Luke Hathaway at An Evening of Poetry

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Don’t miss a beautiful evening of poetry readings featuring nominees for the J. M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award and the Maxine Tynes Nova Scotia Poetry Award: Luke Hathaway, The Affirmations (Biblioasis); Sue Goyette, Monoculture (Gaspereau Press); Nanci Lee, Hsin (Brick Books); and Annick MacAskill, Shadow Blight (Gaspereau Press). Hosted by poet, editor, and publisher Andy Verboom. The event will be held at Province House on Thursday, June 1 at 7PM ADT.

Details and tickets here!

Grab your copy of The Affirmations here.

ABOUT THE AFFIRMATIONS

Shortlisted for the 2023 J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award • Winner of the 2021 Confederation Poets Prize • One of The Times’ Best Poetry Books of 2022 • A CBC Best Poetry Book of 2022

The mystics who coined the phrase ‘the way of affirmation’ understood the apocalyptic nature of the word yes, the way it can lead out of one life and into another. Moving among the languages of Christian conversion, Classical metamorphosis, seasonal transformation, and gender transition, Luke Hathaway tells the story of the love that rewired his being, asking each of us to experience the transfiguration that can follow upon saying yes—with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul, with all one’s mind, with all one’s strength … and with all one’s body, too.

ABOUT LUKE HATHAWAY

Luke Hathaway is a trans poet who teaches English and Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s University in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. He has been before now at some time boy and girl, bush, bird, and a mute fish in the sea. His book Years, Months, and Days was named a best book of 2018 in the New York Times. He mentors new librettists as a faculty member in the Amadeus Choir’s Choral Composition Lab, and makes music with Daniel Cabena as part of the metamorphosing ensemble ANIMA.

 

Pascal’s Fire: Vancouver Launch!

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Join us in Vancouver for the launch of Kristina Bresnen‘s debut poetry collection, Pascal’s Fire! The event will take place on Thursday, June 15.

Time and details TBA.

Grab your copy of Pascal’s Fire here!

ABOUT PASCAL’S FIRE

An unnamed speaker navigates a world where God comes in the shape of a cardinal, speaks in the voice of Georgia O’Keeffe, and paints the desert with bones.

Driven by sound, heartbreak, and the baffling limits and possibilities of language, a nameless speaker sets out into a dream-like wilderness where lyric and narrative meet, time dissolves, and figures as various as Moses, the apostle Paul, Virginia Woolf, Blaise Pascal, and Zora Neale Hurston gather in a colloquy. Born from a region of preachers and stuttering prophets, from the gift of tongues and psalms of lament and praise, Pascal’s Fire negotiates the wonder of the unknown and the tension of belief and confronts the vulnerability of speech where it brushes up against death and grief, wind and desert heat, unquenchable thirst and the steady sound of an IV drip.

ABOUT KRISTINA BRESNEN

Kristina Bresnen has published poems in Canada and the US. She is from Montreal and currently lives in Vancouver.

On Class: Toronto Launch!

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Join us in Toronto for the launch of On Class by Toronto Star books editor Deborah Dundas, the latest addition to our Field Notes series! There will a reading by the author, as well as a Q&A and book signing. The launch will take place at Flying Books on Thursday, June 15 at 6:30PM.

More details here.

Order On Class here!

ABOUT ON CLASS

Deborah Dundas is a journalist who grew up poor and almost didn’t make it to university. In On Class, she talks to writers, activists, those who work with the poor and those who are poor about what happens when we don’t talk about poverty or class—and what will happen when we do.

Growing up poor, Deborah Dundas knew what it meant to want, to be hungry, and to long for social and economic dignity; she understood the crushing weight of having nothing much expected of you. But even after overcoming many of the usual barriers faced by lower- and working-class people, she still felt anxious about her place, and even in relatively safe spaces reluctant to broach the subject of class. While new social movements have generated open conversation about gender and racism, discussions of class rarely include the voices of those most deeply affected: the working class and poor.

On Class is an exploration of the ways in which we talk about class: of who tells the stories, and who doesn’t, which ones tend to be repeated most often, and why this has to change. It asks the question: What don’t we talk about when we don’t talk about class? And what might happen if, finally, we did?

ABOUT DEBORAH DUNDAS

Deborah Dundas grew up poor in the west end of Toronto. She is now a writer and journalist, has worked as a television producer and is currently an editor at the Toronto Star. Her work has appeared in numerous publications in Canada, the UK and Ireland including Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, Canadian Notes and Queries, The Belfast Telegraph and The Sunday Independent. She attended York University for English and Political Science and has an MFA in Creative Non-fiction from the University of King’s College. She lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter and their loving, grumpy cat Jumper.

1934: Chatham Launch!

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Join us at Sons of Kent Brewery for the launch of 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ Barrier-Breaking Year by Heidi LM Jacobs! Heidi will be featured in a panel conversation with filmmaker LeSean Harris, descendants of All-Stars players’ Blake Harding and Donald Tabron, and moderator Dr. Deirdre McCorkindale. Refreshments will be provided. The launch will take place on Wednesday, June 7 at 7PM.

More details here.

Order 1934 here!

ABOUT 1934

The true story of the first Black team to win an Ontario Baseball Amateur Association championship.

The pride of Chatham’s East End, the Coloured All-Stars broke the colour barrier in baseball more than a decade before Jackie Robinson did the same in the Major Leagues. Fielding a team of the best Black baseball players from across southwestern Ontario and Michigan, theirs is a story that could only have happened in this particular time and place: during the depths of the Great Depression, in a small industrial town a short distance from the American border, home to one of the most vibrant Black communities in Canada.

Drawing heavily on scrapbooks, newspaper accounts, and oral histories from members of the team and their families, 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ Barrier-Breaking Year shines a light on a largely overlooked chapter of Black baseball. But more than this, 1934 is the story of one group of men who fought for the respect that was too often denied them.

Rich in detail, full of the sounds and textures of a time long past, 1934 introduces the All-Stars’ unforgettable players and captures their winning season, so that it almost feels like you’re sitting there in Stirling Park’s grandstands, cheering on the team from Chatham.

ABOUT HEIDI LM JACOBS

Heidi LM Jacobs’ previous books include the novel Molly of the Mall: Literary Lass and Purveyor of Fine Footwear (NeWest Press, 2019), which won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 2020, and 100 Miles of Baseball: Fifty Games, One Summer (with Dale Jacobs, Biblioasis, 2021). She is a librarian at the University of Windsor and one of the researchers behind the award-winning Breaking the Colour Barrier: Wilfred “Boomer” Harding & the Chatham Coloured All-Stars project.

1934: Windsor Launch!

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Join us at Biblioasis Bookshop for the launch of 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ Barrier-Breaking Year by Heidi LM Jacobs! Heidi will be featured in conversation with Irene Moore Davis president of the Essex County Black Historical Research Society, followed by a Q&A and signing. Refreshments will be provided. The launch will take place on Tuesday, June 6 at 7PM.

More details here.

Order 1934 here!

ABOUT 1934

The true story of the first Black team to win an Ontario Baseball Amateur Association championship.

The pride of Chatham’s East End, the Coloured All-Stars broke the colour barrier in baseball more than a decade before Jackie Robinson did the same in the Major Leagues. Fielding a team of the best Black baseball players from across southwestern Ontario and Michigan, theirs is a story that could only have happened in this particular time and place: during the depths of the Great Depression, in a small industrial town a short distance from the American border, home to one of the most vibrant Black communities in Canada.

Drawing heavily on scrapbooks, newspaper accounts, and oral histories from members of the team and their families, 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ Barrier-Breaking Year shines a light on a largely overlooked chapter of Black baseball. But more than this, 1934 is the story of one group of men who fought for the respect that was too often denied them.

Rich in detail, full of the sounds and textures of a time long past, 1934 introduces the All-Stars’ unforgettable players and captures their winning season, so that it almost feels like you’re sitting there in Stirling Park’s grandstands, cheering on the team from Chatham.

ABOUT HEIDI LM JACOBS

Heidi LM Jacobs’ previous books include the novel Molly of the Mall: Literary Lass and Purveyor of Fine Footwear (NeWest Press, 2019), which won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 2020, and 100 Miles of Baseball: Fifty Games, One Summer (with Dale Jacobs, Biblioasis, 2021). She is a librarian at the University of Windsor and one of the researchers behind the award-winning Breaking the Colour Barrier: Wilfred “Boomer” Harding & the Chatham Coloured All-Stars project.

Randy Boyagoda at the Walker Percy Festival!

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Randy Boyagoda, author of Original Prin and Dante’s Indiana, will be appearing at the Walker Percy Festival! Randy will be speaking at the “Faith & Fiction in the Book Dante’s Indiana” panel. The event will be held on Saturday, June 3 beginning at 8AM CDT.

More details and tickets here.

Get Original Prin here!

Get Dante’s Indiana here!

ABOUT ORIGINAL PRIN

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR’S CHOICE • A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Eight months before he became a suicide bomber, Prin went to the zoo with his family.

Following a cancer diagnosis, forty-year old Prin vows to become a better man and a better Catholic. He’s going to spend more time with his kids and better time with his wife, care for his recently divorced and aging parents, and also expand his cutting-edge research into the symbolism of the seahorse in Canadian literature.

But when his historic college in downtown Toronto faces a shutdown and he meets with the condominium developers ready to take it over—including a foul-mouthed young Chinese entrepreneur and Wende, his sexy ex-girlfriend from graduate school—Prin hears the voice of God. Bewildered and divinely inspired, he goes to the Middle East, hoping to save both his college and his soul. Wende is coming, too.

The first book in a planned trilogy, Original Prin is an entertaining and essential novel about family life, faith, temptation, and fanaticism. It’s a timely story about timeless truths, told with wise insight and great humour, confirming Randy Boyagoda’s place as one of Canada’s funniest and most provocative writers.

ABOUT DANTE’S INDIANA

ABOUT RANDY BOYAGODA

Randy Boyagoda is the author of six books, including the novels Governor of the Northern Province, Beggar’s Feast, and Original Prin. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize, and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. An essayist, book critic and radio columnist, he is a professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he lives with his wife and their four daughters.

Emily Urquhart at Word on the Street!

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Join Emily Urquhart (Ordinary Wonder Tales) at Word on the Street! Urquhart will be moderating the Folklore in the Modern World panel in conversation with fellow authors Dominik Parisien and Sid Sharp about folklore through the centuries—from the revival of traditional folktales to the creation of new ones—and what folklore for a modern world looks like. The event will take place on Sunday, May 28 at 10AM.

More details here.

Register to attend WOTS here!

Grab your copy of Ordinary Wonder Tales here!

ABOUT ORDINARY WONDER TALES

“This book is magical in every sense of the term.”—Amanda Leduc, author of The Centaur’s Wife and Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space

A journalist and folklorist explores the truths that underlie the stories we imagine—and reveals the magic in the everyday.

“I’ve always felt that the term fairy tale doesn’t quite capture the essence of these stories,” writes Emily Urquhart. “I prefer the term wonder tale, which is Irish in origin, for its suggestion of awe coupled with narrative. In a way, this is most of our stories.” In this startlingly original essay collection, Urquhart reveals the truths that underlie our imaginings: what we see in our heads when we read, how the sight of a ghost can heal, how the entrance to the underworld can be glimpsed in an oil painting or a winter storm—or the onset of a loved one’s dementia. In essays on death and dying, pregnancy and prenatal genetics, radioactivity, chimeras, cottagers, and plague, Ordinary Wonder Tales reveals the essential truth: if you let yourself look closely, there is magic in the everyday.

ABOUT EMILY URQUHART

Emily Urquhart is a journalist with a doctorate in folklore. Her award-winning work has appeared in Longreads, Guernica, and The Walrus and elsewhere, and her first book was shortlisted for the Kobo First Book Prize and the BC National Award for Canadian Nonfiction. Her most recent book, The Age of Creativity: Art, Memory, my Father and Me, was listed as a top book of 2020 by CBC, NOW Magazine and Quill & Quire. She is a nonfiction editor for The New Quarterly and lives in Kitchener, Ontario.

On Class: Halifax Launch!

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Join us for the Halifax launch of On Class by Toronto Star books editor, Deborah Dundas! There will be a reading and Q&A, with books available to sign. The launch will take place at King’s College Library on Friday, May 26 at 5PM AT.

More details here.

Grab your copy of On Class here!

ABOUT ON CLASS

Deborah Dundas is a journalist who grew up poor and almost didn’t make it to university. In On Class, she talks to writers, activists, those who work with the poor and those who are poor about what happens when we don’t talk about poverty or class—and what will happen when we do.

Growing up poor, Deborah Dundas knew what it meant to want, to be hungry, and to long for social and economic dignity; she understood the crushing weight of having nothing much expected of you. But even after overcoming many of the usual barriers faced by lower- and working-class people, she still felt anxious about her place, and even in relatively safe spaces reluctant to broach the subject of class. While new social movements have generated open conversation about gender and racism, discussions of class rarely include the voices of those most deeply affected: the working class and poor.

On Class is an exploration of the ways in which we talk about class: of who tells the stories, and who doesn’t, which ones tend to be repeated most often, and why this has to change. It asks the question: What don’t we talk about when we don’t talk about class? And what might happen if, finally, we did?

ABOUT DEBORAH DUNDAS

Deborah Dundas grew up poor in the west end of Toronto. She is now a writer and journalist, has worked as a television producer and is currently an editor at the Toronto Star. Her work has appeared in numerous publications in Canada, the UK and Ireland including Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, Canadian Notes and Queries, The Belfast Telegraph and The Sunday Independent. She attended York University for English and Political Science and has an MFA in Creative Non-fiction from the University of King’s College. She lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter and their loving, grumpy cat Jumper.

