EMILY CARR in LONDON P.19 SURVIVING in NORTH KOREA P.21 2 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 BC TOPSELLERS * PEOPLE Shelley Adams Off-The-Continental Breakfasts

Home , Carellin Brooks, Commodore Ballroom, Meredith Quartermain, ReLit Awards, Stephen Reid (writer), Us Conductors

BC Your FREE guide to books & authors • 44 pages BOOKWORLD John VOL. 29 • NO. 1 • SPRING 2015 Vaillant People smuggling in Mexico. KINDLY P.10

PUBLICATION MAIL AGREEMENT #40010086 KIDLIT FICTION POETRY MUSIC OBITS ART FACEFACE VALUESVALUES

Chelene Knight Great Bear Wild has been secretly writing Ian McAllister “brown skin confessions” eschews conventional since she was a child. politics. P.25 See page 9

EMILY CARR in LONDON P.19 SURVIVING in NORTH KOREA P.21 2 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 BC TOPSELLERS * PEOPLE Shelley Adams Off-the-continental breakfasts

Whitewater Cooks with Passion (Sandhill Book Marketing $34.95) by Shelley Adams Susan Musgrave adds a cookbook to her literary menu. has been topping the BC Bestsellers list for more than twenty consecutive weeks. It shares recipies, flavours, ingredients, BY KEVEN DREWS Inside the bed ‘n’ breakfast, a glass curio cabinet displays conversation, wine and laughter. soapstone geese, an ivory tusk, a rodent skull and a plastic usan Musgrave has veered away smurf. Knitting Stories (Sono Nis $28.95) Covering the walls are the works of Haida artists, an by Sylvia Olsen from everything safe in her life. • African penis gourd, antique fishing rods and a sardine Every Last Drop: Bringing Clean Water Home can depicting The Last Supper. (Orca Footprints $19.95) by Michelle Mulder Not surprisingly, as the proprietor • S Filling the shelves are the books of David Suzuki, When Everything Feels like the Movies of Copper Beech House, a seven-sided bed Margaret Atwood, Graeme Gibson, Douglas Coupland (Arsenal Pulp Press $15.95) by Raziel Reid and William Gibson, all guests of Copper Beech House. • ‘n’ breakfast on Haida Gwaii, she has Cardboard Ocean (Harbour $32.95) “I can’t say I was cut out to be an innkeeper,” says by Mike McCardell taken an unconventional path. Musgrave. “I feel uncomfortable most of the time, charging • From her home on the Sangan River in the community people for a place to lay their head.” Canadian Spacewalkers (D&M $29.95) by Bob McDonald of Masset, the poet, editor, novelist, critic, essayist and Musgrave’s father would chide her growing up, saying, • humourist has mix-mastered literary and food ingredients “You’re so useless you can’t boil an egg” every time she began The White Oneida (Ronsdale Press $11.95) for A Taste of Haida Gwaii: Food Gathering and Feasting to prepare a meal as a child. She has proved him wrong. By Jean Rae Baxter • at the Edge of the World (Whitecap Books $34.95). “At Copper Beech House breakfast is often a leisurely Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Recipes include Shipwrecked Chicken Wings and all-morning-long event,” she writes. “If there are more than Future of the Planet (Heritage House $25.00) Rustled Beef By Gaslight, as well as the steps for baking four guests we don’t set the table—everyone sits in the edited by Todd E. MacLean • her special sourdough. And, of course, there have to be living room with a plate on their lap. The informality leads Birth of a Bridge (Talonbooks $16.95) stories, such as the time a local fisherman offered an exotic to wonderful stimulating conversations and lets our guests by Maylis De Kerangal get to know one another without having to worry about • dancer 50 pounds of shrimp to spend the night with him. The Door is Open: Memoir of a Soup Kitchen Musgrave has long embodied the maverick West Coast which knife or fork to use, or if they spilled stewed rhu- Volunteer (Anvil Press $16) by Bart Campbell writer more attuned to Haight-Ashbury than Yonge and barb on the white tablecloth. • Down To Earth: Cold Climate Gardens Bloor, and her Copper Beech House operation runs true- “We serve what I have humorously taken to calling an & their Keepers (Oolichan $29.95) to-form. Off-the-Continental Breakfast (Haida Gwaii is about 100 by Helen McAllister and Jennifer Heath “Our mistakes make the best stories,” she says, “and km (60 miles) off the coast of Canada, as Islanders like to • BC Probate Kit: Everything you need to that’s why we should not think of them as failures.” say when they refer to mainland British Columbia) which probate or administer an estate (Self-Counsel Susan Musgrave dropped out of high school and ran includes many kinds of coffee, every kind of tea, orange Press $39.95) by Mary-Jane Wilson away from home at the age of 14. She married a criminal juice laced with elderflower cordial, fresh fruits (includ- • Dipnetting with Dad (Caitlin Press $16.95) lawyer in the mid-1970s only to run off to Mexico a few ing local wild berries, when in season), homemade granola, by Willie Sellars years later with one of his clients, a man who was accused yoghurt and Susan’s 3-day Sourdough Bread... Guests usu- • but acquitted of smuggling drugs. ally go for the bread, partly because it French Canadians, Furs, & Indigenous Women in the Making of the Pacific Northwest Next she fell in love and married convicted bank robber takes me so long to make they would (UBC Press $39.95) by Jean Barman Stephen Reid. She resurrected him by helping him to feel guilty if they didn’t eat it, es- • become an author, only to have him sent back to prison pecially after I have reminded The Joy of Missing Out: Finding Balance in a Wired World (New Society Publishers $17.95) after his failed 1999 heist, car chase and shootout in them of all the time and ef- by Christina Crook Victoria. They have remained married. fort involved.” 978-1770502161

* The current topselling titles from major In 2010 Musgrave bought David Phillips’ Copper BC publishing companies, in no particular order. Beech House. A former residence of a fishing cannery manager, it was moved to its current location in the early BC 1930s. BOOKWORLD

SPRING 2015 Vol. 29 • No. 1 Publisher/Writer: Alan Twigg Editor/Production: David Lester

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Contributors: Beverly Cramp, John Moore, Joan Givner, Shane McCune, Mark Forsythe, Louise Donnelly, Cherie Thiessen, Keven Drews, Caroline Woodward. Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics Consultants: Christine Rondeau, Sharon Jackson Photographers: Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Tara Twigg Deliveries: Ken Reid, Acculogix

All BC BookWorld reviews are posted online at www.abcbookworld.com Susan Musgrave’s duties as a B&B

For this issue, we gratefully acknowledge the unobtrusive operator on assistance of Canada Council, a continuous partner since 1988. Haida Gwaii include crab In-Kind Supporters: catching. Simon Fraser University Library; Vancouver Public Library.

3 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 # TRASHTALK moving Toward a zero-waste world

TYPES OF HUMAN GARBAGE FOUND IN 7O% TOP THE OCEAN of garbage in 2 landfills could have 4 $ been recycled WITH TRASH TALK AUTHOR CIGARETTES or reused. MICHELLE MULDER FOOD WRAPPERS LIDS Where do you get your writing TABLE SETTINGS° inspiration? PLASTIC BOTTLES From things I’m passionate about— PLASTIC BAGS bicycles, water and the environment. GLASS BOTTLES POP OR BEER CANS STRAWS OR STIRSTICKS How has writing this book ROPE inspired your family to move toward zero-waste?

First, I got rid of our garbage cans. I also started a Repair Café in my WHAT ABOUT K-CUPS? hometown so that people can learn These single-use coffee how to ﬁ x small household items capsules generate instead of tossing them into the 966 million landﬁ ll. For our family, zero-waste has gone from an impossible idea to pounds of waste an entertaining challenge! each year.

THESE FACTS (AND MANY MORE!)

ARE FROM

JhWi^JWba Cel_d]JemWhZWP[he#MWij[MehbZ By Michelle Mulder WHAT CAN YOU DO?° Around the world, people create APRIL IS EARTH MONTH. Challenge yourself — adopt 6 million tons a Zero-Waste lifestyle! of trash every day. 8kob[ii I^efi[YedZ^WdZ <_n_jX[\eh[oekiYhWf_j CWa[_joekhi[b\ Small steps toward big changes. =_l[_jWd[mb_\[Æ_\oekÊh[j_h[Ze\_j"fWii_jed www.orcafootprints.com

SO, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH THIS PAPER WHEN YOU’RE DONE?

4 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 PEOPLE

Brian Poletz with Mentawai elder, Bullfrog legs Indonesia, 1992

ITH A PH.D. IN CONSERVATION biology, Michelle Nelson started “homesteading” Win a one-bedroom East Vancouver apartment. Five years later she wrote The Urban Homesteading Cookbook: Forage, Farm, Ferment and Feast for a Bet- ter World (D&M $26.95) inspired by her experiences on Bowen Island where she and her “partner in crazy awesome- ness,” shark biologist Christopher Mull, have a tiny cottage and land they share with chickens, quail, turkeys, Go tell it on the geese, rabbits and goats. With photos by Alison Page, Nelson’s PHOTO cookbook has seventy recipes that include sesame panko-crusted invasive Travel far, PRYSTUPA Burnaby Mountain bullfrog legs, seaweed kimchi, rabbit pâté with wild chanterelles, roasted MYCHAYLO Japanese knotweed panna cotta and travel near Stephen Collis was a spokesperson for the protestors who successfully dark and stormy chocolate cupcakes distrupted survey work for a proposed second Kinder Morgan pipeline. with cricket flour. ECENTLY BRIAN POLETZ RODE Nelson also writes about foraging the entire length of Laos FTER KINDER MORGAN SERVED phen Collis.’ I can only assume that the wild urban edibles, eating invasive spe- on a bicycle. Back in 2004 Burnaby Mountain ob- literary structure of the sentences led cies, keeping micro-livestock, bees and he cycled the spine of the structionists with a $5.6 him to re-brand it as a poem!” crickets, growing vegetables in pots, R Canadian Rockies via the Bow Valley million dollar lawsuit, a It was subsequenlty discovered small-space aquaponics, preserving Parkway. legal defence fund was Kinder Morgan had given the RCMP meats and produce, making cheese and In 1991 he trekked through the Hi- Acreated to support the legal costs for incorrect GPS coordinates so that the slow-fermenting sourdough, beer, kom- malayas with no guides, no Sherpas, poet and SFU professor Stephen Col- invisible “line” that protesters were not bucha, kefir and pickles. 978-1-77162-081-9 nearing the peak of Kangchenjunga. lis, Adam Gold, Mia Nissen and Lynne supposed to cross was nowhere near In 2000, he hung out with the remote Quarmby, among others, who defended where it was meant to be. Kogi tribe of Northern Colombia; having their rights to protest in hearings held The judge threw out all the charges visited the more inaccessible Mentawai last November at the Supreme Court and refused to give Kinder Morgan an of Siberut Island in Indonesia in 1992. of B.C. extension for their drilling. Those are just a few of his adventures. A lawyer for Kinder Morgan read The U.S.-based Kinder Morgan cut In his memoir, The Spaces in some of Collis’ writing into the public its losses and hurriedly helicoptered out Between - Stories of Discovery (No- record. It was a prose piece called The all its exploratory drilling equipment. madic Poletz Publishing $19.95), Poletz Last Barrel of Oil on Burnaby Mountain “We are at a point in history,” says recounts globe-cycling experiences, as from Collis’ blog post. Collis, “when people have to stand up well as his childhood in rural Saskatch- “He introduced it in court,” says for what they believe, and stand up to ewan, having visited six continents Collis, “as evidence of my guilt as defend their local environments, and and travelled through more than 50 someone intending to blockade their the global environment, too.” countries. pipeline, and encouraging others to Stephen Collis’ next book will be Compassionate and philosophical, do so as well. called Reading Wordsworth in the Poletz is not a self-fixated journalist “He referred to it as a ‘poem by Ste- Tar Sands, due next year. glorifying his adventures; instead he is consistently concerned with describing the lives and characters he meets, whether he’s visiting a dangerous paradise in Colombia or evading the amorous intentions of a beautiful and muscular olive farmer in Crete named Michelle Gaia or realizing the extent to which Nelson immigrants are stifled in Switzerland. His final story about being duped in Istanbul even expresses sympathy for Green boats the team of extortionists who lured him into a nightclub. ✫ 978-0-9936731-0-8 EN VAN DRIMMELEN OF VICTORIA co- WHEREAS JAYNE SEAGRAVE’S CAMPING WITH owns a small but very robust Kids: The Best Family Campgrounds sailboat (a Nonsuch, originally B in British Columbia and Alberta, pub- designed for Great Lakes sailing) as lished back in 2005, had only three well as an inflatable Zodiac and both a campgrounds from single and a collapsible double kayak. Alberta and about Having worked as a wildlife biologist PHOTO

twenty from B.C., for about 40 years and an environ- and it was geared mental lawyer for almost 20 years, van STUDIO towards families Drimmelen has written Greening your with children under Boat (Self-Counsel $12.95) in which he VIOLETTE age ten, her follow- outlines how boats can be maintained

ANICK up, Camping with to minimize negative impacts on the Ralph Maud ran for the Green Party in the 1996 provincial election. Kids in the West environment. Jayne Seagrave (Heritage $19.95) Safe and affordable practices include ten years later, features 12 Alberta finding alternatives campgrounds and new information for the many chemi- Post Maud-ern pertaining to camping with older chil- cals and solvents re- dren—plus new website info. quired for upkeep. s one of the founding English professors at Simon Fraser University Born in England in 1961, Seagrave Except for kayak- lives in Vancouver with her husband in 1965, Ralph Maud became an authority on the work of Dylan ing down two rivers Andrew Dewberry and sons Jack and Thomas, Charles Olson and the ethnographers of the Pacific North- in Laos, nearly all A Sam. She holds a Ph.D. in criminology. west. He pioneered a course in Indian Oral Tradition and mainly published his boating has been Consequently she first wrote Introduc- West Coastal. books with Talonbooks in Vancouver. Also a provocative pamphleteer, he B. v. Drimmelen tion to Policing in Canada (Prentice 978-1-77040-206-5 was born in 1928 and died in late 2014. For more info, visit ABCBookWorld. Hall, 1997). 9781772030402

