ArticlesIssue 75, Fall/Winter 2019/20
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FictionWeaving a tale of trauma with empathy, honesty, and hope
Where do writers get their ideas? In the case of her latest novel, This Has Nothing to Do with You, Manitoba author Lauren Carter responded so strongly to a book about sibling relationships and family secrets that she penned her own novel along similar themes. -
FictionHang out with Hendershot as he builds a life after hockey
A Canadian hockey player. A mysterious artist. An 83-year-old man chasing the IRA. These are the three characters brought together by Don Dickinson in Rag & Bone Man. Set in London, England, circa 1974, Rag & Bone Man follows Hendershot, a Saskatchewan athlete who travelled across the Atlantic Ocean to play hockey. -
FictionAnthology is grounded in artifacts that illuminate characters and alter history
If you’re looking for transformative literature, an anthology that mixes history and alchemy may just fit the bill. In the latest volume of the long-running Tesseracts series of speculative fiction anthologies, editors Lorina Stephens and Susan MacGregor have curated 23 stories set around the world and in many eras. The tales in Alchemy and Artifacts explore the use of artifacts that are some strange fusion of secret knowledge and artifice. -
FictionKat Cameron wrestles with ghosts of the past in short story collection
The characters in Edmonton-based Kat Cameron’s debut collection of short stories, The Eater of Dreams, find themselves navigating – and living – life in spite of, or because of, their past suffering. -
FictionArchivist turns to her own family history, and considers how to live with its legacy
All That Belongs, the latest novel by Dora Dueck, tells the story of Catherine, a newly retired archivist, who decides to spend the next year examining her life story and those of her deceased Mennonite predecessors to gain insight into her family history. -
PoetryPoetic exchanges between Monahan and Thompson lead to a book-length collection
A Beautiful Stone: Poems and Ululations, a new work of collaborative poetry by Lynda Monahan and Rod Thompson, has its roots in an old Japanese tradition. -
PoetryThis is what happens when Jonathan Ball aims for “a very normal poetry book”
Winnipeg-based writer Jonathan Ball calls himself the Poet Laureate of Hell, which is Ball in a nutshell: fun, inventive, and kind of dark. For Ball, it signals to readers that he doesn’t write conventional poems. “The weird Venn diagram I’m after is the audience that loves poetry but is sick to death of poetry,” Ball says. -
PoetryCam Scott explores life writing in works informed by sound artistry
Cam Scott, a poet and sound artist from Winnipeg, describes the earliest successful layers of his first collection of poetry as “an attempt at vacuum-packing a working notebook.” He conceives of ROMANS/SNOWMARE as a “personal response to some of the great life poems.” -
DramaPlay casts Everett Klippert as a resilient and unashamed Queer Elder
Everett Klippert was a beloved Calgary bus driver who, when confronted by police about his sexuality, refused to lie, and as a result became the last Canadian man imprisoned for being gay. In the play Legislating Love: The Everett Klippert Story, Klippert’s real-life story is interwoven with that of fictional present-day Maxine, who discovers him while researching social policy and navigating her own new relationship with Tonya, a Métis comedian. The result is a poignant examination of queer love through different generations. -
FeaturesPoetic fragments from non-fiction Namibian travel book grow into their own collection
Peter Midgley could be said to be a hybrid writer – he works in multiple genres, publishing non-fiction, children’s lit, plays, and poetry. “I do not consciously set out to write a children’s story, or a poem,” says the Edmonton-based author. “I write. Sometimes, the form emerges from within the words. Sometimes, it appears in multiple forms.”