Instructions for the Drowning: Kingston Launch

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Join Biblioasis and Kingston WritersFest in celebrating the publication of Instructions for the Drowning by Steven Heighton, along with his life and legacy. The event will feature words and readings from Helen Humphries, Mark Sinnett, Nancy Jo Cullen, and Jason Heroux. Refreshments will be provided. The event will take place at the Kingston Grand Theatre on Tuesday, May 16 at 7PM.

More details here.

Get your copy of Instructions for the Drowning here!

ABOUT STEVEN HEIGHTON

Steven Heighton (1961–2022) was a writer and musician. His nineteen previous books include the novels Afterlands, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, and the bestselling The Shadow Boxer; the Writers’ Trust Hilary Weston Prize finalist memoir Reaching Mithymna: Among the Volunteers and Refugees on Lesvos; and The Waking Comes Late, winner of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry.

ABOUT INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DROWNING

“To say Heighton is an immensely talented writer is true enough but insufficient … As good a writer as Canada has ever produced.”—National Post

A man recalls his father’s advice on how to save a drowning person, but struggles when the time comes to use it. A wife’s good deed leaves a couple vulnerable at the moment when they’re most in need of security—the birth of their first child. Newly in love, a man preoccupied by accounts of freak accidents is befallen by one himself. In stories about love and fear, idealisms and illusions, failures of muscle and mind and all the ways we try to care for one another, Steven Heighton’s Instructions for the Drowning is an indelible last collection by a writer working at the height of his powers.

Alex Pugsley at Lit Live

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Alex Pugsley (Shimmer, Aubrey McKee) will be reading for Lit Live at The Staircase! Alex will be joined by fellow authors Kelly Jo Burke, Nancy Jo Cullen, Ayaz Pirani, Gary Barwin, Lillian Necakov, and Mari-Lou Rowley for an evening celebrating fiction, poetry, and nonfiction hosted by Brent van Staalduinen. The event will take place on Thursday, May 4 at 7PM. Tickets are PWYC/$5-10.

Grab your copy of Shimmer here!

Get your copy of Aubrey McKee here!

ABOUT ALEX PUGLSEY

As a screenwriter and story editor, Alex Pugsley has worked on over 185 produced episodes of television, writing for performers such as Lauren Ash, Scott Thompson, Jenn Whalen, Ennis Esmer, Mark McKinney, Dan Aykroyd, and Michael Cera, and for such series as Hudson & Rex, The Eleventh Hour, Life With Derek, Baxter, Heartland, G-Spot, I Was a Sixth Grade Alien, and The Gavin Crawford Show. Recently, he wrote and directed the feature film Dirty Singles which won for him the Irving Avrich Emerging Filmmaker Award at TIFF. Following the publication of his first novel, Aubrey McKee, he was named one of CBC’s 2020 Writers to Watch.  His first story collection, Shimmer, was published by Biblioasis.

ABOUT SHIMMER

In ten vividly told stories, Shimmer follows characters through relationships, within social norms, and across boundaries of all kinds as they shimmer into and out of each other’s lives.

Outside a 7-Eleven, teen boys Veeper and Wendell try to decide what to do with their night, though the thought of the rest of their lives doesn’t seem to have occurred to them. In Laurel Canyon, two movie stars try to decide if the affair they’re having might mean they like each other. When Byron, trying to figure out the chords of a song he likes, posts a question on a guitar website, he ends up meeting Jessica as well, a woman with her own difficult music. And when the snide and sharp-tongued Twyla agrees to try therapy, not even she would have imagined the results.

ABOUT AUBREY MCKEE

I am from Halifax, salt-water city, a place of silted genius, sudden women, figures floating in all waters. “People from Halifax are all famous,” my sister Faith has said. “Because everyone in Halifax knows each other’s business.” 

From basement rec rooms to midnight railway tracks, Action Transfers to Smarties boxes crammed with joints, from Paul McCartney on the kitchen radio to their furious teenaged cover of The Ramones, Aubrey McKee and his familiars navigate late adolescence amidst the old-monied decadence of Halifax. An arcana of oddball angels, Alex Pugsley’s long-awaited debut novel follows rich-kid drug dealers and junior tennis brats, émigré heart surgeons and small-time thugs, renegade private school girls and runaway children as they try to make sense of the city into which they’ve been born. Part coming-of-age-story, part social chronicle, and part study of the myths that define our growing up, Aubrey McKee introduces a breathtakingly original new voice.