulhucene) (Wolsak and Wynn), a new collection that grapples with #MeToo, motherhood, climate change and political turmoil, striving for a way forward in our charged times.~ For Asian Heritage Month, May Q. Wong shared the story behind her memoir A Cowherd in Paradise (Brindle & Glass) about how Canada’s head tax laws forced her parents to live apart for 25 years of marriage, and how through memory and historical documentation, she was able to piece together her family’s past: “My parents were married for over fifty years, but they only lived together permanently for the last half of that time. When they re-united, they only stayed together because of their children, seven-year-old Robert—and me, their surprise “welcome to Canada!” baby. As I grew up, I became their communication conduit.”~ Short Story Month continued with an excerpt from the page-turning short story collection DIG (Breakwater Books), which author Terry Doyle describes as “Present day St. John’s: isolation, insurmountable debt, out-migration, and a wind that’s always blowing.” ~ Our #fridayreads pick is  Difficult People (Nightwood Editions), a short story collection that’s Lynn Coady’s Hellgoing meets Alissa Nutting’s Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, a potent mixture of punchy prose, misfit characters and absurd humour.

Around the Web

~ Among the 2019 Trillium Book Award finalists were four ALU faves: Tamara Faith Berger’s Queen Solomon (Coach House Books), Gwen Benaway’s Holy Wild (Book*hug Press), Robin Richardson’s Sit How You Want (Véhicule Press), and K.D. Miller’s Late Breaking (Biblioasis).~ In more awards-related news, the finalists of the 2019 Indigenous Voices Awards also included more ALU faves: Joshua Whitehead’s Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press); Lindsay Nixon’s nîtisânak (Metonymy Press); Wanda John-Kehewin, Seven Sacred Truths (Talonbooks); Jules Koostachin’s Unearthing of Secrets, Gathering of Truths (Kegedonce Press); and Smokii Sumac’s You are Enough: Love Poems for the End of the World (Kegedonce Press).~ In Game of Thrones-related news, people are naming their children after GoT characters, with Arya in the top 30.  

via GIPHY

What Else We’re Reading

Staffer Tan’s pick this week is Bruce Cinnamon’s new novel The Melting Queen (NeWest Press)