Media Hits: CROSSES IN THE SKY, THE EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE, and COCKTAIL!

IN THE NEWS!

CROSSES IN THE SKY

Crosses in the Sky: Jean de Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia by Mark Bourrie (May 21, 2024) was reviewed in the Globe and Mail! The review was published online on May 24, and you can read the full piece here.

Reviewer Charlotte Gray writes,

Crosses in the Sky is dramatic and enthralling . . . Bourrie has done more than any other Canadian historian writing for a general audience to disinter the root causes of degenerating settler-Indigenous relations and disrupted Indigenous societies in the 400 years since Brébeuf’s death. And he has done it with attention-grabbing panache.”

Crosses in the Sky was also reviewed in the Ottawa Review of Books. The review was posted online on May 22, and you can read the full review here.

Grab Crosses in the Sky here!

THE EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE

The Education of Aubrey McKee by Alex Pugsley (May 7, 2024) was reviewed in the Midwest Book Review. The review was published online on May 21, and you can read it in full here.

“A fun and fascinating read from start to finish, The Education of Aubrey McKee continues to showcase author Alex Pugsley’s genuine flair for original, distinctive, and narrative driven storytelling style.”

The Education of Aubrey McKee was also excerpted in Lit Hub, on May 20. You can check out the full excerpt here.

Get The Education of Aubrey McKee here!

Check out the first book, Aubrey McKee, here!

COCKTAIL

Cocktail by Lisa Alward (Sep 12, 2023) was reviewed in FreeFall. The review was posted online on May 19, and is available to read here.

Reviewer Skylar Kay writes,

“Lisa Alward’s Cocktail is a memorable collection for its characters, settings, and artistic prowess. From the macro aspects of storytelling like character and setting development to the micro levels of writing poignant lines to capture allegories in unexpected ways, Alward shows off her talent at every turn.”

Grab Cocktail here!

Media Hits: WORK TO BE DONE, EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE, CROSSES IN THE SKY, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

WORK TO BE DONE

Work to Be Done: Selected Essays and Reviews by Bruce Whiteman (Mar 12, 2024) was reviewed in The Miramichi Reader. The review was published online on May 15, and you can read it in full here.

Reviewer John Oughton writes,

“Whiteman is an erudite and very well-read lover of books in general, and literature in particular. He brings a finely honed critical perspective, a fine prose style of his own, and a sturdy sense of humour to the various essays and reviews collected here. “

Work to Be Done was also reviewed by Catherine Owen in FreeFall! The review was published online on May 13, and you can check out the full review here.

Catherine praises,

“Whiteman’s scholarship is prodigious and his style engaging as he addresses subjects that might be viewed as archaic or passé in a unique way, his tone intelligently conversational, quirky and eminently readable . . . His attention to the crucial choice of diction for translators and the essential sensitivity to sonority for the poet is relentlessly compelling. And he can be quite funny.”

Get Work to Be Done here!

CROSSES IN THE SKY

Crosses in the Sky: Jean de Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia by Mark Bourrie (May 21, 2024) was featured in the Toronto Star! The review was published online on May 15, and you can read it here.

Reviewer Ken McGoogan writes,

“In 2019, Mark Bourrie published Bush Runner, a biography of the adventurer Pierre-Esprit Radisson that was ‘compelling, authoritative, not a little disturbing—and a significant contribution to the history of 17th-century North America,’ as I wrote at the time. The same can be said about Bourrie’s latest, Crosses in the Sky: Jean de Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia . . . In reinterpreting the Jesuit’s martyrdom against the backdrop of Huronia’s destruction, Bourrie presents a revisionist history.”

Mark Bourrie was also interviewed about the book on The Andrew Carter Morning Show! The interview was posted online on May 17, and is available to listen to here.

Order Crosses in the Sky here!

THE EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE

The Education of Aubrey McKee by Alex Pugsley (May 7, 2024) was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada alongside the first book in the Aubrey McKee Novels, Aubrey McKee! The review was published online on May 17, and will be printed in their June 2024 issue. You can read the full review here.

Reviewer Liam Rockall raves,

“Bold and dynamic, Pugsley’s novels are lively and vivid, filled with individuals who are benevolent and cruel and with scenes that are captivating and terrifying. Aubrey McKee and The Education of Aubrey McKee are the first two acts of a sweeping personal drama, and any remaining volumes cannot come fast enough.”

