Quill and Quire

Fiction: Novels

By Terry Griggs

After earning a 1991 Governor General’s Literary Award nomination for her debut, the short-fiction collection Quickening, Terry Griggs has continued to garner critical praise. Known for her whirlwind storytelling and lush vocabulary, Griggs won the ... Read More »

April 10, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

By Alisa Smith

Set in the Pacific Northwest and spanning the years of the Second World War, Speakeasy focuses on Lena Stillman’s connection to Bill Bagley, a notorious criminal. In his heyday, Bill’s risky bank robberies and elaborate ... Read More »

March 27, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

By Kerry Claire

The term “Internet celebrity” means something very different today than it did two decades ago. Before the advent of social media, the designation was reserved for a few brave bloggers who laid their deepest secrets ... Read More »

March 16, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

By Emma Richler

In her latest novel, Emma Richler comes across as an unapologetic maximalist. If minimalism presupposes that less is more, Richler’s aesthetic in this exuberant, freewheeling work is the precise opposite. At the heart of Be ... Read More »

March 16, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

By David Carpenter

Canadian history is inextricably connected to geography. And Canadian fiction seems endlessly absorbed with a reckoning between the land and the humans who exploit it. Saskatchewan’s David Carpenter has staked out one indelible corner of ... Read More »

March 9, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

By Jean McNeil

“Everywhere we go broadcasts a message, a current of meaning,” observes Rebecca Laurelson, the protagonist of Jean McNeil’s tense and atmospheric new novel, The Dhow House. “Here,” she continues, “it has something to do with ... Read More »

March 6, 2017 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels