The Globe and Mail called it a ” small masterpiece of Canadian realism,” and it really is. The script is original, human, and deeply affecting through its tender, minimliastic portrayal of a girl coming of age and longing for connections she so utterly deserves to have, while living alone with her dump-looting grandmother and fantasizing about moving to Alberta to live with the mother who abandoned her. And White’s direction draws well on the emotional potency of the story and the stellar acting by Mary Walsh, Meghan Greeley, and Joel Thomas Hynes. All three of these actors could not have shined any brighter without blinding you. (Note: Sherry White co-wrote the screenplay adaptation of Joel Hynes’ novel Down to the Dirt, in which he acted.)
“Gorgeously made, this hushed, intelligent movie has no sentimentality and marks the arrival of a major filmmaking talent [Sherry White].” - John Doyle, The Globe and Mail
“Meghan Greeley prooves She’s one of Canada’s hottest new actresses.” – Elle Magazine.
“Mary Walsh gives her finest ever dramatic performance here.” The Globe & Mail
“Mary Walsh gives a deeply beautiful performance.” – The National Post.
Visit this site (http://crackie.ca/) for more details about what I consider one of the finest Canadian films I’ve seen, and maybe the best one out of Atlantic Canada (I’m open to more great Atlantic Canadian film suggestions, email chad@saltyink.com)
This year’s roster, spread out over 9 venues in several towns, includes: Pat Byrne, Andreae Callanan, Jan Conn, Antony Christie, Michael Crummey, Tom Dawe.Anthony De Sa, Stan Dragland, Dermot Healy, Joel Thomas Hynes, Tara Manuel, Alayna Munce, Larry Small, Sara Tilley, and Des Walsh.
Where: St. John’s, NL.
The Heritage Shop on 309 Water Street (Beside The Murray Premises).
When: Thursday Night, March 4th, 7-9.
Open to the public, on a first come first seated basis.
Directly from their Executive Director:
“This will be the beginning of a regular series of literary discussions, on the first Thursday of each month. Historic Sites Association are calling the events the Water Street Book Club, and we will announce the lineup of authors and book titles on Thursday evening. The format will be very informal. We’ll introduce Lisa, and she will discuss the process of writing her most recent book, February, followed by a reading, and then there will be a question period. Tea and coffee available. All finished by 9:00 p.m.”
You can buy copies on site, and have them signed. There are few writers as captivating in person and riveting on the page as Lisa, and Salty Ink highly recomends you attend thursday night.
The Newfoundland Writers’ Guild is essentially an open writer’s group with monthly meetings and yearly retreats (click here to learn more), with members as notable as Bernice Morgan, Libby Creelman, Helen Porter, and M.T. Dohaney, among others.
In 2009, both Trudy Morgan-Cole and Tina Chaulk published novels, and both have been very well-received. Trudy’s By the Rivers of Brooklynis one of the most talked-about novels of 2009 here in Newfoundland, and twice in the last month I’ve walked past strangers (at bus stops and coffee shops) looking more than enthralled in Tina’s funny-sad romp of a novel, A Few Kinds of Wrong. (and I could certainly relate: the more poignant passages in Tina’s novel really are enthralling and very well written.)
Below is a description of each novel, as well as what a fellow Writers’ Guild member and The Telegram critic Joan Sullivan had to say about each of these novels:
On Morgan-Cole’s By the Rivers off Brooklyn
“One of the most satisfying novels I’ve ever read. [It] establishes her as a writer to be reckoned with. I literally could not put it down.”
- Helen Porter, award-winning author of january, february, june or July
In the 1920s, Jim, Bert and Rose Evans all move from Newfoundland to Brooklyn, New York, in search of work and a better life, leaving their sister Annie back home in St. John’s. By the Rivers of Brooklyn traces the story of the Evans family across two countries and three generations, exploring the hopes, passions and heartbreaks of those who went away and those who stayed behind, transforming into fiction the experience of the 75,000 first- and second-generation Newfoundlanders who once lived in Brooklyn, New York.
“This novel is both meaty and delicate; you can dig right into it, and still find yourself savouring turns of plot, turns of phrase … The writing is deft and enjoyable.”
- Joan Sullivan, The Telegram
On Chaulk’s A Few Kinds of Wrong
“A book that engages the reader in a subject rarely treated in modern fiction — the shattering, unreasoned grief of a daughter when her beloved father dies. Tina Chaulk has a talent for getting inside the always quirky and often perverse sensibility of her protagonist, a young woman coming to terms with flawed memories, misunderstood relationships and a reinterpretation of family history.”
-Bernice Morgan, award-winning author of Cloud of Bone and Random Passage.
Mechanic Jennifer Collins is a woman in a man’s world, but since her father’s sudden death her world has been falling apart. Now she’s in a losing battle, risking everything to cling to the past while everyone else moves forward. In A Few Kinds of Wrong, Tina Chaulk takes us into the garage and tells the poignant story of Jennifer, her pain, her loves, and her coming to terms with reality.
“It is good solid story with unexpected yet authentic twists, and people you are interested in. A book like this is why people read.”
-Joan Sullivan, The Telegram
Atlantic Canadian launch of Best Canadian Poetry 2009
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Time: 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Location: East Gallery, Memorial Hall, UNB Fredericton
Free! And copies will be available for sale
Get out and celebrate the Atlantic Canadian launch of the anthology this Thursday night, for this very credible book edited by Griffin Poetry Prize-winner A.F. Moritz. Many Atlantic Canadian poets included in the anthology wil be reading their work, including: Jesse Ferguson, Anne Compton, Shirley Bear, Richard Lemm, M. Travis Lane and Peter Norman.
Okay. So I’m breaking the rules: neither author Stacey May Fowles, nor Marlena Zules (who draws the occasional text-associated graphic for this book) are Atlantic Canadian. Nor is hip-cat author Zoe Whitall, who is defending Fear of Fighting in the Canada Also Reads Competition. But I’m calling this an article about Invisible Publishing itself, because who aren’t they winning over, really? And like their blog says, You should read Fear of Fighting: The National Post says so. Zoe Whitall says so. CLICK HERE for the link to and article about the FREE EBOOK.
A claim to fame to get your attention: Both Downhill Chance and Sylvanus Now won the prestigious, 15-thousand dollar Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and that’s only getting started on her remarkable writing career.
Halifax’s Donna Morrissey grew up in Newfoundland, where she is so adored there is a commemorative plaque in her hometown of Beaches. All four of her novels have been remarkably well received by readers, critics, and award jurors alike, and now, if you’ve missed out on any of them, Penguin has just re-designed and re-launched them all for you. They’re striking, enticing, and have special features . If you haven’t read any or all of her novels yet, you are missing out, and now is the time. Her works are an international success, having been sold into Japan, Germany, Sweeden, UK, the US …
Kit’s Law
Selected Recognition:
Winner of the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award Prize
Winner of the The American Library Association’s Alex Award
Winner of the Winifred Holtby Memorial Bequest
Shortlisted for the Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and the Atlantic Provinces Booksellers Choice.
Set in a very isolated, roadless Newfoundland outport in the 1950s, Kit’s Law is the story of fatherless fourteen-year-old Kit Pitmann, who, after her grandmother’s sudden death, becomes responsible for her mentally handicapped mother. The three women led a harsh life, but had each other’s love to get them through it. When her grandmother dies, Kit struggles to fend off village busybodies who try to tear her and her mother apart, particularly the Reverend Ropson, who, from the pulpit, decries Josie as the “Gully Tramp.”
“Beautiful … with a poet’s attention to sound … startling, vivid, and expertly crafted.”
- Booklist
“An affecting, haunting, memorable tale by a true, effortless storyteller.”
- Sunday Tribune (Dublin)
Downhill Chance
Winner of the 2003 Thomas Head Raddall Fiction Prize
Downhill Chance is a story of two Newfoundland families during wartime — the Osmonds and the Gales — brought together by love, yet torn apart by fear and secrets. Job Gale joins the army, leaving his distraught wife and two young daughters behind. When Job returns, he is tortured with a secret shame that shrouds over the family. His young daughter Clair escapes by becoming a teacher at nearby Rocky Head, then falls in love with Luke Osmond, who courts her from afar with a story that reveals his own secret sorrow. Morrissey blends melodrama, gritty realism, and a flair for the comic in this unique novel. At its core is the unravelling of secrets — and what truth ultimately brings to the people who so memorably inhabit these pages.
“So emotionally taut and brilliantly written that you won’t have time to breathe until you leaf over the last page.”
- The Hamilton Spectator
“Downhill Chance is the sort of gothic fiction made familiar by the Brontë sisters, a Wuthering Heights of the craggy coast of Newfoundland.” - The London Free Press
Sylvanus Now
Selected Recognition: Winner of the Thomas Head Raddall Fiction Award
Winner of the Atlantic Book Awards Booksellers’ Choice Award Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize
Sylvanus Now is a young fisherman of great charm and strength. His youthful desires are simple: the fine-boned beauty Adelaide. Adelaide, however, has other dreams. She longs to escape the sea, the fish, and the stultifying community in which she lives. Set against the love story of Addie and Sylvanus is the sea on the cusp of cataclysmic change. Caught between his desire to please his wife and his strongly independent nature, Sylvanus must decide what path his future will take.
‘Deft and deliriously romantic … Acute and bleakly funny.” -The National Post
“There are detailed descriptions in this novel which are dazzlingly authentic. Both physical and emotional landscapes are charted with exquisite care. A splendidly unique novel.”
- Alistair MacLeod, award-winning author of No Great Mischief
What They Wanted
Shortlisted for the 2009 Atlantic Independent Booksellers’ Choice Award
A Globe and Mail bestseller and top book of 2008
After Sylvie’s father’s heart attack, long-simmering family tensions rise to the fore, and she must confront her estrangement from her mother. She fevers for the larger world, both for herself and her vulnerable brother Chris, who is blessed with artistic talent but frustrates his dreams by going to work on an Albertan oil rig. Sylvie’s mother is furious with Sylvie for enticing Chris away. When Sylvie and her brother journey west to the booming oilfields to earn quick, hard cash, and struggle to find their way, the past impinges on the present until tragedy strikes and their lives are forever changed. Yet, out of pain and piercing grief, there is reconciliation and renewal. This is a novel about guilt, responsibility, tragedy, and the enduring ties of family, this is vintage Donna Morrissey.
“A compassionate, insightful, and gripping look at a family dragged through changing times … grief is so movingly presented that readers will feel it as their own.” - Winnipeg Free Press
“Donna Morrissey is an absolute terrific original.”
- David Adams Richards, multi-award-winning author of Mercy Among the Children
Big News, as of Sunday, January 17th: St. John’s, Newfoundland finally has what will hopefully be an annual literary festival. You can see the official site for the Sparks Literary Festival here. It was really about time for this, and Rita Tremblay and renowned poet and well-regarded professor Mary Dalton is to thank for its conception, as they have been the driving force behind what will now be an annual festival to showcase this province’s finest established and emerging writers. It speaks to the validity of this event that Mary had no trouble finding 16 writers to fill the day-long festival. There will be four panels of four writers, spaced out over the day. They will read from their work and then engage in a Q & A with the audience. Another fun interactive element to this festival is its haiku competition, open to anyone participating: the authors, organizers, and audience. The haiku need only incorporate an image a light, to play off the title of the festival, Sparks. the winner will get a bundle of books.
This year’s Sparks Festival includes: Lynette Adams, Joan Clark, Michael Crummey, Tom Dawe, Randy Drover, Robert Finley, Jessica Grant, Susan Ingersoll, Don McKay, Janet McNaughton, Lisa Moore, Chad Pelley, Stephen Rowe, Leslie Vryenhoek, Russell Wangersky, Patrick Warner.
Schedule
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Session 1 – 10:30-11:45
Michael Crummey, Lynette Adams, Robert Finley, Janet McNaughton
Lunch break: 12.00-1.00
Session 2 – 1:00-2:20
Susan Ingersoll, Chad Pelley, Patrick Warner, Jessica Grant
Break: 2:20-2:30: Displays of local literary journals, etc. in lobby. Meet and greet, book signings.
Session 3 – 2:30-4:00
Leslie Vryenhoek, Tom Dawe, Stephen Rowe, Lisa Moore
Break: 3:50-4:30: Displays of local literary journals, etc. in lobby. Meet and greet, book signings.
Session 4 – 4:30-6:00
Russell Wangersky, Randy Drover, Joan Clark, Don McKay
Announcement of Haiku Competition winner; reading of haiku short list.
January Magazine just did a plug for Clare and Adams’s Atlantic Canada’s 100 Greatest Books. (The ultimate coffee table book or gift for Atlantic Canadian book lovers … a phenomenal, well-designed, well-delivered resource every Canadian reader ought to have in their bookcase.)
They worded it so well, and that first sentence there is so very true, that I had to copy and paste:
“Atlantic Canada’s 100 Greatest Books is like a blueprint for what provinces, states, regions and even countries should be doing for their literature. In straightforward fashion and in easily accessible language, it rounds up the 100 greatest books of Canada’s huge and literally formidable Atlantic region. Full stop. Then it bundles them all together under a bright, shiny cover, giving a couple of pages and a full color representation to each of the chosen 100 along with a breezy write-up and — voila! — a literary map for anyone who would like to hit all of the regional highlights.”
New Brunswick’s literary powerhouse, David Adams Richards, and Nova Scotia / Newfoundland’s acclaimed author and arts activist, Joan Clark, have been named to the Order of Canada. Since 1967, the Order of Canada has been Canada’s system of honouring the importance of a Canadian in any field.
David Adams Richards was named a member of the Order of Canada for ”his contributions to the Canadian literary scene as an essayist, screenwriter and writer of fiction and non-fiction.” He has had an epic writing career with a far- reaching influence on writers in the country (yours truly included:Mercy Among the Childrenhad a profound resonance to it, and was perhaps the most gripping novel I have ever read). His career got started remarkably early, having completed his first novel, The Keeping of Gusties (1970), at twenty years of age. He then started up the infamous Ice House Gang writer’s group, and got serious backing and encouragement by icon Alden Nowlan. Since that time he has built one of the most remarkable writing careers of any Canadian, holding claims to fame such as having won the prestigious GG award for both a fiction and non-fiction title (Nights Below Station Street and Lines on the Water, respectively), and moreover, three more of his novels have been shortlisted for the same award, including Mercy Among the Children, which, among other accomplishments, won the Giller prize, the Canadian Booksellers Association author of the year and fiction book of the year, was shortlisted for several other awards, and was a Canada Reads selection.