Alex Pugsley was interviewed about The Education of Aubrey McKee, on CBC Main Street NS with Jeff Douglas! The interview was posted online on May 14, and you can give it a listen here.

Grab The Education of Aubrey McKee here!

Check out the first book, Aubrey McKee, here!

SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY

Sleep is Now a Foreign Country by Mike Barnes was featured in articles from Windsor News Today and The Windsor Star about its Trillium Award nomination! The Windsor News Today article was posted online on May 11, and can be read in full here, and The Windsor Star article was posted on May 17, and can be read here.

Get Sleep is Now a Foreign Country here!

BIBLIOASIS SPRING SEASON LAUNCH

Biblioasis’s own publisher Dan Wells was interviewed on AM 800’s The Shift with Patty Handsides on May 16, about our upcoming Spring Season Launch! The launch, which will take place in Windsor on May 23, will celebrate five of our newest titles: Crosses in the Sky by Mark BourrieThe Education of Aubrey McKee by Alex PugsleySorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco CollinsBarfly by Michael Lista, and Work to Be Done by Bruce Whiteman.

Listen to the full interview here!

More details about next week’s launch here.

ON COMMUNITY a finalist for the 2024 Firecracker Awards!

We’re excited to share that On Community by Casey Plett has been announced as a finalist for the CLMP’s 2024 Firecracker Award in Creative Nonfiction! The list of finalists was published on May 15, 2024, and can be seen here.

The Community of Literary Magazines & Presses (CLMP), the national nonprofit organization that for 57 years has supported the work of independent literary publishers. The Firecracker Awards, now in their tenth year, are given for the best independently published books of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry and the best literary magazines in the categories of debut and general excellence.

The winners of the Firecracker Awards will be announced at a virtual awards ceremony on June 27, 2024, at 6PM ET.

Get your copy of On Community here!

ABOUT ON COMMUNITY

Finalist for the 2024 Firecracker Award in Creative Nonfiction • Shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction • Finalist for the 2024 Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature • One of CBC Books‘ Canadian Nonfiction to Read in the Fall • A Tyee Best Book of 2023 • A CBC Books Best Nonfiction Book of 2023 • A Hamilton Review of Books Best Book of 2023 • An Autostraddle Best Queer Book of 2023

We need community to live. But what does it look like? Why does it often feel like it’s slipping away?

We are all hinged to some definition of a community, be it as simple as where we live, complex as the beliefs we share, or as intentional as those we call family. In an episodic personal essay, Casey Plett draws on a range of firsthand experiences to start a conversation about the larger implications of community as a word, an idea, and a symbol. With each thread a cumulative definition of community, and what it has come to mean to Plett, emerges.

Looking at phenomena from transgender literature, to Mennonite history, to hacker houses of Silicon Valley, and the rise of nationalism in North America, Plett delves into the thorny intractability of community’s boons and faults. Deeply personal, authoritative in its illuminations, On Community is an essential contribution to the larger cultural discourse that asks how, and to what socio-political ends, we form bonds with one another.

Photo Credit: Hobbes Ginsberg

ABOUT CASEY PLETT

Casey Plett is the author of A Dream of a Woman, Little Fish, and A Safe Girl to Love, the co-editor of Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy From Transgender Writers, and the publisher at LittlePuss Press. She has written for the New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, the Guardian, Globe and Mail, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, the Winnipeg Free Press, and other publications. A winner of the Amazon First Novel Award and the Firecracker Award for Fiction, and a two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award, her work has also been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Media Hits: EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE, HOLLOW BEAST, COCKTAIL, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE

Happy pub week! Alex Pugsley, author of The Education of Aubrey McKee (May 7, 2024) was interviewed by Jason Jeffries for the Bookin podcast. The interview was published on May 6, 2024. You can listen to the full episode here.

In the interview, Jason Jeffries called Education:

“The best book of 2024 period.”

Get The Education of Aubrey McKee here!

Check out the first book, Aubrey McKee, here!