5 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 PEOPLE

NCE UPON A MORE HOMOPHOBIC of Xtra West in an interview, “or thinks time, Raziel Reid’s debut they are famous. It’s this weird thing; novel about a gay teenage it’s like a cultural disease, almost, that Omurder would never have we all have. Social media amplifies it, been published. but I feel like it’s rooted in insecurity. These days, at age 24, the Xtra West “A lot of gay people were not very columnist has won a Governor-Gener- popular in high school, and picked on, al’s Award in the children’s literature and so they dream of sort of showing category and he’s been informed When everyone that they are special. That Everything Feels Like the Movies was certainly Jude’s goal—just prove (Arsenal Pulp $15.95) has been se- all of his haters wrong.” lected as one of five nominated titles Having graduated from the New for CBC Radio’s Canada Reads 2015 York Film Academy, Reid has per- competition. formed off-Broadway, worked as a When Everything Feels Like the Mov- Camera, action, go-go dancer, and written and acted in ies was inspired by a real-life killing Camera, action, the short film called End Point, but he in a California high school. In 2008, a claims he was shy in high school and 15-year-old gay student named Larry Jude is not a self-portrait. King asked 14-year-old Brandon Mc- A self-described “anti-social colum- Inerney to be his Valentine in front nist, anti-fur fag” and creator of the pop of a bunch of jocks. A few days later, highhigh schoolschool culture blog Blitz & Shitz on DailyXtra. McInerney brought a .22 rifle to school com, Raziel Reid grew up in Winnipeg and shot King twice in the head. and has relocated to Vancouver. Reid can still recall learning about ’s His winning novel is anything but the California tragedy as a high school Raziel Reid childish, but he smartly opted to have senior at home, watching a tearful El- GG-Award winning novel has been his story submitted as a Young Adult len DeGeneres plead for tolerance in novel in the 2014 Governor General’s its aftermath. Reid has extrapolated criticized as being too explicit for competition—where it obviously stood from this news story to fashion an out. PHOTO youth; but the anti-censorship edgy and non-sugarcoated novel, full of Other finalists for CBC Radio’s Can- gender-bending teen glamour, mischief lobby will prevail. ada Reads 2015 competition—themed MCGREGOR and melodrama. as “Books That Break Barriers.”—are When Everything Feels Like the Mov- ASH And the Birds Rained Down by Joc- ies is original because Reid has likened “smells like Chanel Mademoiselle and have him appear on their Facebook elyne Saucier (translated by Rhonda high school to a film set. The “Movie reads Old Hollywood star biographies pages. But as a self-professed “flamer,” Mullins); The Inconvenient Indian by Stars” are the ones everyone wants to like gospel; he doesn’t have the easi- he’s not about to be sidelined from the Thomas King; Intolerable: A Memoir of be with; the “Crew” consists of people est path to travel in life, but somehow action. In fact, Jude is determined to Extremes by Kamal Al-Solaylee; and making things happen; the “Extras” fill he paves his own yellow brick road get Luke Morris to say yes to the Val- Ru by Kim Thúy (translated by Sheila empty spaces. and wishes we could join him over the entine’s Day dance. It’s better to flame Fischman). Reid’s book’s representa- The openly gay protagonist Jude rainbow.” out than fade away. tive for the panel debates is Elaine Rothesay doesn’t fit into any of the Jude doesn’t get invited to the cool “Every young gay guy I know wants “Lainey” Lui, co-host of CTV’s The groups. Creative and rude, Jude parties and people are not hoping to to be famous,” Reid told Pat Johnson Social. 5 978-1-55152-574-7

Jabbering with Bing Bong by Kevin Spenst I, Dr. Greenblatt, Orthodontist, 251-1457 “Belief and disbelief rub up against each other in this startling and fl awless debut by Gary Barwin collection. … These important poems do not redeem so much as allow the possibility of “Between the freaky, funny fi lmmaker Guy Maddin and author Gary Barwin, redemption.”—Jen Currin, author of The Inquisition Yours Canada is producing some of the most innovate creative works of our time.” 96 pages | $18 can/usa | 978-1-77214-014-9 | may 2015 —Utne Reader (US) 128 pages | $18 can/usa | 978-1-77214-013-2 | stories | may 2015 Foreign Park by Jeff Steudel “The ‘foreignicity’ of his poetic park reveals the paradox of where and how we live, Seep by W. Mark Giles that in-between margin in the world where we ‘don’t need to know everything’ Seep limns the tension between land development and landscape, trauma and ‘Every fi ve minutes together [is] a new world.’ These poems shimmer in their and nostalgia, dysfunction and intimacy in a narrative of twenty-fi rst aliveness.”—Fred Wah, former Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate and century Canada. recipient of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry “Giles’ Seep is a wickedly wonderful account of how our senses of self and of 72 pages | $16 can/usa | 978-1-77214-015-6 | may 2015 place can be interrelated ... making for a complicated world and illuminating fi c t i o n . ” —Tom Wayman Rue by Melissa Bull 224 pages | $20 can/usa | 978-1-77214-012-5 | novel | may 2015 “Loaded with grief and delight, with love and death, with sex and solitude, the world of Melissa Bull’s poetry explores the abundance of human experience.” Breakneck by Nelly Arcan —Suzanne Hancock, author of Another Name for Bridge and Cast from Bells translated by Jacob Homel 72 pages | $16 can/usa | 978-1-77214-016-3 | may 2015 Breakneck is the fourth and fi nal title in our translation project that brings the work of Quebec author Nelly Arcan to an Anglophone audience. Rose and Julie’s submissive love for the same man, Charles, creates in them an arms race of artifi cial beauty and debasement. Rogues, Rascals, and Scalawags Too: 256 pages | $20 can/usa | 978-1-77214-011-8 | novel | april 2015 More Ne’er-Do-Wells Through the Ages by Jim Christy Cabalcor: An Extracted History by Sun Belt Never before have as many outrageous and out-sized characters appeared in one Cabalcor: An Extracted History is a genre-bending collaboration depicting place at the same time. Words like rogues, rascals, rapscallions, reprobates and the rise and fall of a tar sands company town that, within the span of a rodomontades don’t completely describe these individuals; they are more than century, becomes a desert wasteland. each or any combination thereof. They are scalawags. 168 pages | $24 can/usa | 978-1-77214-003-3 | comes with mp3 download 224 pages | $20 can/usa | 978-1-77214-017-0 | may 2015 available now! Further Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer by Stuart Ross Alternately snarky, sincere, touching, honest, and always opinionated, Ross’s “confessions” are essential reading for any literary confessional. On Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer: “For a quick and dirty breath of fresh air, it’s diffi cult to beat renegade urban poet Stuart Ross’s latest effort, Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer.”—Stephen Knight, Quill & Quire 128 pages | $18 can/usa | 978-1-77214-018-7 | june 2015

6 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 “The faculty were so approachable, Faculty: accessible, and willing to share Betsy Amster Philip Athans wonderful insights about Carol Cassella

their craft!” Kerry Colburn Anne Depue Rayma Haas Brian Doyle Seattle, WA Steven Galloway 2014 Conference Attendee Elizabeth George Inspiration into Action Sam Green Lee Gulyas Denise Jolly Friday and Saturday Stephanie Kallos William Kenower June 26 & 27, 2015 Elizabeth Kracht Erik Larson Robert Lashley Whatcom Community College Kate Lebo Brenda Miller Bellingham, Washington Elissa Washuta Molly Wizenberg Jennifer Worick www.chuckanutwritersconference.com

presented by

COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Left: Original serigraph titled “Along Chuckanut Drive” by Nancy McDonnell Spaulding, commissioned by Chuckanut Bay Gallery, www.chuckanutbaygallery.com

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7 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 Celebrating 47 Years of Publishing in Canada

