ArticlesIssue 75, Fall/Winter 2019/20
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FeaturesTeen werewolf who couldn’t change deserved her own novel
The latest novel for young adults by Edmonton author Nicole Luiken, Feral, features a modern pack of werewolves in Pine Hollow. The Pack is being challenged not only by its proximity to humans, but also by other foreign creatures that are infiltrating the community. -
FeaturesNovel revisits missionaries’ mandates with more cross-cultural understanding
In Five Wives, Winnipeg-based novelist Joan Thomas takes a clear-eyed look at a true incident, Operation Auca. This was an attempt by American evangelical Christians to convert the Waorani, an isolated tribe in Ecuador’s Amazonian jungle. In 1956, after dropping gifts from their small plane, five men land and try to make contact. The men are massacred, and their wives are left to continue the mission. -
Non-FictionObservations made while witnessing dementia progress forced Agnew to stay engaged
Marion Agnew weaves her mother’s childhood, her parent’s marriage, and her own childhood into the telling of her mother’s diagnosis and experience of Alzheimer’s disease. Agnew did not start her collection of essays, Reverberations, with a book in mind, but found herself writing notes upon notes, scenes, and short narratives for other purposes during the last years of her mother’s life. -
Non-FictionFarmers on the front lines of food sovereignty share their visions
The publication of Frontline Farmers: How the National Farmers Union Resists Agribusiness and Creates Our New Food Future, edited by Annette Aurélie Desmarais, will mark the National Farmers Union’s 50th-anniversary celebration in November 2019. Desmarais explains that the National Farmers Union (NFU) has been at the forefront of important issues affecting agriculture and food in Canada since its formation in 1969. -
Non-FictionOffering a path toward honouring the treaties and empowering First Nations people
In Let the People Speak: Oppression in a Time of Reconciliation, Winnipeg-based, award-winning journalist Sheilla Jones presents social inequities that affect Indigenous communities in disproportionate numbers as the symptoms of institutionalized powerlessness. -
Non-FictionLearning about the feminist movements, and their history, through an Edmonton magazine
Branching Out, Canada’s first national magazine of second-wave feminism, was published in Edmonton, and reached readers from coast to coast – more than any other Canadian second-wave feminist periodical. However, after it ceased publishing in 1980, Branching Out all but completely disappeared from the historical record. -
Non-FictionGroundbreaking work from symposium grows into anthology of Indigenous performance
Performing Turtle Island: Indigenous Theatre on the World Stage collects multidisciplinary and diverse perspectives that discuss performance as a tool for engagement, education, and resistance, and examines how communities can construct Indigenous identities through theatre. -
Young Adult/ChildrenCreating space to discuss end-of-life decisions helps to better understand life itself
Some teenagers haven’t had a lot of experience when it comes to death and dying. However, like everyone, they eventually will, and broaching the sensitive and complex issues surrounding assisted dying can help prepare young people for the future. -
Young Adult/ChildrenOffbeat, vibrant, and darkly comedic film Runaway adapted as graphic novel
“I think a point can be made far better with humour than with dire earnestness,” Winnipeg-based Cordell Barker, creator of the animated short, Runaway (2009), says. The darkly comedic film seeks to convey “the sense of society willfully, or obliviously, racing along a one-way track to its doom.” -
Young Adult/ChildrenCree language releases are part of a larger shift toward Indigenous curriculum content
The Little Women’s Lodge kit is an exciting new resource designed to help children learn about traditional parenting roles and responsibilities. At the same time, they are learning Cree language, story, and singing.