Joan Clark was named a member of the Order of Canada for “her contributions as an author of literature for both children and adults, and as an arts activist who has supported provincial and national cultural organizations for decades.” Joan is a multi-award-winning author of several genres, published all over the world, who got her real start in 1968 with publication of Girl of the Rockies. Of her long, illustrious career, my favourite work of Joan’s might be the captivating story of “Mad Mory” in An Audience of Chairs, a Globe and Mail book of the year, nominated for the IMPAC award, shortlisted for the Winterset Award, and winner of The Bennington Gate Fiction Award. (Last I heard, Rock Island Productions bought the film rights.) Her career is truly one to admire, I’ve heard nothing but gushing praise of her last two adult novels, Lattitudes of MeltandAn Audience of Chairs, and I love to hear tell of other writers who are obsessive revisers as well. She even went so far as to revise a published work when her 1982 collection of shorts, From a High Thin Wire, was re-released in 2004.
For the first time, ever, a Canadian author’s novel has been published in Russia before any other country, including his own. Harvey’s latest, Reinventing the Rose, just released by Russia’s Centrepolygraph, is currently being shopped around Canada and the US by Harvey’s newly acquired North American agent, the renowned Peter Mason. Reinventing the Rose only comes with a nutshell summary for now (but Salty Ink will be sure to get more details closer to its publication date) . It is the story of a pregnant artist and her gynecologist boyfriend, who takes her to court with the intention of forcing her to have an abortion. The story proper, the battle between the man and woman, is interlaced with a detailed development of the embryo.
Reinventing the Rose is Harvey’s fifth book to be translated into Russian and published there. Others include his CanLit masterpiece, Inside, the internationally acclaimed powerhouse, The Town that Forgot How to Breathe, an early collection of short fiction, Directions for an Opened Body, and Stalkers.
When the Quill & Quire asked why he’s had such success in Russia, Harvey honestly answered, ““It’s all voodoo to me, you never know what’s going to happen.” There is undeniably a fair bit of voodoo and chance in this industry, but what’s even more concrete and certain: Very few modern Canadian writers are as prolific, talented, diverse in content, or internationally well-received as Kenneth J. Harvey. Another key to success in Harvey’s career: clever marketing and innovation. He created the idea of a “transcomposite narrative” when he wrote Skin Hound and Blackstrap Hawco, Inside spawned a new and apt genre called GritLit, and each of his last three novels came out with marketing bangs like “Written in only six months,” (Inside) “A book fifteen years in the making” (Blackstrap Hawco), and “The first book published in Russia before its home country” (Reinventing the Rose). All remarkable feats AND useful marketing angles.
It should be no surprise that Harvey would be the first Canadian author published in Russia before anywhere else. Harvey has had tremendous success with his books outside of Canada. The Town That Forgot How to Breath, for instance, has been published in over a dozen countries since its 2003 release, andInside won Italy’s prestigious Libro Del Mare Award. He was the first Canadian author to do so.
Salty Ink:You’ve had tremendous success with foreign sales of your work. The strength of your novels is obviously the key, but, can you pinpoint the most crucial step or two you’ve taken that have played the biggest role in your foreign success?
Kenneth J. Harvey: The biggest step was taking the initiative to contact foreign agents on my own and attempt to have them take me on.
Salty Ink: What are three most memorable moments, in terms or foreign success, in your writing career?
Kenneth J. Harvey:
1.) Winning Italy’s Libro del Mare and travelling to Italy to collect it at an extravagant ceremony atop a casino with half-naked dancing Vegas girls and Chinese contortionists. The media travelled from all over Italy to do interviews, and there were even TV cameras. I felt like a criminal mastermind and/or a nutcase celebrity.
2.) Receiving my biggest advance ever from my UK publisher.
3.) Reading at the Edinburgh Writers Festival in Scotland.
A Random Sampling of The Many Faces of The Town That Forgot How to Breath
I’m not sure what the question is here: Who thinks to combine hockey and poetry, or how remarkable it is that the daring combination has proven so successful? But those questions shouldn’t take up too much press and overwhelm the fact Maggs, like any poet, chose a subject for his poems and wrote well enough to win over multiple audiences and numerous critics. He believed in the idea and it worked, remarkably well. As far as reception goes for a collection of poetry, I have heard as much or more about Night Work in the last two years than I have any other collection of poetry. And I love the idea of The National Post and London Free Press praising the same book as The Edmonton Oilers’ blog just quoted from. Has that happened before? Or who has been interviewed by Prime Time Sports and CBC’s Weekend Arts Magazine and The Next Chapter?
Selected Recognition for Night Work: The Sawchuck Poems
- Recently shortlisted for the 25,000$ Kobzar Literary Award, winner to be announced March 4, 2010.
- Winner of the 2009 Winterset Award
- Winner of the 2009 E.J. Pratt prize for Poetry
- A Globe and Mail “Top 100 books of 2008.”
- Has read at over 10 esteemed festivals, such as Thin Air: Winnipeg International Writers Festival, WordFest: Banff-Calgary International Writers Festival, Stephen Leacock Festival, and, Writers at Woody Point.