B.C. BESTSELLER

Knitting Stories Life Cycle of a Lie Shack Island Summer The Moment Sylvia Olsen Personal Essays and Seven Coast Penny Chamberlain Kristie Hammond Salish–inspired Knitting Patterns Have you ever told a lie, then It’s the summer of 1969, the When a devastating train Sylvia Olsen told another to cover up the summer of fl ower children and accident results in the loss of his fi rst? Is failing to correct a the fi rst moon landing. 12-year- leg, James cannot imagine ever Master storyteller and expert knitter misunderstanding lying at all? old Pepper knows she’s adopted leading a ‘normal’ life again. Sylvia Olsen’s essay collection A complex novel of love, gender and decides this summer will be As James struggles to adapt to is both personal and political, relations, friendship, betrayal, an excellent time to fi nd out who his new life, he’s helped by true historical and practical. Includes truth, and lies. her birth family is, along with friends he didn’t know he had. seven stunning Coast Salish- exploring ESP, dreams, friendship inspired knitting patterns. TEEN FICTION • Ages 12+ and infatuation. JUVENILE FICTION • Ages 8–12 978-1-55039-233-3 • $14.95 NON-FICTION/ESSAYS 978-1-55039-235-7 • $9.95 978-1-55039-232-6 • $28.95 Also available as an ebook JUVENILE FICTION • Ages 9–13 Also available as an ebook 978-1-55039-175-6 • $10.95 Also available as an ebook Also available as an ebook

Ting Ting The Lost Diary Riding Through Fire Under the Wire Kristie Hammond Julie White Julie White Julie White Ting is a happy 8-year-old in In the fourth Hillcroft Farm Faye’s out horse jumping, and Reid Widmark is at the gate… China when Tiananmen Square novel, Julie White skillfully Kirsty’s doing chores. A cattle At 16, Reid Widmark is on his forces her family to a new life intertwines a tale from the early drive seems like fun—until the way to becoming a professional in faraway Vancouver, Canada. days of women in international wind changes. Suddenly, Kirsty jockey. Th en his mother takes a Suddenly everything is strange competition with Faye’s journey and Lancelot smell smoke… fall—and suddenly, so does his and diﬃ cult. What will it take back to the show ring after a An exciting new story from the future. How can he prove that for Ting to belong? nasty accident. Gripping! stables of Hillcroft Farm! he’s got what it takes to win? 3Asian/Paciﬁ c American Award for Juvenile Fiction • Ages 8–12 Juvenile Fiction • Ages 8–12 Juvenile Fiction • Ages 10–14 Literature (Honor Title) 978-1-55039-234-0 • $9.95 978-1-55039-199-2 • $9.95 978-1-55039-198-5 • $9.95 Juvenile Fiction • Ages 8–12 Also available as an ebook Also available as an ebook Also available as an ebook 978-1-55039-210-4 • $9.95 Also available as an ebook

Tilly Sabotage Prove It, Josh Vancouver Island’s Karen Autio Esquimalt & Nanaimo A Story of Hope and Resilience Jenny Watson Railway Monique Gray Smith German spies? Sabotage plots? Josh is 11, dyslexic, and suﬀ ering Internment camps? Believe it or at his new school on Vancouver The CPR Via Rail and A powerful, loosely autobiographi- not, this is northwestern Ontario in Island. Sailing is his escape, until Shortline Years, 1949–2013 cal story of a young Indigenous 1915. Th e danger hits close to home he’s goaded into a bet: lose a Robert D. Turner & woman coming of age in Canada for siblings Saara and John Mäki in sailing race and he reads aloud on Donald F. MacLachlan in the 1980s. Gray Smith illumi- this exciting story, the last in Autio’s Literacy Day! nates her people’s history—forced ISBN 978-1-55039-212-8 popular historical ﬁ ction trilogy. displacement, residential schools, 3Silver Birch Express Award (Nominee) softcover • $39.95 tuberculosis hospitals, the Sixties 3 Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award (Nominee) Juvenile Fiction • Ages 8–12 978-1-55039-213-5 Scoop—with insight and humour. hardcover • $49.95 3 Arthur Ellis Best Juvenile/Young Adult 978-1-55039-211-1 3 Winner of the 2014 CODE Burt Award for Crime Book (Finalist) $9.95 11 x 9 • 324 pages • 475+ photos First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature Also available as an ebook 978-1-55039-209-8 • $19.95 Juvenile Fiction • Ages 8–12 978-1-55039-208-1 • $10.95 Also available as an ebook Also available as an ebook Sono Nis Press • 1-800-370-5228 • www.sononis.com • [email protected]

8 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 COVER

Chelene Knight has been writing in secret since she was a child. “As a young mixed-race woman, I’ve always struggled with identity,” she says. “I am still trying to find my voice.”

Having graduated from The Writer’s Studio at SFU, ABOUTABOUT FACEFACE the Vancouver-born poet has now released her first book, Braided Skin (Mother Tongue $18.95), largely emanating from experiences arising from her mixed ethnicity, poverty, urban upbringing and youthful dreams. “Growing up with only my mother’s side of the family [African American] and never being exposed to any of the “Sing sweet... cultural intricacies of my father’s East Indian-Ugandan heritage, left a gaping hole in my chest I’ve never been able to fill. These brown skin “As a young parent, how do I hand over answers to probing questions of ethnicity, background, and history, when I myself didn’t even have them? This is the question that the poems in Braided Skin finally answer.” confessions.” Knight’s mother is African American. Her father and his family were victims of the Asian expulsion from Uganda CHELENE KNIGHT that took place in the 1970s when President Idi Amin led a campaign of “de-Indianization,” in essence a brutal ethnic cleansing of Uganda’s Indian minority. “So many Canadian mixed-race women struggle with finding a sense of belonging within themselves, as well as within their own families and even communities,” she says. “I have spent a good chunk of my life feeling pressured to convince strangers of my ethnicity due to not physically fitting into any mold made by society’s preconceived ideal. “I think when you come from two different cultures, and are denied one half, you spend the majority of your time questioning everything in your life, from parenting to education, careers to social groups, and even dating and marriage.” Knight’s title poem ‘Braided Skin’ uses the analogy of braiding—the concept of entwining—to reflect racial tensions and ambiguities, always with the promise or threat of unravelling. “In some pieces in the book, I use a character’s voice as narrator, and even though a particular poem may not be about me, I’m always sure to remove my mask and question if this is where I’m supposed to be.” Wayde Compton, director of The Writer’s Studio, notes Knight’s poetry does “not let tribulation define the journey, though it’s there.” Instead there is a consistent quality of dance and laughter through the book. A quote from Jeanette Winterson is prominent on Knight’s website: “A tough life needs a tough language— and that is what poetry is. That’s what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.” A member of the editorial board of Room, Knight has been published in Sassafras Literary Magazine, Room, emerge 2013 and Raven Chronicles. She says, “The poems in this collection do address race directly and sometimes indirectly, but it’s more than that. It’s about realizing that I can have a variety of voices, and they are all indeed genuinely mine. “I speak through music, erasure, story and rant. I don’t have to pick a side. I wrote these poems for the women struggling with a sense of belonging, be it race-related or not. Everyone wants a place to feel content. “... It’s about the unmapped journey through city and then later, through self. Where one ends up is only the beginning.”

