Fiction

#277 The new turf of Indigenous Lit

From Oral to Written: A Celebration of Indigenous Literature in Canada, 1980-2010 by Tomson Highway Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2017 $29.95  /  9781772011166 Reviewed by Deanna Reder First published March 30, 2018 * Eminent Cree author Tomson Highway’s From Oral to Written, released by Talonbooks in 2017, is beautifully flawed, inspiring the reader with tremendous lists of…
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#269 A plague on our houses

The Plague by Kevin Chong Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018 $19.95 / 9781551527185 Reviewed by Joan Givner First published March 21, 2018 * A classic French text invigorates a new tale of rats overtaking Vancouver. Joan Givner compares Kevin Chong’s The Plague, set in Vancouver, with Albert Camus’ work of the same name published seventy years…
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#246 The heroism of the outsider

The heroism of the outsider: Alan Twigg interviews Ernest Hekkanen and Margrith Schraner First published February 11, 2018 * Novelist Bill Gaston once dubbed Ernest Hekkanen Canadian literature’s “most resolute maverick.” For twenty years he and his long-time partner Margrith Schraner resolutely published a lively and sophisticated literary periodical, New Orphic Review, without any government…
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#235 Dancing on paper

First published Jan. 19, 2018. A Queer Love Story: The Letters of Jane Rule and Rick Bébout by Marilyn R. Schuster (editor) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017. $39.95  / 9780774835459 Reviewed by Patricia Demers * Reading a collection of letters can be something of a guilty pleasure. Marilyn Schuster’s edition of the letters of Jane Rule…
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#187 Brother, where art thou?

Brother Toronto: Penguin Random House (McClelland & Stewart), 2017 by David Chariandy $25 hc ISBN 978-0-7710-2290-6 reviewed by Cherie Thiessen First published October 23, 2017 * The only author nominated for both the Giller and Rogers Writers Trust Fiction awards in 2017 is David Chariandy, whose second novel, Brother, concerns two siblings growing up in…
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#178 Kipling on Vancouver Island

ESSAY: Kipling on Vancouver Island by John F. Bosher First published October 11, 2017 * Rudyard Kipling’s first visit to the Pacific coast of British Columbia was in 1889 in the course of his journey from India via Japan and the U.S.A. to London with every intention of making a literary name for himself. He…
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#176 Sexual treachery vs. friendship

Useless Things: Redacted A novella. By Charles Tidler Victoria: Ekstasis Editions $19.95  /  9781771712002 Reviewed by John Moore First published October 4, 2017 * Jazz riffs from a leaky lifeboat. Last seen nine years ago in Charles Tidler’s novel, Going to New Orleans (Anvil Press 2004), the itinerant, deranged horn-player named Lewis King is now pursuing…
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#168 Forty years of making room

Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine by Meghan Bell (editor) and curated by the Growing Room Collective: Meghan Bell, Terri Brandmueller, Candace Fertile, Taryn Hubbard, Chelene Knight, Lindsay Glauser Kwan, Cara Lang, Alissa McArthur, Navneet Nagra, Bonnie Nish, Rachel Thompson, Kayi Wong, and Lisa Xing Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $24.95  /  9781987915402 Reviewed…
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#167 Janet Smith & Wong Foon Sing

The White Angel by John MacLachlan Gray Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $29.95 / 9781771621465 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy First published Sept. 8, 2017 * The challenges of writing historical fiction are manifold. Writers must capture both the exterior (surface and sociological details of a time they know only through research) and the interior…
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#161 Loving in a fog

First published August 30, 2017 REVIEW: The Most Dangerous Thing by Leanne Lieberman Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2017 $14.95 9781459811843  Reviewed by Carol Anne Shaw Sixteen-year-old Sydney lives in and out of the Fog — a word she uses to describe the smothering depression and anxiety that so often takes hold of her. But she’s trying;…
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#159 Joan Skogan was one of a kind

Joan Skogan was one of a kind An obituary by Alan Twigg First published August 20, 2017 * Born in Comox on September 29, 1945, Joan Skogan knew joy and sorrow. An intrepid researcher and a conscientious writer, she will be much missed by those who knew her fascinating, passionate nature. Joan Skogan could be…
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#153 David Watmough (1926-2017)

David Watmough (1926-2017) An obituary by Alan Twigg First published August 14, 2017 * “I hope my work is myopically ‘westcoast’ and persistently graceful in language.” — David Watmough “That rarest of birds on the literary scene, the natural storyteller.” — Robert Fulford QUICK REFERENCE ENTRY: Homosexuals in British Columbia can now express themselves openly…
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#146 Poignant ruminations of summer

The Summer Book: A Treasury of Warm Tales, Timeless Memories and Meditations on Nature by 24 BC writers by Mona Fertig (editor) Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2017. $24.95  /  9781896949611 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart First published July 1, 2017 * Mona Fertig of Mother Tongue Publishing has gathered 24 warm and poignant…
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#132 The demise of Vancouver

2050: A Post-Apocalyptic Murder Mystery by Michael Kluckner Vancouver: Midtown Press, 2016 $19.95  /  9781988242187 Reviewed by Mark James Dunn First published May 30, 2017 * Vancouver historian, artist and illustrator Michael Kluckner has turned his eclectic talents in recent years to graphic novels, starting in 2015 with Toshiko, a remaking of Romeo and Juliet…
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#130 The making of Making Room

Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine by Meghan Bell (editor) and curated by the Growing Room Collective: Meghan Bell, Terri Brandmueller, Candace Fertile, Taryn Hubbard, Chelene Knight, Lindsay Glauser Kwan, Cara Lang, Alissa McArthur, Navneet Nagra, Bonnie Nish, Rachel Thompson, Kayi Wong, and Lisa Xing Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $24.95  /  9781987915402 Reviewed…
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#121 A 100-mile crime novel

First published April 17, 2017 REVIEW: Speakeasy by Alisa Smith Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017. $22.95. 978-1-77162-066-6 Reviewed John Douglas Belshaw With her partner and co-writer James MacKinnon, Alisa Smith recounted their year-long attempt to eat only foods grown and produced within a 100-mile radius of their Vancouver apartment. Their collaboration, The 100-Mile Diet: A…
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#116 Wakeland in the DES

Invisible Dead by Sam Wiebe Toronto: Penguin Random House 2016 $22 / 9780345816276 Reviewed by Maansi Pandya First published April 5, 2017 * Soon to be released in the United States, Sam Wiebe’s Invisible Dead is a gritty journey into Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside crime world of biker gangs, drugs and suspicious characters against a backdrop…
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#104 Literary greenhorn dads

The Dad Dialogues: A Correspondence on Fatherhood (and the Universe) by George Bowering and Charles Demers Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016 $17.95  /  9781551526621 Reviewed by Christian Fink-Jensen First published March 15, 2017 * Vancouver writers George Bowering, born in 1935, and Charles Demers, born in 1980, had daughters – Thea and Josephine – more…
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