Select Review Snippets
“Randall Maggs gets closer than any biographer to the heart of the darkest, most troubled figure in the history of our national game. This may be the truest hockey book ever written.” -Stephen Brunt, Globe and Mail and SportsNet
“Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems seems poised to become a Canadian classic.”
- Dave Bidini, The Globe and Mail
“I love this book for the reasons I love the game; for its guts, its skill, and its heart. ”
- Karen Solie, Award-winning Canadian poet
“Gary Bettman need look no further if the NHL is in the market for its own poet laureate .”
- Barbara Carey, Toronto Star
“An unlikely a pairing as you will ever see, Newfoundland scribe Randall Maggs skillfully marries hockey and poetry into one of this year’s literary masterpieces.”
- Stephen Clare, The Chronicle Herald
Here is a Bookshorts short film, Night Work: A Sawchuk Poem, directed by Justin Simms.
Since the discovery of its mising last page, over twenty years after it was published, and the subsequent relaunching of Alden Nowlan’s first novel, The Wanton Troopers, the book has been getting considerable attention, and it seemed like the right time to mention that the highly acclaimed musician, NQ Arbuckle, adapted one of Nowlan’s poems, “Ypres 1915″ into a song. (The Ottawa Citizen on NQ Arbuckle: ” NQ Arbuckle takes the squalor of life and composes magical poetry.” Here’s what he did with that Nowlan poem:
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Atlantic Canada’s Kenneth J. Harvey has a new novel coming up, and has signed with renowned New York agent, Peter Matson, at Sterling Lord Literistic. Matson has represented such suucesful books as Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and John Irving’s The World According to Garp. Starting with Harvey’s new novel, Reinventing the Rose, Matson will represent Harvey personally in Canada, the US and the UK.
Reinventing the Rose “concerns an artist who becomes pregnant, and her gynecologist boyfriend who takes her to court with the intention of forcing her to have an abortion. Throughout the text, the detailed development of the embryo runs side by side with the story of the battle between man and woman.” It has already been bought by the Harvey-loving Russian publisher, Centrepolygraph.
ABTOn Ryan Turner: “A regular contributor to many of the country’s creative-fiction journals, Turner has been called ‘the next big thing’ for so long now he just shrugs it off.”
ABT On Tanya Davis: “Tanya Davis is a whirling dervish of creativity … [the] poet, spoken word performer and musician has made a name for herself as one of the region’s most vibrant and vital new voices.”
ABT On Chad Pelley: “You know you re on the right career path when you have the likes of Kenneth J. Harvey calling you ‘one of the most talented young writers to come out of Newfoundland in many years.’ Away from Everywhere has been receiving rave reviews from both readers and critics.”
ABT On Jon Tattrie: “Jon Tattrie might be the busiest writer in Atlantic Canada, [yet] somehow … the thirty-something scribe managed to publish his first book, Black Snow, this past spring. The novella received critical and popular acclaim for its emotional intensity and strong narrative arc.”
ABT On Jesse Ferguson: “… he serves as poetry editor for The Fiddlehead, has published reviews in several Canadian journals, has contributed poetry to such prominent publications as The New Quarterly and Harper’s … [and] his first full-length book of poems, Harmonincs, has just hit bookstore shelves.”
This book is on fire, and to top it all off, The Globe & Mail’s first-fiction editor, Jim Bartley, just put it on his “Top Five Debut Novels of 2009″ list. You can read his review of the book by clicking here and it’s one of the most convincing reviews I’ve read. Here’s a snippet, “[When] an Australian tree frog [is] brought into Phin’s classroom as a teaching accessory. Phin sees only an imprisoned creature of the open forest, forced to live in a glass case with a fake tree branch. He laments the fact to his mother, who notes that frogs are intellectually inferior to humans and probably don’t much care where they are. Phin’s response: ‘If aliens came down to Earth and were one million times smarter than humans, would it be all right to capture all the humans with nets and put them in solitary cages and feed them once in a while and watch them bang their heads against the glass until they died?’ How does one approach this sort of uncompromising logic from a nine-year-old? Phin’s mom trucks him off to a psychologist.”
The Quill & Quire describe the precocial Phin Walsh as “a preteen insomniac watching the world around him disintegrate and feeling helpless to stop it.” That same review also points out the message beneath the humour, “But there’s much more to Amphibian that tubthumping for the environment. Phin is a symbol of our times – a child so overwhelmed by information that his childhood is being stolen from him … Gunn adeptly uses the guilelessness of childhood to highlight some real issues.”
The Coast’s Sue Carter Flinn said, “Sometimes you start reading a book and fall in love by page two. That’s what happened when I tore through Carla Gunn’s novel Amphibian … although the loss of innocence is heartbreaking, Amphibian is also hilarious … it’s a sparkling, memorable debut.”