… Sing sweet. These brown skin confessions. Brown skin, black skin, caramel-dipped skin, leathery-sunburnt skin, ceases-to-remember skin, like the war-torn-country skin, she breathes— skin. — ‘In the Green Room,’ from Braided Skin

These days Chelene Knight stands strong in her cho- sen position as a hardworking single parent. Her work in progress, Dear Current Occupant, is a collection of prose PHOTO poems and letters written in the voice of a young woman speaking to the horrors, sadness and pleasures that took TSABARI place in the over 20 homes she lived in as a child. 978-1-896949-50-5

AYELET

9 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 feature review FICTION

The Jaguar’s Children by John Vaillant (Knopf Canada $29.95)

HE GREAT 19TH CEN- tury writers of social realism—Dickens, THugo, Balzac, Tol- stoy—understood that some social, economic and political issues are so overwhelming and so profoundly disturbing to their own culture that they can only be portrayed effectively in fiction. In his first novel, The Jag- uar’s Children, Vancouver- based journalist John Vail- lant follows a trail broken by the masters to dramatize an economically and politically challenging—and tragic—social crisis facing North Amer- ica today. The border between the United States and Mexico is more than a muddy river, a line in the dust or miles of chain-link fence enhanced with razor wire, cameras and thermal sensors. It is the border between hope and despair, between a failing state and the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth. Every day thousands of people from Mexico and other marginalized Central Ameri- can countries risk their lives to cross that border, seeking a better life. Many are inter- dicted by U.S. Immigration John Vaillant can easily be described as and border patrols, la migra, and repatriated. Others, not so lucky, find only miserable one of the rising stars of British Columbia literature deaths, suffocated in stifling, the hidden compartments in ve- —if not rising star. hicles or exhausted and de- hydrated by walking through the desert. One character in The Jag- uar’s Children grimly observes that thousands of desiccated bodies of men, women and children are scattered along invisible trails of tears. Vaillant’s articles have ap- DESPAIR peared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic and The Walrus and he is the film El Norte, about a Gua- Buck’s The Good Earth. For author of the multi-award- temalan brother and sister IN MEXICO good measure, such critics winning non-fiction book, trying to get to the U.S., has attacked fictional books about The Golden Spruce (Vintage addressed the same issues but Stranded and abandoned by people First Nations’ characters by 2006). It was a year in Oax- it can’t match The Jaguar’s B.C. authors Anne Cameron aca, Mexico that sharpened Children for desperation and smugglers, Hector sends SOS-like and W.P. Kinsella. his awareness of the illegal claustrophobic horror worthy Fortunately most of these economic migration issue by of Edgar Allan Poe. cell phone messages to a stranger. twits clammed up when their letting him see it Welded into the self-righteous moral stance from the other side empty tank of a obliged them to argue that of the border. He water-hauler, Hec- device of these lengthy texts, While the GM food con- Shakespeare shouldn’t have might have fallen tor, his boyhood Vaillant has Hector narrate his spiracy lends Ludlum-like ur- written Hamlet because he back on well-honed friend Cesar, and short life story into a device gency to the plot, it’s Hector’s wasn’t Danish or Macbeth be- journalistic skills a dozen other mi- whose batteries are dying as account of his family, the lives cause he wasn’ae a Scot. to write about it. If grants are aban- slowly and surely as everyone of his parents and grandpar- Writers not only have the he had, he might JOHN doned in the desert in the tank. ents, and their struggle as in- right to use their imagina- have produced MOORE by venal ‘coyote’ From files stored on the digenous people on the bottom tions; they have an obligation something like guides when the phone, Hector discovers that rung of Mexican society, that to tell stories that need to be Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s truck breaks down. As the air Cesar, formerly the token keeps the pages turning. told using whatever voice, Gulag Archipelago, a factual sours with carbon dioxide and Zapotec researcher for the bio- ✫ journalistic or fictional, that catalogue of human suffering bottled water runs out, Hector tech company SuperMaize, is THIRTY YEARS AGO, REVISIONIST makes them most likely to be so vast and unrelenting it de- clings to a pipe that admits a on the run from corporate and politically-correct critics heard. feats its purpose by rendering small current of fresh air. government interests promot- would have attacked Vaillant I don’t usually read novels readers emotionally numb. Hector also sends text mes- ing genetically modified corn with shrill accusations of ‘ap- at one sitting; this one I did. Instead, Vaillant drama- sages, like SOS signals from that will irrevocably destroy propriation of cultural voice,’ 9780307397164 tizes the story of Hector, one a sinking ship, to AnniMac, the bedrock cycle of Mexican as they delighted in doing to young man making his des- a contact he finds on the in- culture by using the lure of books like Hemingway’s The John Moore writes on a regu- perate bid to reach el Norte, jured Cesar’s cell phone. Using high-yield profits to displace Old Man and the Sea (Nobel lar basis for this publication the land of promise. The 1983 the somewhat over-extended traditional maize. Prize winner) and Pearl S. from Garibaldi Highlands.

10 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 Talonbooks Spring 2015

As Always Canada: A New Tax Haven Memoir of a Life in Writing How the Country That Shaped Caribbean Tax Madeleine Gagnon Havens Is Becoming One Itself Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott Alain Deneault One of Canada’s greatest literary figures reflects on life at The Caribbean islands became jurisdictions of banking and the centre of Quebec literary arts. Re-examining the tax leniency in the last half of the twentieth century under the influences of her early life in a large, rural Catholic family, guidance of Canadian financiers. Now government policy to Madeleine Gagnon not only explores her rejection of increase the international “competitiveness” of Canadian unexamined values as part of her intellectual development companies encourages multinationals to relocate to Canada but also her refusal to be categorized by her gender. as if it were Barbados or Belize. This book traces the history $24.95 / 336 pp / Biography & Autobiography and examines the implications of this development. 978-0-88922-896-2 / ebook 978-0-88922-897-9 $29.95 / 400 pp / Business & Economics 978-0-88922-836-8 / ebook / 978-0-88922-837-5

I, Bartleby The Keeper’s Daughter Meredith Quartermain Jean-François Caron In these quirky, imaginative stories about writing and writers, Translated by W. Donald Wilson Bartleby, the scrivener (a.k.a. Quartermain), goes her Young Dorothea is appointed by the tourist bureau to direct a stubborn way haunted by Pauline Johnson, Malcolm Lowry, documentary film re-enacting life at a lighthouse off Robin Blaser, Daphne Marlatt, and other forebears. Who is Quebec’s North Shore in the 1940s and 50s. The problem is writing whom, these stories ask in their musing reflections— that most of the memories of Rose Brouillard, the interview the writer or the written? The thinker or the alphabet? The subject, are invented, not real. But, really, who cares whether calligrapher or the pictograms hidden in her Chinese it’s true? What matters here are the stories we tell. characters? $14.95 / 160 pp / Fiction $14.95 / 112 pp / Fiction: Short Stories 978-0-88922-920-4 / ebook / 978-0-88922-921-1 978-0-88922-918-1 / ebook / 978-0-88922-919-8

Un/inhabited Get Me Out of Here Jordan Abel Sachiko Murakami Un/inhabited questions the use of politically or racially Why is it so difficult to stay present in the moment? charged language in 91 pulp western novels found on Murakami's poems, written in response to her open call on Project Gutenberg. Using a range of techniques, Abel the Internet, search airport departures and arrivals for a investigates the complex relationship between language and handhold on the fleeting present. Working within and land, including the ways that use and ownership affect both. wriggling out of the constraint of 14 lines, the poems explore This art book presents Abel’s practice for the first time in a how to stay when the mind is begging to leave. visual context. $16.95 / 80 pp / Poetry / 978-0-88922-925-9 $24.95 / 240 pp / Poetry / 978-0-88922-922-8

Limbinal The Hatch Oana Avasilichioaei Colin Browne Here, linguistic limbs fold and migrate, a distant border Colin Browne’s new collection, The Hatch, extends his formal politicks and trips over the horizon, a river overflows, floods, engagement with the margins of new documentary. Browne’s palimpsests another river, Arendt’s responsibility touches poems have regularly addressed landscape and the Deleuze’s fold, the body, changeable, restless, searches for intersections of personal and public history; in The Hatch resonances. And new translations of Paul Celan’s Romanian there is a rhythmic and political urgency in which the poems become a generative field of language that sprout exchange of forms is lightning quick. other limbs and broach other thresholds. $18.95 / 176 pp / Poetry / 978-0-88922-938-9 $19.95 / 128 pp / Poetry / 978-0-88922-924-2 page as bone – ink as blood Dead Metaphor Jonina Kirton Three Plays Delicate and dark, Métis/Icelandic poet Jonina Kirton's debut George F. Walker collection explores the unfurling of a woman of ‘mixed blood Canada’s top playwright sears the page with three new who, now approaching sixty years old, looks back on pivotal darkly comic plays, each addressing in different ways a events in her life. page as bone – ink as blood addresses the modern world of ambiguous morals and corruption: Dead effects of childhood abuse, sexuality, marriage, ancestry, Metaphor; The Burden of Self Awareness; and The Ravine. spirituality, and death. “It’s vintage Walker: funny, violent, compassionate and “Jónína Kirton’s memoir in verse could be an epic novel, a thought-provoking.” – Toronto Star haunting ballad, a ﬁlm noir.” – Betsy Warland $19.95 / 208 pp / Drama $16.95 / 96 pp / Poetry / 978-0-88922-923-5 978-0-88922-928-0 / ebook / 978-0-88922-929-7

Odd Ducks Shoplifters Bryden MacDonald Morris Panych Welcome to the small town of Tartan Cross, where skeletons Alma’s a career shoplifter who prefers the “five-finger rattle in closets with the intensity of a marching band. Bryden discount” over some lousy seniors’ deal, but her life of petty MacDonald's smart new comedy Odd Ducks tells the story of crime is halted suddenly by an overzealous rookie security four forty-something eccentrics struggling to get out of their guard. With its cast of oddball characters, Panych’s new own way, trying to move on, all the while inventing drama comedy offers biting observations about society’s haves and with searing sarcasm to keep things light. have-nots – and how much they might actually have in $16.95 / 96 pp / Drama common. 978-0-88922-934-1 / ebook / 978-0-88922-935-8 $17.95 / 128 pp / Drama 978-0-88922-926-6 / ebook / 978-0-88922-927-3

The St. Leonard Chronicles Winners and Losers Steve Galluccio Marcus Youssef & James Long From the award-winning author of runaway hits Mambo Two friends pass the time together playing a made-up game Italiano and In Piazza San Domenico comes a saucy, delicious in which they name people, places, or things and debate new comedy. When a young Italian couple announces they whether they are successful or not; in other words, winners or are moving to the Anglo suburbs, it's like they've committed a losers. Each friend seeks to defeat the other, and because one mortal sin against their traditional relatives. Ultimately of these men grew up economically privileged, and the other floodgates open to other unspoken desires and revelations, did not, the competition very quickly adds up. turning conservative St. Leonard upside down. $16.95 / 96 pp / Drama $16.95 / 96 pp / Drama 978-0-88922-932-7 / ebook / 978-0-88922-933-4 978-0-88922-930-3 / ebook / 978-0-88922-931-0

Talonbooks www.talonbooks.com

11 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 review FICTION Savour: The Obsessions of a such a young protagonist and Murderer by Jackie Bateman there is a surprising lack of (Anvil Press $20.00) “I’ve also any sexual references—given always been its dark subject matter—this T SIXTEEN, LIZZY HAS book could have been aimed been through a interested at a youth market, but Bate- Alot. When she was in the man says it’s definitely adult twelve, her mother fiction. “It’s a touch too dark disappeared and no one else obsessive and full of swearing to be wanted Lizzy. At thirteen, she categorized as YA,” she says, took off for London with her mind.” “although I can see older boyfriend, leaving Dalbegie, JACKIE BATEMAN teenagers enjoying my novels Scotland. Nobody reported her because of Lizzy. missing. “Something terrible hap- On the streets of London, pening in life can result in dev- Lizzy knows how to handle astating consequences. We’ve herself and keeps a close eye all seen it happen to someone on her less streetwise friend, OLIVER, TWISTED we know, someone’s daughter, Natalie, as they work their OLIVER, TWISTED to a friend—or to ourselves. It Soho fruit stalls. resonates no matter how old One of the nasty people in Villains who don’t get caught can’t escape Jackie Bateman‘s radar. we are.” Dalbegie has followed Lizzy to As with its predecessor, London. Both protector and his hands, Oliver is a stalker complex in that entirely fanciful. Savour comfortably slips be- predator, Oliver is a sociopath- who organizes “viewings” for a he likes order When Bateman tween four narrators, Lizzy, ic serial killer who is obsessed select group of psychopaths, and control,” says lived in Edinburgh, Helen, Steve and Oliver, but with Lizzy as he had been ob- including Helen, who knew Bateman. “He feels there was an ex- only Oliver speaks out in the sessed with her mother. Oliver from Dalbegie. They that he owns Lizzy, tremely violent in- first person. We begin to ob- That’s the setup for Jack- both worked at, of all things, has power over cident in the flat serve Lizzy, for example, from ie Bateman’s Savour: The a cat rescue facility. Helen is her, and doesn’t CHERIE below her. his eyes. We’re forced into his Obsessions of a Murderer, about to get a surprise from want anyone else “When the po- head. Bateman’s follow-up to Non- Steve, an amiable loser ca- to have her. He THEISSEN lice came,” she re- The final installment of the descript Rambunctious (Anvil, pable of murder. battles with this calls, “they asked if trilogy, Straight Circles, could 2011), Book One in her Lizzy ✫ paradox where he wants to kill I was okay and what I was do- be available next year. Mean- Trilogy. The first novel won the IN SAVOUR, RANK-SMELLING ALLEYS her—but at the same time, to ing there. I didn’t know what while her entire trilogy will be SFU Writer’s Studio First Book are festooned with human protect her. they meant—but they said if I translated and published in Competition. waste and vomit. We visit “Oliver likes the feeling knew who else was living in my the Netherlands and France Both novels explore socio- hovels where the city’s cast- he gets from killing and that street, I would be packing up later this year. 978-1-77214-000-2 pathic depravity and contem- away derelicts live. Worse, we kind of person is the worst and moving. That stuck with porary society’s desensitiza- are dragged into Helens and kind, because they never get me. Do you really know your Cherie Thiessen regularly tion to violence. Oliver’s minds. found.” neighbours?” reviews fiction from With time and wealth on “I wanted to make Oliver Such nefariousness is not Because Savour deals with Pender Island.