THE HOLLOW BEAST

The Hollow Beast by Christophe Bernard, translated by Lazer Lederhendler (Apr 2, 2024) received a starred review in Quill & Quire! The review was published online on May 8, 2024. Check out the review here.

Critic Cassandra Drudi writes:

“Bernard weaves a multicoloured, shimmering tapestry of the Gaspé . . . The many threads aren’t necessarily gathered into a neatly finished selvage by the time the reader gets to the end of the book, but the journey they have been taken on is so immersive, so grounded in a place and the characters that inhabit it, that it hardly matters.”

Author Christophe Bernard was interviewed on CBC All in a Weekend. The interview aired on May 5, 2024 and can be heard in full here.

Grab The Hollow Beast here!

COCKTAIL

Lisa Alward, author of Cocktail (Sep 12, 2023) was interviewed on CBC Information Morning for Fredericton! The interview aired on May 7, 2024, and you can listen to the full interview here.

Lisa Alward was also interviewed in The New Quarterly. The interview was published on May 9, 2024, and you can read the full interview here.

Cocktail was featured on CBC Books’ list of “14 Canadian short story collections to read for Short Story Month” on May 10, 2024! Check out the full list here.

Grab a Cocktail here!

 

CASE STUDY & DUCKS NEWBURYPORT

It’s a blast from the past: Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet and Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann were both featured on the Book Review’s Best Books Since 2000 in the New York Times! Check out the full list here.

Pick up Ducks Newburyport here!

Get Case Study here!

 

SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY a finalist for the Trillium Book Award!

This morning the finalists for the Trillium Book Award, worth $20,000, were announced, and they include Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country by Mike Barnes, published by Biblioasis press on November 14, 2023. The prize is the province of Ontario’s leading literary award. You can view the full list of finalists here.

Biblioasis publisher Dan Wells says,

“Mike Barnes has been with the press for the entirety of our twenty-year history, over which time we’ve published nine books with him, including poetry, fiction, fable, and memoir: he never enters the same stream twice. He ranks, in my estimation, as among our very best writers: intelligent, adventurous, unerring, generous, and humane, and it gives me real pleasure that some long overdue acknowledgment has come for Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country, as courageous and felt a book as we’ve been part of at the press. I speak for all of us in offering Mike congratulations, and in thanking the jury for recognizing the astounding work this is.”

Barnes has written eleven books spanning many genres. His last nonfiction book, Be With: Letters to a Caregiver, was praised by Margaret Atwood as “Timely, lyrical, tough, accurate.” His most recent novel, The Adjustment League was a Maclean’s Editor’s Pick described as “masterful.” Barnes was born in Rochester, Minnesota, and he now lives in Toronto.

The Ontario government established the Trillium Book Award in 1987 to recognize excellence and foster increased public awareness of the quality and diversity of Ontario writers and writing. The quality of Ontario authors and writing speaks for itself with the international acclaim achieved by past Trillium winners including Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Timothy Findley and Anne Michaels. The winner of the 2024 Trillium Book Award will be announced at a gala event at the Arcadian Court in Toronto on June 20, 2024, hosted by CBC Anchor Heather Hiscox. More information about the Trillium Book Award can be found here.

Get your copy of Sleep is Now a Foreign Country here!

ABOUT SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY

Finalist for the 2024 Trillium Book Award • One of CBC Books’ Canadian Nonfiction to Read in the Fall

A poet recounts his experience with madness and explores the relationship between apprehension and imagination.

In the summer of 1977, standing on a roadside somewhere between Dachau and Munich, twenty-two-year-old Mike Barnes experienced the dawning of the psychic break he’d been anticipating almost all his life. “Times over the years when I have tried to describe what followed,” he writes of that moment, “it has always come out wrong.” In this finely wrought, deeply intelligent memoir of madness, its antecedents and its aftermath, Barnes reconstructs instead what led him to that moment and offers with his characteristic generosity and candor the captivating account of a mind restlessly aware of itself.

ABOUT MIKE BARNES

Mike Barnes is the author of twelve books of poetry, short fiction, novels, and memoir. He has won the Danuta Gleed Award and a National Magazine Award Silver Medal for his short fiction, and the Edna Staebler Award for his photo-and-text essay “Asylum Walk.” His most recent book of nonfiction, Be With: Letters to a Caregiver, was a finalist for the City of Toronto Book Award and has been praised by Margaret Atwood as “Timely, lyrical, tough, accurate.” He lives in Toronto.

