Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense

Earlier this year, Virgin Atlantic removed a word from its in-flight menu and apologized for any offence it may have caused after some passengers threatened to boycott the airline. The offending word? Palestinian. It was ... Read More »

April 12, 2018 | Filed under: Politics & Current Affairs

A Calendar of Reckoning

By Dave Margoshes

Dave Margoshes’s sixth volume of poetry confirms him as a poet who translates life experiences into sensitive commentaries on the deep structures of humanity. In this instance, his focus is on family and death. Coupled ... Read More »

April 9, 2018 | Filed under: Poetry

★ East and West

By Laura Ritland

The conjunction in the title of Laura Ritland’s exceptional debut testifies to the poet’s comfort with amplitude. Ritland eschews the forced decision in “east or west” in favour of inclusion and breadth. Accordingly, the poems ... Read More »

April 5, 2018 | Filed under: Poetry

★ I left nothing inside on purpose

By Stevie Howell

An extended epigraph to Stevie Howell’s second collection cites a “note in the window of a Mercedes,” from which the book takes its title: “Do not smash glass. I left nothing inside on purpose.” While ... Read More »

April 2, 2018 | Filed under: Poetry

★ The Sparrow: Selected Poems

By A.F. Moritz

The opening poem in this new volume of selected work by A.F. Moritz claims, “I am at an age when words should be finished.” The Sparrow testifies to the fact that this is simply not ... Read More »

March 28, 2018 | Filed under: Poetry

Marry, Bang, Kill

By Andrew Battershill

Andrew Battershill’s surrealist, genre-bending debut crime novel, 2015’s Pillow, was longlisted for the Sunburst Award and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Three years later, Battershill returns with another offbeat thriller set in Victoria and on B.C.’s ... Read More »

March 26, 2018 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Deep River Night

By Patrick Lane

Dread hangs like a shroud over Patrick Lane’s Deep River Night. The acclaimed Canadian poet’s second novel is set in and around a sprawling lumber facility in B.C. circa 1960. It’s a space where violence ... Read More »

March 22, 2018 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Cobra Clutch

By A.J. Devlin

If professional wrestling is over the top, it’s not a stretch to assume that a novel set on the fringes of a western Canadian wrestling circuit would be, too. In that respect, A.J. Devlin’s debut ... Read More »

March 15, 2018 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Things Are Good Now

By Djamila Ibrahim

A pair of story collections from Djamila Ibrahim and Johanna Skibsrud shares one aspect in common: both are tightly organized around a central theme. Ibrahim’s debut collection focuses on the immigrant experience, as well as ... Read More »

March 15, 2018 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Tiger, Tiger

By Johanna Skibsrud

A Pair of story collections from Djamila Ibrahim and Johanna Skibsrud shares one aspect in common: both are tightly organized around a central theme. Ibrahim’s debut collection focuses on the immigrant experience, as well as ... Read More »