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12 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 review FICTION TWO GENTLEMEN OF KELOWNA Aaron Bushkowsky’s Bard send-up is brilliant and brash

Curtains for Roy The countryside is ravaged nobody will notice how empty by Aaron Bushkowsky by fires that force evacua- your stories are... The sad (Cormorant Books $21) tions in the Okanagan dur- truth is you can’t create meaning rehearsals—events that ingful relationships if you occurred in 2003 when Van- don’t know how to have them NYONE WHO HAS EN- couver’s Bard on the Beach yourself.” joyed the wise- generated a satellite project Ouch. cracking tomfoolery called Bard in the Vineyard, A jaundiced but talented Aof Steve Coogan giving rise to this novel. In actor offers this disturbing and his fellow impressionist Bushkowsky’s darkly comic rant about commercial thes- Rob Brydon as unlikely res- Curtains for Roy the show is pianism. taurant critics in their buddy/ bankrolled by a biker-turned- “Even if we bring a little road movies The Trip (in north- vintner who has insisted his more meaning, it doesn’t mean ern England) and The Trip to current squeeze must have a enough. People still go home Italy will gobble up the ban- leading role. after the shows and they ruin ter in Aaron Bushkowsky’s The intimacy between Roy their lives with indifference continuously clever Curtains and Alex resembles the cama- and boredom. We’re just a for Roy. raderie that Coogan and Bry- ripple in the ocean of who- Fleeing the Promise of the 21st Century, a painting by Ernest Hekkanen Curtains for Roy starts a don (who aren’t close friends gives-a-shit. We’re singing bit like Withnail & I Go To The in real life) provide in their cartoon frogs in a cartoon that Okanagan except the dissing movies. Roy and Alex are nobody sees... We’re their con- duo are older, semi-successful bonded by their love of theatre cept of high art, so they don’t KAFKA GOES TO theatre types on a wine tour. and a stabbingly severe frank- feel guilty about buying their Alex, a playwright with writer’s ness that reassures both par- next RV or SUV... block, has agreed to chap- ties they can be original. For “What’s Shakespeare to erone his old friend, Roy, a good measure, Bushkowsky them? Old English with physi- MANNING PARK theatre director who is dying adds the fact that Alex once cal comedy. How much do of lung cancer, on a palliative saved Roy’s life when they they understand? How much Ernest Hekkanen’s frightening sojourn adventure. were kids. do they really care?... They After much imbibing and Nobody can dish out the desperately want some poetry self-loathing, trading barbs I’m Not You consternation of the police truth like a close friend. It’s a in their lives, but they don’t by Ernest Hekkanen and uncomfortable truths, and medical authorities. The service, of sorts. If you have a even know what it is. So they (New Orphic Publishers $18) Roy is called upon to save a man—who reluctantly accepts friend tear you apart, it spares wander down to the winery crumbling production of A being addressed as ‘Sir’ in lieu you the misery of doing it to jingling their car keys, hoping Midsummer’s Night Dream for of anything else—sometimes yourself. Along the way Bush- we’ll give them a brief glimpse INCENT VAN GOGH SOLD Kelowna’s first Bard in has a nagging voice in his kowsky even takes of glory, a blink of insight, so only one painting the Vineyard head that questions his think- veiled potshots their tvs don’t hurt their eyes in his lifetime—to presenta- ing, but he is helpless in his at himself. A so much late at night.” his long-suffering tion. V efforts to cooperate with other detested the- Double ouch. brother who was the only humans who are thoroughly atre critic [is As the story unfolds, and person who consistently loved there any other the drama of the upcoming him and supported his work. perplexed by his amnesia. In great pain, Sir eats kind?] attacks production becomes more im- After his death, the artwork of the playwright portant than the duo’s friend- van Gogh has generated bil- again, he defecates. He is very frightened when he sees Alex, saying, ship, Bushkowsky proceeds lions of dollars for commercial “Instead of to generate more plot-driven enterprises around the world, a face in the mirror. He does not recognize what everyone conflict you entertainment. such as the ever-popular van write snappy Will Alex have a tryst with Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, else insists must be his own reflection. He doesn’t know dialogue, one of three attractive women and the collective value of his hoping who have crossed his path? separate paintings made over himself; so he only knows that he is not other people. Will Roy live to see opening a ten-year period is beyond night? calculation. Mostly he wants to get his clothes back. It is humiliat- Will the unwanted actress The disturbing Kafka-esque rise to the occasion? Or will genius apparent in Ernest ing to be held prisoner in a hospital as a mere victim of it all crash and burn—figura- Hekkanen’s novella I’m Not tively or literally? You brings to mind van circumstance. There is no ✫ Gogh’s fate. indication that he has committed any wrongdoing. THERE WAS TIME IN THIS FAIR LAND Like van Gogh, who sold when the railroads used to one painting, Hekkanen has Finally he escapes down the elevator only run.... when great fiction from only been published (twice) by a small but enduring imprint one commercial press. to be dragooned by three nefarious men in in Western Canada could be Is it possible that one hun- admired and widely discussed. dred years from now people a black van. They drive him Curtains for Roy is perfect will be reading this existential- grist for a movie. It is a bril- ist allegory and wonder how it back to the woods in Manning Park. They liant comedy of manners that could have gone unrecognized deserves to be touted as a gen- during the artist’s lifetime? start beating him. ✫ The opening erational follow-up to Douglas paragraph of I’m Coupland’s Generation X. FOR HIS 46TH TITLE, ERNEST HEK- But these days Canada’s Not You is repeated. Aaron Bushkowsky, kanen has introduced a name- fiction playing field is slanted ✫ as a playwright, less character who is discov- increasingly back towards ered beaten almost to death in ERNEST HEKKANEN has been nominated nine times for Toronto. the woods of Manning Park. co-manages an art gallery and pub- the Jessie Richard- The likes of Bushkowsky Brought to a hospital in Ab- son Theatre Award lishes New Orphic and Hekkanen might as well botsford, he cannot recall his for Outstanding Review in Nelson. be published from Vladivo- name, or his past. He draws a Original Script. stok. 9781897151747 complete blank, much to the 978-1-894842-24-2

