Quill and Quire

BOOK REVIEWS

Two Man Tent

By Robert Chafe

As an accomplished theatre director and prolific playwright (his stage adaptation of Wayne Johnston’s The Colony of Unrequited Dreams plays the National Arts Centre in 2017), Newfoundland’s Robert Chafe has always had a penchant for ... Read More »

November 21, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Burt’s Way Home

By John Martz

Burt is an “intergalactic trans-dimensional time traveller” from the Planet Mod. Or so he says. While the validity of his sci-fi claim is up for debate, he indisputably feels like an alien. An orphaned little ... Read More »

November 17, 2016

How to Draw a Rhinoceros

By Kate Sutherland

Kate Sutherland’s How to Draw a Rhinoceros is a curious little book, presenting a series of poems about rhinoceroses with a focus on their commodification as spectacle over the course of western colonial history. The ... Read More »

November 17, 2016 | Filed under: Poetry

The Nearly Girl

By Lisa de Nikolits

South African–Canadian author Lisa de Nikolits is no stranger to the industry – four of her five books have been recognized with Independent Publishing Awards, and she’s contributed to multiple short-fiction anthologies. Yet her latest ... Read More »

November 16, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ Du Iz Tak?

By Carson Ellis

It’s hard to believe Du Iz Tak? is only Carson Ellis’s second outing as an author (the first being 2015’s critically acclaimed Home). Prior to her recent foray into writing picture books, the illustrator’s distinctive ... Read More »

November 16, 2016 | Filed under: Picture Books

Involuntary Bliss

By Devon Code

Back in 1939, Winston Churchill described Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” One might use the same words to describe Peterborough, Ontario, author Devon Code’s complex, sometimes brilliant, often frustrating ... Read More »

November 7, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Guy

By Jowita Bydlowska

This month’s tempest in a literary teapot comes courtesy of Lionel Shriver, who stirred up controversy with her keynote address to the Brisbane Writers Festival. Charged with speaking on the subject of “community and belonging,” ... Read More »

November 7, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels