Pandemic Spotlight: Canadian Doctors at the Front of the Covid-19 Fight by Ian Hanomansing Madeira Park: Douglas and McIntyre, 2021 $22.95 / 9781771622929 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * For nearly two years we have existed in a time warp. When I see a reference to something which happened in April, and now it is October,…
Read more 1285 From anonymity to spotlight
INTERVIEW: Matt Rader with The Ormsby Review Matt Rader is the author of five volumes of poetry, including Visual Inspection (2019) — reviewed previously by Paul Falardeau –– as well as a collection of stories and a book of non-fiction. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO) and lives in Kelowna….
Read more 1254 Interview with Matt Rader
INTERVIEW: Lesley Krueger with The British Columbia Review Born and brought up in Vancouver, Lesley Krueger is a novelist and screenwriter. She is the author of seven books, including the critically acclaimed novels, The Corner Garden (2003) and Mad Richard (2017). As a filmmaker, she has worked as a screenwriter, script doctor, story editor, and co-producer…
Read more 1217 Interview with Lesley Krueger
INTERVIEW: Dustin Cole with The British Columbia Review. We caught up with Dustin Cole at his brother’s house in Slave Lake, Alberta, to learn the circumstances and inspiration for Notice (Nightwood Editions, 2020), the story of Dylan Levett, a dishwasher from Alberta caught in the gears of renoviction from his apartment on Main Street. “It’s summer 2017…
Read more 1206 Interview with Dustin Cole
INTERVIEW: Marion Quednau with The Ormsby Review Marion Quednau has won numerous awards for both her fiction and her poetry, including a National Magazine Award, and the People’s Choice Award when shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Her fiction has received critical acclaim, the SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award, when the late Mordecai Richler…
Read more 1200 Interview with Marion Quednau
INTERVIEW: Sarah Mintz with Nathaniel G. Moore Sarah Mintz grew up in Greenwood (BC), Goose Bay, Victoria, Courtenay, Vancouver, Montreal, and Moose Jaw and now calls Victoria home. She’s worked at video stores, thrift stores, pet stores, managed buildings, shovelled snow, and answered the phone. As a recent graduate of the English M.A program at…
Read more 1156 A good deal of handwringing
New Yorkers: A City and its People in Our Time by Craig Taylor Toronto: Penguin Random House (Doubleday Canada), 2021 $39.95 / 9780385681636 Reviewed by Brian Harvey * My one visit to New York was on August 11, 1977 and it lasted two hours. I remember suffocating heat, a sense of vertigo from all those…
Read more 1109 Stories in the voice of New York
INTERVIEW: Dallas Hunt with Nathaniel G. Moore Dallas Hunt is Cree and a member of Wapsewsipi (Swan River First Nation) in Treaty Eight territory in northern Alberta. His first children’s book, Awâsis and the World-famous Bannock was nominated for several awards. Hunt is an assistant professor of Indigenous literatures at the University of British Columbia…
Read more 1106 Geographies of Treaty Eight
INTERVIEW: Tara Borin with Nathaniel G. Moore Tara Borin is a graduate of the Writer’s Studio Online with Simon Fraser University. Their poems have appeared in Resistance (University of Regina Press), PRISM International, Prairie Fire, emerge 19 and Best New Poets in Canada 2018 (Quattro Books). They are a queer, non-binary writer living in…
Read more 1090 A bottle of Blue in Dawson
Gwich’in K’yuu Gwiidandài’ Tthak Ejuk Gòonlih: Our Whole Gwich’in Way of Life Has Changed: Stories from the People of the Land by Leslie McCartney and Gwich’in Tribal Council Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2020 $99.99 / 9781772124828 Reviewed by Daniel Sims * “Publish or perish” is an axiom of professional academics, especially those employed by…
Read more 1086 The voice of Gwich’in Elders
INTERVIEW: Luke Inglis with Nathaniel G. Moore * Born in Malawi, Luke Inglis spent his childhood skipping between British Columbia and Africa. When not lost in the deep woods, he can be found at his day job as a professional book slinger. He lives on the Sunshine Coast in BC with his dog Floyd. Something Drastic…
Read more 1064 Sunshine Coast exchange
INTERVIEW: Terence Young with Nathaniel G. Moore * Terence Young lives in Victoria, where he has recently retired from teaching English and creative writing at St. Michaels University School. He is a co-founder of The Claremont Review (1992), an international literary journal for young writers that has, after 25 years of service to the writing community,…
Read more 1052 Covid & the Zoom engine of poetry
The Rise of Real-Life Superheroes, and the Fall of Everything Else by Peter Nowak Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2020 $24.95 / 9781771622509 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Superheroes in Our Midst: Are we ready for some public-minded vigilante crime fighters? The slogan “Defund the Police” became popular in 2020 as thousands of people protested…
Read more 1025 Superheroes in our midst
Vancouver After Dark: The Wild History of a City’s Nightlife by Aaron Chapman Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019 $32.95 / 9781551527833 Reviewed by Grahame Ware * On March 12, 2020, Aaron Chapman’s Vancouver After Dark was one of five books shortlisted for the 2020 Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award of the BC and Yukon Book…
Read more #909 Twilight of the club scene
Civilian Internment in Canada: Histories & Legacies by Rhonda L. Hinther and Jim Mochoruk (editors) Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2020 $31.95 / 9780887558450 * The Stories Were Not Told: Canada’s First World War Internment Camps by Sandra Semchuk Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2019 $34.99 / 9781772123784 * Harry Livingstone’s Forgotten Men: Canadians and…
Read more #823 Canadian internment legacies
INTERVIEW: Curtis LeBlanc with Nathaniel G. Moore * Curtis LeBlanc’s second poetry book is fresh off the printing press and on bookshelves across the country, in the middle of a global pandemic. Birding In The Glass Age of Isolation (Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, April 2020) confronts mental illness, masculinity, and humanity’s relationship with the nature world….
Read more #814 Anxiety and clunky plastics
INTERVIEW: Tom Wayman with Nathaniel G. Moore * In a future issue of The Ormsby Review, Emma Rhodes will review Tom Wayman’s new book of poems, Watching a Man Break a Dog’s Back: Poems for a Dark Time (Harbour: 2020), and as an appetizer we present an interview with Wayman by Nathaniel G. Moore –…
Read more #789 Protest, empathy, mourning
The Girl and the Wolf by Katherena Vermette (text) and Julie Flett (illustrations) Penticton: Theytus Books, 2019 $19.95 / 9781926886541 Reviewed by Irene Watts * What inspired this empathetic tale? Katherena Vermette, a Métis writer from Winnipeg, says in her author’s note that this “completely made-up story” was influenced by traditional ones. The Girl and…
Read more #567 A Métis Red Riding Hood
Growing Together: Conversations with Seniors and Youth by Lee Reid Nelson: Nelson CARES Society Press, 2018 $25.00 / 9781775399308 See http://www.growinghomestories.com/ Available at Nelson CARES, 709A Vernon St., Nelson, B.C., V1L 4G3 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * What a good idea! Get teens and elders together to talk. Ask teens to take notes and record…
Read more #499 Joining generations in Nelson
INTERVIEW: Shelagh Rogers by Starlight: CBC’s Host of The Next Chapter Shines a Light on Indigenous Authors by Margot Fedoruk * Shelagh Rogers walks in with an air of authority and greets everyone warmly as she stands in line at the local coffee shop on Gabriola Island. Rogers wears the iconic pointy blue glasses that…
Read more #466 A tribute to Richard Wagamese