Media Hits: HOLLOW BEAST, EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE, SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE HOLLOW BEAST

The Hollow Beast by Christophe Bernard, translated by Lazer Lederhendler (Apr 2, 2024) was featured in Words Without Borders‘ April Watchlist! The article was posted online on April 29, and can be read here.

Tobias Carroll writes,

The Hollow Beast is a sprawling story of generational feuds and old hostilities that refuse to die . . . the novel also unfurls like a knowing parody of such epics, blending hallucinatory moments and possibly nonexistent cryptids with a decades-spanning narrative.”

Christophe Bernard, author of The Hollow Beast, was interviewed in Open Book online on May 3. You can read the full interview here.

Open Book writes,

“[Bernard] aims to leave a mark on the broader landscape of CanLit. The author travelled far and wide before diving into novel writing, and absorbed important lessons from modern literary greats, channelling his experiences and influences into a singular voice.”

Get The Hollow Beast here!

THE EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE

Alex Pugsley, author of The Education of Aubrey McKee wrote an article for The New Quarterly, “What’s Alex Pugsley Reading?” The article was posted online on May 1, and can be read here.

The New Quarterly also published an excerpt from Pugsley’s The Education of Aubrey McKee, “The Calvin Dover Show.” The excerpt can be read online here, and is also published in their Spring 170 print issue.

The Education of Aubrey McKee was also reviewed in Publisher’s Weekly on May 2, and you can read the full review here.

Publishers Weekly writes,

“The novel has an inventive structure, beginning with a short story set sometime in the future about Aubrey working as a writer on a sketch-comedy show and ending with a play by Aubrey.”

Get The Education of Aubrey McKee here!

And check out the first book, Aubrey McKee, here!

SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE

Colleen Coco Collins, author of Sorry About the Fire, was interviewed in Open Book! The interview was published online on April 26, and can be read here.

When asked what the best and worst parts of being a poet is, Coco answered,

“I think the work of poetry is the best about being a poet. The weaving of the mesh that draws disparates into proximity and through their ensuing reciprocal rubs, enlightens, delights, unveils, enrages, and begets meaning, and question, and reckon..”

Get Sorry About the Fire here!

THE FULL-MOON WHALING CHRONICLES

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles by Jason Guriel has been nominated for the 2024 Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association’s Elgin Award! The full list of nominees can be found here.

Get The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles here!

Biblioasis: Poetry Submissions Now Closed!

Biblioasis is now closed for submissions of poetry manuscripts as of Friday, May 31st. We aim to reopen again in Fall 2024.

Poetry submission guidelines:

  • We can only consider unpublished work. Individual poems in the manuscript may have appeared in journals or anthologies, but the collection as a whole must not have appeared in either print or digital editions.
  • Manuscripts should range between 48 and 100 pages in length.
  • Only one submission per writer will be reviewed. Multiple submissions will be deleted unread.
  • Only electronic submissions will be accepted. To submit, please email your manuscript as an attachment to submissions@biblioasis.com. PDF, .doc, .docx, and .rtf files are accepted. We will send confirmation that your submission has been received. Please send your manuscript only once: revised and updated versions will not be read, so make sure you’re happy with your text before sending.
  • Please include a cover letter outlining your previous publications and relevant experience. Include your cover letter as the first page of your manuscript.
  • Simultaneous submissions are fine! If your manuscript is accepted by another publisher, kindly reply to your submission email to let us know your good news so that we can withdraw it from our consideration.

This is not a contest and we do not guarantee that any manuscripts will be accepted for publication. If your manuscript isn’t quite ready for this reading period, we encourage you to continue working on it and submit it during our next period: we want to see your best work.

Media Hits: YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS, BARFLY, THE FUTURE, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jon Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Mar 5, 2024), has been reviewed in the Financial Times! The review was published online on April 24, and is available to read in full here.