Atlantic Books Today’s megan Venner, “Amphibian is a richly told reminder to people of all ages of the simplicity and wisdom of a nine-year-old boy. Encompassing many of the ageless human frailties from anxiety to loneliness to victimization in Phineas William Walsh, Carla Gunn has masterfully created a relatable and readable young hero. In Amphibian, we see the world through the eyes of this young eco-warrior.”
NOW Magazine’s Zoe Whitall, “Amphibian is a sweet and smart book for optimists of any age, and Phin the perfect eco hero for intelligent readers everywhere.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever read anything quite like Jessica Grant’s Come, Thou Tortoise … Audrey’s Brilliant. She’s hilarious. I could read about her all day … [it] defies a simplistic categorization. It is a somewhat sprawling, but well structured comic novel with many serious messages and much marvellous insight. It’s extraordinary, original and simultaneously both deep and lightheartedly charming. Come, Thou Tortoise had me from Word One. ” – Diane Baker Mason
Jeanette Lynes – Factory Voices
“First-time novelist Jeanette Lynes, best known for her award-winning poetry, has a great talent for bringing idiosyncratic characters to life while capturing wartime atmosphere, vernacular and anxiety … [she] turns the story of a true-life Canadian heroine into an entertaining novel … It’ll make you laugh and cry; it’s a fictional slice of Canadian history.” – Carla Lucchetta
Lisa Moore - February
“A tragedy at sea, a miracle on paper … Lisa Moore’s luminous novel centres on the Ocean Ranger disaster, but it makes you laugh as much as it makes you cry … Moore offers us, elegantly, exultantly, the very consciousness of her characters. In this way, she does more than make us feel for them. She makes us feel what they feel, which is, I think, the point of literature and maybe even the point of being human.” – Caroline Adderson
Linden MacIntyre – The Bishop’s Man
“In his Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning novel, Linden MacIntyre tackles the disturbing topic of sexual abuse of children, a subject easily given to theses and tirades, lectures and judgments, all thinly veiled as fiction. MacIntyre, his engrossing tale told through the eyes and experiences of Father Duncan MacAskill, sidesteps these pitfalls to deliver a serious examination of the theme with the page-turning energy of a thriller.” – Frank Macdonald
Michael Crummey – Galore
“Michael Crummey’s excellent new novel is one of those books that is so complete that it takes on a life of its own. It will stay in the minds of its readers long after they finish the last page. His two previous novels, River Thieves and The Wreckage, were critical successes and national bestsellers, and deservedly so. They were very good books and I enjoyed them immensely. Galore blows them out of the water. Crummey’s prose is flawless. Michael Crummey is without a doubt one of Canada’s finest writers ” – Steven Galloway
“A highly original voice.” – The Vancouver Sun
“One of the most gifted writers I know.” – Alden Nowlan
“The best literary voice to come belling out of the Maritimes in decades.” – Farley Mowatt
New Brunswick’s Raymond Fraser got started early. In his Jr. year at St. Thomas university he was co-editor for the student literary magazine Tom-Tom. At 25, living in Montreal, he and Leroy Johnson founded the literary magazine: Intercourse: Contemporary Canadian Writing. And this ambition and talent led to one of the most remarkable careers of any Atlantic Canadian author, and resulted in, just this month, in his being awarded the inaugural Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for High Achievement in English Literary Arts, a 20,000$ award “designed to recognize the outstanding contribution of individuals to the arts.”
Here is a chunk of text from the press release for the award: ”
“’I felt it in my bones quite early, the desire to be a writer. At 14 I decided maybe it would too dull. Thought I’d live an exciting life for a while, and then write when I was older.’ However by the time the Chatham boy turned 17, Fraser’s mind was made up, and New Brunswick’s cultural life is the richer for it.”
Moreover, in the recently released gem, Atlantic Canada’s Top 100 Books, Fraser ties with the likes of literary icons David Adams Richards and Wayne Johnston for the author with the most titles in the list. Five. That’s quite an honour. Fraser has written 7 works of poetry, 2 biographies, a memoir, and compiled the anthology East of Canada. He has just released his eighth novel, In Another Life. You can buy it here: http://fraserbooks.blogspot.com/
“Wily Fredericton scribe Raymond Fraser proves again why he is one of Atlantic Canada’s finest writers with the beautiful and haunting tragic-comedy of one boy’s rise to prominence in his community and his slow descent into the throes of alcoholism. In Another Life is a powerful and poignant story that will capture the minds and hearts of readers. Think Catcher in the Rye meets Hemingway and Bukowski.” — Leap Magazine
“A beautifully wrought story, tragic, poignant and full of rich detail. It’s just masterful.” — Robert Lecker
“In Another Life is heart-warming and heart-wrenching all at once. It’s the real deal, a genuine masterpiece of storytelling, sadly beautiful, and perhaps Fraser’s finest work to date.” — Stephen Clare, The Book Club
Two Quick Questions for Raymond Fraser
Do you have a favourite work that you have written, or a least favourite, or does it not work that way for you, is each its own?
