Welcome Trevor and Brett by Richard Mackie * On behalf of the Board of the Ormsby Literary Society and our Advisory Board I’d like to welcome Trevor Marc Hughes and Brett Josef Grubisic as interim editors of The British Columbia Review for the year May 1, 2023 to May 1, 2024. The position was made possible… Read more 1813 Welcome Trevor and Brett
Any Other City by Hazel Jane Plante Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2023 $22.95 / 9781551529110 Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic * Whenever film critics gripe about pop music biopics, “cliché-ridden” is standard fare. Considering a pop star’s ready-made chapters — juvenile precocity, discovery, rise and fall, triumphs and tragedies, and so on — over-reliance on… Read more 1796 Rock ’n’ roll trans recall
Home is where the street is: Commercial Drive photos and poems by Rodney De Croo * I’ve lived in East Vancouver for thirty-five years. East Van is where I rented my first basement suite apartment after living on the streets as a young man struggling with addiction. It was in the basements of churches and… Read more 1767 Home is where the street is
Announcing the BC Review interview series by Richard Mackie * In November 2022, at the most recent board meeting of the Ormsby Literary Society, the chair, Byron Sheardown, suggested that we open a YouTube channel and start an interview series. Board member Trevor Marc Hughes jumped at the suggestion. “I’ve got filmmaking experience,” he said,… Read more 1757 Announcing interview series
Built on a Dream An audio piece by Anne Watson * Introduction. Built on a Dream includes the voices of a narrator, a storyteller, and a historian. Positionality and self-conscious awareness matter in this experimental piece. I’ve written it different ways over the years: this is my first attempt using multiple voices. Pierre Bourdieu’s “Biographical… Read more 1745 Built on a Dream
Song of the Sparrow: A Memoir by Tara MacLean Toronto: HarperCollins Canada (HarperAvenue), 2023 $25.99 / 9781443465120 Reviewed by Catherine Owen * Memoirs by artistic creators are rarely not rife with a range of forms of suffering. That art can offer transcendence is one of its core values, and in the life of PEI songwriter,… Read more 1740 The song must persist
Guilty of Everything: 21st Anniversary Edition by John Armstrong Vancouver: New Star Books, 2022 $18.00 / 9781554201914 Reviewed by Catherine Owen * I used to own the original printing of this book. It had to be tossed away, perhaps appropriately enough, after it became one of my many books infested with silver fish and mould… Read more 1681 Sojourns, gigs, debacles
The Bob Dylan Albums 2nd Edition by Anthony Varesi Montreal: Guernica Editions, 2022 $34.95 / 9781771837590 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * In the autumn of 1964, a precocious Bob Dylan — who had just released his fourth studio album at age twenty-three — told a writer from The New Yorker that he was moving on… Read more 1675 A catalogue for the ages
Wired for Music: A Search for Health and Joy Through the Science of Sound by Adriana Barton Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2022 $32.95 / 9781771645546 Reviewed by Derek von Essen * The afternoon Wired for Music arrived in the post was the same day I tested positive for Covid-19. I wasn’t surprised by the result. While… Read more 1669 An essential need
The Longest Suicide: The Authorized Biography of Art Bergmann by Jason Schneider, with a foreword by Michael Turner Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2022 $24.95 / 9781772141962 Reviewed by Catherine Owen * As I turn the shiny pages of this necessary biography of Canada’s enfant terrible, or “punk poet laureate” as he’s more often billed, songwriter and… Read more 1653 Minding a vital musician
Questions to the Moon: Songs & Stories by Earle Peach Vancouver: Lazara Press, 2021 $20.00 / 9780920999158 Reviewed by Jeff Stychin * Earle Peach is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and songwriter from Vancouver who directs choirs and plays in musical groups, volunteers at and hosts music events, pursues social activism, and is still actively involved in… Read more 1652 The language of song
Ticket to Ride (Volume 4 of the Jason Davey Mysteries) by Winona Kent Winona Kent and St Ives, UK: Blue Devil Books, 2022 $19.99 / 9781777329433 Reviewed by Valerie Green * I must admit that I was not expecting to enjoy Winona Kent’s book Ticket to Ride as much as I did. A story about… Read more 1560 Return of Figgis Green
Hollywood in the Klondike: Dawson City’s Great Film Find by Michael Gates Madeira Park, Harbour Publishing, 2022 $34.95 / 9781550179965 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * All that Flickered: The glitter of gold competed with the flicker of silent movies in 1890s Klondike You can almost taste the rotgut liquor and smell the sweat, cheap cigars… Read more 1553 All that flickered
Fair Days by David Essig Nanaimo: Peregrin Books, 2022 $20.00 / 9780992055714 Available here by mail order Reviewed by Carol Matthews * Sometimes when we listen to a song, we wonder about the story that might have inspired it. In his new book, Fair Days, singer and songwriter David Essig has written thirteen stories that… Read more 1541 Essig opens up his songs
The Baddest Bitch in the Room: A Memoir by Sophia Chang New York: Catapult, 2021 $17.95 (U.S.) / 9781646220816 Reviewed by LiLynn Wan * The essence of autobiography is in creating identity, and Sophia Chang’s memoir, The Baddest Bitch in the Room, does just that. By writing her life story, she asserts: “I am defining… Read more 1432 Sophia Chang and the Big Apple
To Impersonate the Supernatural: Music, Ceremony and Culture of the Bella Bella by Anton Frederik Kolstee Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2020 $24.95 / 9781926991146 Reviewed by Mark Turin * To Impersonate the Supernatural draws heavily from the author’s 1988 doctoral dissertation from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ethnomusicologist, educator, and musician, Anton Frederik Kolstee… Read more 1319 Heiltsuk ceremonial songs
Letters from the Pandemic 31: (De)facing the music by Jasper Lastoria * The dread of a tumble gives me more anguish than the fall. – Michel de Montaigne[1] Dear Reader, Anger is not a set of clothing I wear well; it fits me awkwardly, emphasizing the aspects of myself I’d rather de-emphasize. I have written… Read more Letters from the Pandemic 31: (De)facing the music
Covid 19: Living the Blues by Teresa Stolarskyj * Dear friends, In the days before Covid-19, indeed, for many years before it, I held residency on Saturday afternoons at Vancouver’s Railway Club. Immersing into the blues and rock n’ roll for a few hours a week, as regulars and newcomers alike took turns on the… Read more Letters from the Pandemic 26: Living the Blues
MEMOIR: The Sonics at The Grooveyard: My Loud Baptism of Fire by Grahame Ware * On reviewing Aaron Chapman’s Vancouver After Dark (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019), I was flooded with memories of my youth and the venues where I first learned the power and pull of nightclubs. My realization of this, my baptism of fire moment,… Read more 1066 The Sonics at the Grooveyard
Falling into Flight: A Memoir of Life and Dance by Kaija Pepper Winnipeg: Signature Editions, 2020 $19.95 / 9781773240831 Reviewed by Maria Tippett * In the early 1930s two dancers from British Columbia were invited to join the corps de ballet of Basil’s famous Ballets Russes. The offer came with one condition: Patricia Meyers from… Read more 1062 Pepper’s ballet and dance