Reviewer Boyd Tonkin writes,

“Roughton’s radiant English versions of Stefánsson’s novels about the Icelandic encounter with modernity have built into one of the glories of 21st-century literary translation. Craggily gorgeous yet fluid and tender, sometimes comic, they capture the books’ balance between the powers of nature and the passions of humanity with consummate skill . . . This novel with a colloquial, intimate, up-to-date voice boasts sturdy epic bones . . . Throughout, the rhythmic, idiomatic prose gives pulsing reality to people and place, as Stefánsson both cherishes his ramifying clan and warns that only imagination makes them live.”

Your Absence Is Darkness was also reviewed in World Literature Today. The review was published online on April 26 here, and will appear in their May print issue.

Reviewer Daniel Haeusser writes,

Your Absence Is Darkness posits that we find happiness together even in that melancholy, using arts like music or literature to assert and explore our human connections, to forgive imperfection, and to thumb our noses at inevitability . . . its insights and gorgeously haunting prose make it a novel that fans of philosophic or metaphysical literature should experience.”

Get Your Absence Is Darkness here!

BARFLY

Michael Lista, author of the forthcoming poetry collection Barfly (Jun 4, 2024), was interviewed by Tara Henley on the Lean Out podcast. The interview was posted online on April 24, and you can listen to it in full here.

Tara calls the book,

“Exquisitely raw and vulnerable.”

Order Barfly here!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2023), was featured in Montreal Blog’s article, “We asked 6 Montreal bookstores what every local should read at least once,” chosen by Argo Bookshop. The list was published online on April 23. You can read the article in full here.

The Argo Bookshop team commented,

“Beyond having just won Canada Reads, this book is so artfully crafted, and gives us a poetic vision: despite terrible societal changes, an imaginative future of community and hope can still arise.”

Get The Future here!

SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE

Sorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco Collins (Apr 2, 2024) was featured in the Philly Poetry Chapbook Review‘s list of new poetry titles. The article was published on April 23, and you can see the full list here.

Get Sorry About the Fire here!

THE ART OF LIBROMANCY

The Art of Libromancy by Josh Cook (Aug 22, 2023) was featured in the Chicago Review of Book‘s list of “5 Books by Booksellers About Bookselling.” The article was published online on April 24, and be read here.

Greg Zimmerman writes,

“If you want to really dive deeply into the world of bookselling, this is the exact book for you.”

Get The Art of Libromancy here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man: Selected Stories by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2023) was reviewed in Alberta Views! The review was published in their May print issue.

Reviewer Alex Lettie writes,

“The stories here are brightly coloured, sharp-edged and shatterproof.”

Get Burn Man here!

COCKTAIL shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award!

We’re pleased to share that this morning, The Writers’ Union of Canada announced the shortlist for the 2023 Danuta Gleed Literary Award, which includes Cocktail by Lisa Alward (Sep 12, 2023)! Check out the full shortlist announcement here.

About Cocktail, the jury praised:

“Lisa Alward’s Cocktail is skilful in its ability to capture the nuance and details of daily life in a way that is striking and deeply felt. With beautiful, precise descriptions and expert pacing, she effortlessly reveals tensions that feel both classic and utterly her own. Exploring the emotional and sexual tensions of couples and families in the Sixties and Seventies, these narratives bring the reader to the core of those unspoken moments, leaving us unsettled. The clarity of sound in Lisa Alward’s sentences—word after word after word—makes it impossible to turn your ear away. This is a quiet voice that booms.”

The 27th annual Danuta Gleed Literary Award recognizes the best first collection of short fiction by a Canadian author published in 2023 in the English language. The Award consists of cash prizes for the three best first collections, with a first prize of $10,000 and two additional prizes of $1,000 each.

The winners will be announced on Tuesday, June 11th at noon EDT on Facebook Live on The Writers’ Union of Canada’s page.

Grab your copy of Cocktail here!

ABOUT COCKTAIL

Longlisted for the 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction • Shortlisted for the New Brunswick 2023 Mrs. Dunster’s Award for Fiction • One of the Globe and Mail’s “Sixty-Two Books to Read This Fall” • Listed in CBC Books Fiction to Read in Fall 2023 • A Miramichi Reader Best Book of 2023 • A Tyee Best Book of 2023

“A writer to watch.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A girl receives a bedtime visit from a drunken party guest, who will haunt her fantasies for years. A young mother discovers underneath the wallpaper a striking portrait that awakens inconvenient desires. A divorced man distracts himself from the mess he’s made by flirting with a stranger. These intimate, immersive stories explore life’s watershed moments, in which seemingly insignificant details—a pot of hyacinths, a freshly painted yellow wall—and the most chance of encounters come to exert a tidal pull. Set in the swinging sixties and each decade since, Cocktail reveals the schism between the lives we build up around us and our deepest hidden selves.

