ArticlesIssue 81, Fall/Winter 2022-23
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FictionLeslie Greentree returns with well-crafted takes on politics, abortion, loneliness, and disaster
“I love short stories. I love reading them, I love writing them. I love that short fiction can focus on a moment, a single situation, or a brief period of time in a character’s life,” says Leslie Greentree about her return to the short form with her new story collection, Not the Apocalypse I Was Hoping For. Her writing career has spanned poetry, theatre, and non-fiction, as well as fiction – she even has a novel in the works – but the short story fulfills a special purpose. -
FictionAction-packed story revolves around identity theft, and one man’s worst day ever
Everyone has bad days. However, John Hancock, the protagonist of Stealing John Hancock by H&A Christensen, has had the worst day of all time. -
FictionBlack queer joy and ‘deliberately hidden’ history brought to life in playful, poetic style
Suzette Mayr’s latest novel, The Sleeping Car Porter, began with a challenge posed by one of her former writing teachers, the poet Fred Wah – he suggested she write about train porters. “I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I didn’t know what history he was referring to,” she says. -
FictionNovel set in Nigeria, Canada highlights untold stories of transnational migration
Every year, many Africans leave behind strong ties forged since birth to explore new connections in Canada. Some realize their dreams of stability and prosperity; others fail and yield to despair. Saskatoon-based Nigerian writer Michael Afenfia is familiar with the challenges many immigrants deal with in North America, having emigrated from Nigeria to Canada in 2019. His latest and sixth novel, Leave My Bones in Saskatoon, is about Africans pursuing the Canadian dream. -
PoetryCollaboration between photos and poems illuminate search for meaning, magic
Poems and photographs play off of each other to shed light on human existence in Sixty-Seven Ontological Studies: 49 Poems & 18 Photographs by long-time friends Jan Zwicky and Robert Moody. -
PoetrySkylar Kay pairs marginalized topics with form traditionally used for travel journals
Relating transitions in her life to the phases of the moon was the challenge trans poet Skylar Kay set herself in her debut poetry collection, the haibun journal Transcribing Moonlight. -
DramaPlay moves from traditional to surreal settings, drawing audience in to consider mortality
Winnipeg-based actor, director, and playwright Debbie Patterson’s play How It Ends explores end-of-life choices and the legalization of medical assistance in dying. “It’s the thing we all want to know but don’t want to know: the circumstances under which we will die,” she says. -
DramaTale follows 3 generations of Indigenous women’s art, activism, survival ‘through acts of love’
Produced by Prairie Theatre Exchange in the fall of 2021 and now being published as a book, Cree-Saulteaux theatre artist and playwright Darla Contois’s play The War Being Waged is a multidisciplinary, multi-generational work exploring the roles that art, activism, and family play in the lives of Indigenous women resisting ongoing colonialism in Canada today. -
Non-FictionColouring book paired with teachings can offer quiet time, healing, connection, and more
Readers may feel the need to adopt a guarded heart when picking up Jackie Traverse’s third colouring book, Resilience: Honouring the Children of Residential Schools. For anyone who knows, loves, or are themselves survivors of these schools, of day schools, of the Sixties Scoop, and of the child welfare system, the topic hits especially close to home. While the book deals with a difficult subject, Traverse hopes it can also be healing. -
FeaturesStrong-willed characters navigate multigenerational family dynamics, investigate disappearance
Where do writers find their ideas? In the case of dee Hobsbawn-Smith, a family story provided the inspiration for her absorbing debut novel, Danceland Diary.