I don’t have a “least favourite” among my books, although there are a few poems in the early poetry books I’m not crazy about (I made sure not to include these in my selected poems, “Before You’re A Stranger”). As for a favourite book, I have to say my latest, IN ANOTHER LIFE. I put more of myself and more work into it than any of the others, and when I read it over to give it a final touching up this past winter I could see I’d done as good a job as I was able to do and was glad I’d stuck with it.
What stands out as one or two highlights from your career?
I don’t think it’s the highlights that were important in my writing years so far but the lowlights, the near-darknesses, and making it through those times and being the better for it. Getting off the booze in 1982 which gave me a second go at life and writing when I thought both were finished, and then going through a lot of frustrations and self-doubts and finally getting things sorted out through assorted revelations.
Tina Chaulk’s second novel, A Few Kinds of Wrong, just got a nice plug from Belletrista: Celebrating Women Writers from Around the World. Belletrista sift through “hundreds of pages of publisher catalogs from all over the world to bring our readers a variety of interesting international reading.” You can see the full list here, where A Few Kinds of Wrong sits in the company of Marina Endicott’s Good to a Fault, and Mavis Gallant’s The Cost of Living. This is great recognition for Tina’s brand new novel, aptly summarized by writer Michelle Butler Hallet as “gut-painful and gut-funny.”
Bernice Morgan, on A Few Kinds of Wrong, “A book that engages the reader in a subject rarely treated in modern fiction — the shattering, unreasoned grief of a daughter when her beloved father dies. Tina Chaulk has a talent for getting inside the always quirky and often perverse sensibility of her protagonist.”
Fun Contest on Tina’s Blog, ”to Celebrate Women in Non-traditional Work,” Open to Everyone!
Visit Tina’s blog to participate to win a free copy of the novel, or just to read some of the answers.
Though it wasn’t Tina’s intention, the fact that the main character is a female mechanic will stand out for many readers. In the words of the author, “In my new novel, Jennifer is a mechanic … Although the book isn’t trying to make any political statements, and Jennifer’s job is not the main focus of the novel, by making Jennifer a mechanic I’ve called some attention to how unusual it is to find women in some fields … So, I’m having a contest to celebrate women in non-traditional work and I want to hear from you!”
Alden Nowlan is a prolific pioneer of Atlantic Canadian writing. Between the 1958 release of A Darkness in the Earth and his untimely death in 1983, Alden Nowlan, arguably one of the most important authors out of Atlantic Canada, released a handful of novels, over twenty collections of poetry, four works of drama, and a few non-fiction titles to round it off. His life story reads like a captivating novel as well; a true tale of a writer’s passion over coming all odds stacked against him. Nowlan and his sister were abandoned by their mother (who birthed him at fourteen; his father “a heavy drinker twice her age”), and was left to be raised by his paternal grandmother, who had Nowlan abandon education after four grades. So he discovered the library, walked or hitchhiked the eighteen miles to fetch books, and taught himself everything he needed to know. “I wrote in secret. My father would as soon have seen me wear lipstick.” Later in life, when diagnosed with cancer and limited in work abilities, UNB granted him their writer-in-residence position for fifteen years.
This week, over fifteen years after his death, Goose Lane Editions are re-launching his classic first novel, The Wanton Troopers … with a brand new, recently discovered ending. It’s a continuation of this novels posthumous fate; Goose Lane published it originally in 1988, five years after Nowlan passed away.
How does that happen? Goose Lane were in the process of preparing a Reader’s Guide edition, complete with an abridged version of his last interview, with Jon Pederson, an afterword by David Adams Richards, and an extended biographical note by Peter Toner. When they went to consult the original manuscript, not the printed book itself … editor Laurel Boone was “shocked” to discover the actual final page of Alden’s classic novel. Apparently, in the previously published version, protagonist Kevin O’Brien’s “mood and tone are quite passive, and he seems sadly resigned to his fate. In the updated version, he exhibits a strong and renewed sense of defiance or resistance to his situation.”
It remains a mystery why or how the omission happened. It’s pretty exciting from a marketing angle, I must say. I hope it garners Nowlan some interest from younger generations not so familiar with his work, and provides long-standing fans a reason to re-read The Wanton Troopers.
Synopsis from the publisher: “The Wanton Troopers is the story of Kevin O’Brien and his hunger for opportunity. In unusually stark prose, Kevin observes his being abandoned by his beloved mother and grows to recognize, if not to fully understand, adult pathos and the yearnings of the heart. In this essential domestic novel, Nowlan depicts both painful intensity and poignancy in Kevin’s relationships with the mother he adores, his violent father, and his conflicted grandmother. Nowlan’s treatment of family relationships, sexual confusions, and the pains of love are direct, authentic, and affective.”
Special Screening of award-winning documentary, Alden Nowlan: An Introduction
In this award-winning documentary, included in abridged format in the new edition of the novel, Nowlan talks freely about his life and reads from his work. The screening will be followed by a Q & A session with Pedersen. This event is free and open to the public. Copies of the new edition of The Wanton Troopers will be available for purchase.
