by nicole | Mar 31, 2012 | Book Reviews, Fiction
We have all likely heard the criticism that Canadian fiction is too aesthetically conservative: committed to realism, prudish, backwards-looking, and dominated by small-town settings. Our dominant author of short fiction, after all, is so identified with small-town...
by nicole | Mar 17, 2012 | Book Reviews, Fiction
What the Bear Said: Skald Tales of New Iceland is a collection of fourteen tales by W.D. Valgardson. Told in the compelling voice of a seasoned story-maker, the tales bring to life the ‘folk’ ways of the early settlers in the Icelandic Canadian community in Manitoba....
by nicole | Mar 17, 2012 | Book Reviews, Fiction
Heiltsuk/Haisla/Canadian writer Eden Robinson is a storyteller who bears witness and educates as she entertains. Like her award-winning fiction, the stories in The Sasquatch at Home: Traditional Protocols & Modern Storytelling sparkle with Robinson’s...
by nicole | Mar 17, 2012 | Book Reviews, Poetry
Erín Moure’s translating career can be considered on two planes. The first, the one she began in 2000 in collaboration with Robert Majzels, was the translation of domestic works which, in this case, involved Nicole Brossard’s Installations. Two further translations of...
by nicole | Mar 17, 2012 | Book Reviews, Fiction
High Speed Crow is a first collection of short stories by Manitoba writer Sheila McClarty. It was the winner of the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book at the 2011 Manitoba Book Awards. As such, it deserved my attention, and I am happy I read it. This is...
by nicole | Mar 17, 2012 | Book Reviews, Fiction
Toronto’s Greg Kearney has a laconic style that is well suited to his subject matter, be it sex comedy or serious issue. His considerable talent is on display in a new collection of eleven short stories called Pretty. His shock tactics gradually become less shocking...