Credit: Maria Cardosa-Grant

ABOUT LISA ALWARD

Lisa Alward’s short fiction has appeared in The Journey Prize and twice in Best Canadian Stories. She has won the Fiddlehead Prize as well as the Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award, has been a finalist for The Malahat Review’s Open Season Award, an honourable mention in the Peter Hinchcliffe Award, and been featured on numerous other long lists, including for the CBC Story Prize and Prism International’s Jacob Zilber Prize (three times). She was born and grew up in Halifax and completed an English degree at the University of Toronto and an MA at Queen Mary College in London, England. In the eighties and early nineties, she worked in book publishing in Toronto, before moving with her young family to Vancouver and ultimately to Fredericton, New Brunswick, where at fifty she began to write stories. Cocktail (Biblioasis), which received a starred review in Kirkus Reviews, is her debut collection.

Media Hits: ALL THINGS MOVE, YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS, WORK TO BE DONE, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

WORK TO BE DONE

Work to Be Done by Bruce Whiteman (Mar 12, 2024) was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada! The review was published online on April 15, and will appear in the May print issue. Read the full review here.

Reviewer Keith Garebian writes,

“Divided into five parts, Work to Be Done reveals a mind steeped in the classics, particularly the works of Hesiod, Virgil, and Ovid. The book is rigorous in exercise and academically precise, and it strives for a perspective that sometimes seems Olympian in tone.”

Grab Work to Be Done here!

SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE

Colleen Coco Collins, author of Sorry About the Fire (April 2, 2024), was interviewed for All Lit Up‘s ‘There’s a Poem For That’ series! The interview was published online on April 16, and can be read in full here.

Grab Sorry About the Fire here!

YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Mar 5, 2024) was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada, in the article ‘Found in Translation.’ The review will appear in the May print issue.

The review states,

“[Your Absence Is Darkness] . . . lends itself to any number of superlatives: Masterful. Intelligent. Haunting. Biblical and modern in equal measure.”

Your Absence Is Darkness was reviewed in the Tulsa Book Review online on April 19. Check out the full review here.

Reviewer Kevin Winter writes,

“If you are into slightly weird, esoteric literary fiction . . . then this book is for you.”

Get Your Absence Is Darkness here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simic (Feb 6, 2024) was also reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada’s article ‘Found in Translation.’ The review will appear in the May print issue.

The review states,

“[Sajko’s] sentences mimic how, in the heat of argument, thoughts converge, events conflate, and emotions surge until one forgets where it all began.”

Get Love Novel here!

THE EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE

The Education of Aubrey McKee by Alex Pugsley (May 7, 2024) was featured in the Toronto Star‘s “Spring preview: 21 books to put at the top of your reading list.” The article was posted online on April 17, and can be read here.

Deborah Dundas writes,

“This latest is the second book in what is expected to be a four-book series, which began with 2020’s Aubrey McKee, which our reviewer called ‘exuberant, freewheeling stories’ with the general theme of ‘the insanity of being human.'”

Order The Education of Aubrey McKee here!

Check out the first book in The Aubrey McKee Novels, Aubrey McKee, here!

BARFLY

Barfly by Michael Lista (June 4, 2024) was also featured in the Toronto Star‘s “Spring preview: 21 books to put at the top of your reading list.” The article was posted online on April 17, and can be read here.

Deborah Dundas writes,

“The language is punchy, it can be raunchy, benefits from being read aloud, and when you do, like a Hole song, it’s full of bravado and vulnerability.”

Order Barfly  here!

ALL THINGS MOVE

All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel by Jeannie Marshall was featured in Vanity Fair‘s article “11 Books to Read This Month”! The list was published online on April 16, and can be read here.

Keziah Weir calls the book,

“Rich, meditative . . . The book is part art history, part memoir; a case for slowing down, curiosity, a closer look.”

Get All Things Move here!