ArticlesIssue 78, Spring/Summer 2021
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FeaturesFifth poetry collection from Halfe is fresh, pure fun
The year 2021 will be a momentous one for Cree poet Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer, raised on Saddle Lake Reserve in Saskatchewan and based near Saskatoon. Halfe has a new collection, awâsis – kinky and dishevelled, coming out this spring. -
FeaturesMétis road trip tale shows snapshot of everyday life in late 1800s
“Métis history, culture, and perspectives are largely overlooked in schools, focusing on the Resistances and Métis people as rebels,” says Cort Dogniez, author of Road to La Prairie Ronde. -
FeaturesShort-story collection picks up where Annie Muktuk left off
Norma Dunning’s latest short story collection, Tainna (The Unseen Ones), continues the powerful work she began with Annie Muktuk and Other Stories, for which she won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award in 2018. The same year she won the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s Howard O’Hagan Award for the short story “Elipsee,” and was a finalist for the City of Edmonton Book Award. -
FeaturesMedicine Wheel teachings from workshops, business come together into a book
Carrie Armstrong, a Cree entrepreneur and now author, presents her grandmother’s teachings related to the Medicine Wheel in Mother Earth Plants for Health and Beauty: Indigenous Plants, Traditions and Recipes. -
FeaturesCree language book a resource for both teachers, parents to learn syllabics
Teaching a language to children is a way of transmitting culture to the next generation. Cam Robertson’s book Nîpin, which means “It is summer,” introduces Cree phrases about summer to children from ages five to 10. -
Non-FictionHistorian challenges the dominant settler-colonial narrative of heritage sites
In Authorized Heritage: Place, Memory, and Historic Sites in Prairie Canada, Winnipeg-based Robert Coutts presents a detailed examination of Prairie heritage sites and how governments are the mediators and arbitrators of what is – and isn’t – considered heritage. The book also discusses how class, gender, and sexuality are distanced from the heritage discourse. -
Non-FictionTrailblazer in male-dominated trades shares lessons learned from working life
Winnipeg author Louella Lester has been working since she was five years old. From selling onions door to door, to cleaning pianos, to busy days writing and taking photographs after she retired from her teaching career, she has always worked at something. “I don’t feel right if I’m not learning or doing,” she says. -
Non-FictionWeaving together the threads of writing and gender
Keith Maillard grew up knowing nothing about his father. On his father’s death, Maillard was given his scrapbooks, and set out to capture everything he remembered or knew about him, writing a first memoir, Fatherless, published in 2019. Maillard had generated a lot of text, not all about the senior Maillard. -
Non-FictionRefugees tell their own stories in collection edited for ‘depth, diversity, and drama’
Canada, both now and throughout history, has usually been regarded as a welcoming country to refugees fleeing war, persecution, and famine. But what kinds of reception have refugees really encountered here? -
FeaturesTurnstone Press turns 45, stays true to its roots
The year 2021 marks the 45th anniversary of Turnstone Press. As the story goes, Turnstone sprang from a get-together at a local Winnipeg pub. There, Robert Enright, Dennis Cooley, John Beaver, David Arnason, Wayne Tefs, and Daniel Lenoski discussed creating a collection of poetry books to bring light to a huge wellspring of Manitoba writing that was being overlooked by the mainstream.