Tuesday 24 November 2009 from 7 to 9pm
Harriet Irving Library, Milham Room
University of New Brunswick, 5 MacAulay Lane
Ryan Turner’s name keeps coming up from reliable friends, fellow writers, and convincing articles, like The Coast’s, Open Book Toronto’s interview, and the “Young Guns” article in Atlantic Books Today. That’s more than enough reliable hype for me to be genuinely looking forward to his Newfoundlanland launch, Monday November 23rd at The Ship, 8 p.m. He’s already had a Halifax and a Moncton launch. That willingness to self-promote is crucial and respectable; reward the man for coming to Newfoundland. Go to his launch. Buy his book. It’s clear from reliable sources his writing is worth your time and money. He’s also been published in places like Prairie Fire, Qwerty, and The New Quarterly if you need specifics. And What We’re Made of was shortlisted for the Metcalf-Rooke award.
In his own words, Turner has described What We’re Made of as, “A collection of stories all told from the perspective of Benjamin Wallace. It’s about a generation of twenty-somethings who don’t have the kind of template-for-life that past generations had: getting married, buying a house, having children, working the same job until you retire. I think with this kind of freedom comes enormous opportunity but also the fear of never doing enough with that opportunity, not knowing where to place your energy. Benjamin seems to always be a bit outside the world, hovering above it. It’s also a book about broken, but loving, families. About what constitutes family. Here, again, is another line that was once so fixed but now seems mutable.”
That sounds like a fresh and fantastic thematic grounds for literary exploration, and anyone who can talk that intelligently about their work, without sounding forced, contrived, or pretentious, has a true handle on their work, and has their book in my bookshelf. Check out his website: http://ryannicholasturner.com/
“Turner’s molding of Benjamin into his full-fleshed self reveals writing filled with humour and sex that can only be found through an open sketch of who we are, as people, when stripped down.”
- Holly Gordon, The Coast
“[What We're Made of is ] the sound of a new voice quietly but immovably announcing itself as one of the key leaders of a new generation of Halifax writers.” Tara Thorn, CBC Radio
Have you heard of Stephen Clare’s CDKU radio show, The Book Club? I had, but I didn’t know people outside of Nova Scotia could tune in, online, and even download archived clips at www.ckdu.ca. Until today, when I heard this plug for Salty Ink:
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Finding out about this show was like waking up on a Monday and someone telling you, “It’s a holiday, remember, go back to bed.” I’ve corresponded with Stephen a few times now, and I’m a raving fan of his co-authored instant gem Atlantic Canada’s 100 Greatest Books, and I’ve long respected his articles and reviews in The Quill & Quire, The Globe, Atlantic Books Today, or the various other outlets of his. The guy talks books in a fresh, interesting, informative, and intelligent manner. You can tune in online: Tuesdays, 1:30-2:30 Halifax time, www.ckdu.ca, or download it afterwards.
He talks books and plays good music, and the first time I tuned in, today, he asked the question I have been dying to know for months: what made celebrated novelist David Adams Richards switch gears and write his latest book, God Is: My Search for Faith in a Secular World? An exploration of faith and morality in the modern world, and where he stands on it.
Listen in:
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This is one of the most enticing short fiction summaries I’ve ever read. I’ve plucked it right off Leslie’s website. Scrabble Lessons ”explores the longing that gnaws at our most ordinary days, and captures those rare moments of acute certainty on which whole lives can pivot and change course. In these 15 stories, characters who have confined themselves to comfortable patterns are suddenly thrown off their games.” (<– See the pun there, the play off the title?)
This is one of the best endorsement quotes I’ve ever read: “Vryenhoek’s fiction is tension around a blaze; a fist holding a sapphire.”
- Kathleen Winter
This is one of the best endorsement quotes I’ve ever read: “Vryenhoek’s stories are like diamonds in blood. You will be hurt. You will be enriched. And you will carry them with you.”
- Michelle Butler Hallett
Leslie is a multi-award-winning fiction writer and poet who “learned to play Scrabble on her mother’s knee, and dreamed of being a writer.” And we should be happy a few “real jobs” didn’t get in the way.
Official Book Launch
The Ship, St. John’s, NL
Tuesday November 17th.
8 -10:30
I’m not sure what the question is here: Who thinks to combine hockey and poetry, or how remarkable it is that the daring combination has proven so successful? But those questions shouldn’t take up too much press and overwhelm the fact Maggs, like any poet, chose a subject for his poems and wrote well enough to win over multiple audiences and numerous critics. He believed in the idea and it worked, remarkably well. As far as reception goes for a collection of poetry, I have heard as much or more about Night Work in the last two years than I have any other collection of poetry. And I love the idea of The National Post and London Free Press praising the same book as The Edmonton Oilers’ blog just quoted from. Has that happened before? Or who has been interviewed by Prime Time Sports 
Fun Contest on Tina’s Blog, ”to Celebrate Women in Non-traditional Work,” Open to Everyone!