13 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 review FICTION

Caroline Woodward reviews sentence sings, each word is debut short story collections carefully considered, polished from two graduates of UBC’s and put in exactly the right Creative Writing Program, both place. of whom set their stories in Perhaps Leggett’s greatest locales around the world. gift is her ability to hook the • reader with a few comfortable Some Extremely Boring Drives assumptions and then to give by Marguerite Pigeon the tale a sly and devastat- (NeWest $19.95) ing twist. For In Disguise, we follow a resolutely passive woman to Italy where she Y ONLY DIFFICULTY shocks herself by sidling away with Marguerite from her husband and his at- Pigeon’s daz- tentive co-worker to follow a zling collection handsome Italian onto a train. M Along with the protagonist, of fourteen stories is the title, Some Extremely Boring the reader is tempted into Drives. Yes, yes, it’s hipster- making assumptions only to ironic, arch, provocative, but have them slither sideways. it’s likely to do this book a Will a brush with menace have disservice when it’s crammed adverse effects? Or could it be spine out onto bookstore what she needs to finally take shelves. responsibility for her own life? EXTREMELY BORING, The only story which did Conversely the stories inside all have short, bristling, not quite grip me was Snow interesting titles like Endur- Bunny, which deals with a ance, Fiddle, Run or The Mer- middle-aged Canadian woman maid Sings which would entice on a tropical holiday. For most prospective readers to THEY’RE NOT someone who is well-travelled reach out for it. and beyond middle age, it held Pigeon’s characters are Introducing Marguerite Pigeon (above) & Julia Leggett (below) no twists or new revelations. movers and shakers all, nary a The story that shines chaise lounge habitué watch- brightest among all the gleam- ing the world go by in the lot. ing stories is the title story, Endurance begins the book, Gone South, told as letters to, about an extreme, cross- most likely, a childhood friend. country marathon in the Yu- Here Leggett’s wonderfully kon. The (riveting) action is so dry sense of humour leavens visceral that one is practically gut-wrenching pathos. The shivering, sweating and pant- protagonist begins by letting ing by the end of it. her friend know that she has Then we’re off to a hair melanoma and that she is in salon where a cancer survivor for a battle royal. “Please still is conversing with her hair- send me all your news,” she dresser en route to a first night writes. “As difficult as it is to out to enjoy music and danc- hear about other people’s lives, ing and life among the living. I still want real relationships.” Pigeon’s ability to push and The letters reveal detailed pull the reader into her high- drug and surgical treatments, energy orbit is a treat. Her her bodily response to them, pacing and language never her relationship with her loses momentum or tension. stalwart gem of a husband, In Slag, rough-housing her loathing of needles and between two teens escalates the joy of being outside during when the young woman is a remission, rid of tumours. punched by her older and in Fiddle. What to do with a the next story, Run, as well Gone South and Other Ways “They can’t keep chopping larger boyfriend. We fear for reluctant, once-celebrated, as Backup, where a singer to Disappear by Julia Leggett them out, or there’ll be noth- her future in Sudbury where now-disgraced fiddle player chooses to hang back and take (Mother Tongue $19.95) ing left of me,” she writes. “I’ll she lives with her mother and who wants to take the camera- a supporting role until the day be a human colander.” her mother’s live-in gangster man and the journalist out in she messes with the unwrit- Leggett’s characters run partner who is also the uncle his boat? ten rules. Another singer in N HER ELEGANTLY PRODUCED the gamut from dreamy drift- of her abusive boyfriend. I We are taken to the streets another story, The Mermaid collection of eight sto- ers to bossy boots (Lena Reyn- cheered as she made her es- of Mexico in That Obscure Sings, a Joni Mitchell tribute ries, Gone South and olds Gets Divorced) to smarty cape on the ’Hound heading Desire and to Spain in Torera, act, takes to the stage in a Other Ways to Disap- pants (Versus Heart) to vulner- I able victims about to break to Toronto. But Pigeon does where twists and turns and a blonde wig, playing small bars pear, Julia Leggett reveals not indulge anyone with tidy sly sense of humour abound. across the prairies. This one what it’s like to be female in free (One More Goodbye). No endings. Here’s our intrepid traveller would make a brilliant theatre one’s early twenties and thir- matter whether the story has In Catch, we enter the on the beach in Spain: “Sheri piece or film. ties in this century. taken us for a walk on the creepy night-time world of two is quite tipsy and has some Marguerite Pigeon is also In Thin, an obese young surreal side or if it whacks us men who catch feral cats for trouble on the lava-like rocks. the author of the office worker buys in the heart via high realism, unspecified medical purposes. She generally embraces her Gerald Lampert herbal diet pills, up close and extremely mortal, The dialogue is especially un- drinking, but the librarian in Award-nominated having thoroughly Leggett’s writing cracks and nerving and powerful. “Always her doesn’t approve of the at- book of poetry, absorbed the re- sparkles. a step ahead,” as Gerald put it. tendant loss of focus.” Inventory (Anvil, lentless North Wise beyond her years at “Like Eichmann in Argentina.” Now that the reader is 2009) and a novel, American repug- 33, Leggett, at work on her Gerald is the kind of guy who well and truly hooked on the Open Pit (NeWest, nance for over- first book of poems, grew up in enjoys this work far too much. stories—all gritty realism in- 2013) that was CAROLINE weight people. She Zimbabwe and is also studying And Roger knows he needs terspersed with heart-aches reviewed in BC WOODWARD astounds herself, for her Masters in Counselling to make an exit before the and belly laughs in seemingly BookWorld. Her and confuses her Psychology. In her acknowl- job catches and disposes of effortless, glimmering prose— range of subjects and char- trim, controlling BFF by shed- edgements, Leggett thanks her his own humanity on a daily along comes Makeover to acters in Some Extremely ding dozens of pounds... dur- “fellow melanoma warriors.” basis. overturn expectations. Clue: Boring Drives, and her soar- ing one shift at work. In this 978-1-896949-39-0 Marguerite Pigeon’s train- a doppelganger is involved, or ing imagination throughout, deadpan, surrealist story we Caroline Woodward is the author ing, productivity and experi- possibly a twin or maybe even is truly impressive. I now are quickly immersed in the of Penny Loves Wade, Wade ence as a journalist comes to a love-child on the loose. look forward to reading her savagery of office power poli- Loves Penny (2010) and The Vil- the fore as we scramble over The notion of shifting iden- previous books. tics and the nasty truth about lage of Many Hats (2012), both the rocks of Newfoundland tities comes to the fore in 978-1-927063-75-0 some female friendships. Each from Oolichan Books

14 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA reviews ★ ★ FICTION PEDAL SHOCK Chelsea Rooney offers a disturbing ride.

Pedal by Chelsea Rooney (Caitlin Press $21.95)

hese days, it’s hard to write EROTOKRITOS a shocking novel. Chelsea [For Collectors of Rare Books] Rooney $20 , an MFA graduate poetry by Vitsentzos Kornaros, T CARESSING MYTHS of UBC’s creative writing Poems by Dina Georgantopoulos, translated by Manolis transcribed by Manolis program, and a host of The Storytelling ISBN: 9781926763378 ISBN: 9781926763361 Show on Vancouver Co-op Radio, has given it her best shot with Pedal, an exploration of the largely avoided subject of the potential pleasure that can arise from sexual violation. Rooney’s heroine is 25-year-old psychology grad student Julia Hoop who has been conducting interviews with Katherine Fawcett “Molestas,” her slang term for women who don’t feel they were traumatized by being sexually molested as children. “The only UNLOCKING TRUTH shame I feel is because I do not feel any shame,” one of them says. The Little Washer of Sorrows Julia’s somewhat morbid fascination by Katherine Fawcett with the subject matter of her thesis is (Thistledown Press $18.95) made more disturbing by her empathy for adults who desire children. During her research she runs into her friend’s atherine Fawcett started her new roommate, Smirks, an athletic and career as a sports reporter attractive man who admits to being at- before venturing into freelance $25 $25 K TASOS LIVADITIS: SELECTED POEMS IDOLATERS tracted to pre-pubescent girls, and she journalism and commercial Poems by Tasos Livaditis, translated by Manolis Novel by Ioanna Frangia, translated by Manolis finds herself attracted to his “Caravag- writing. After becoming a mother and ISBN: 9781926763354 ISBN: 9781926763347

gio model” physique. Her mother is turning forty, Fawcett has turned her WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA addled with dementia and her father, hand to fiction with her first collection nicknamed Dirtbag, is an undisputed of dark and comical stories, The Little rapist who victimized Julia when she Washer of Sorrows, in which bizarre or was young, so her thesis advisor, Bob, rare occurrences upset the status quo. GRANVILLE ISLAND PUBLISHING is apprehensive about encouraging her Margo, the protagonist of the opening books that make a difference studies, troubled that her work might story “Captcha,” is a perfect wife—both a not be motivated by science. mathematical genius and Kokanee beer When her thesis advisor and her boy- model. After dutifully sending her hus- friend Thierry both part company with her band Pete off to work, she finds Pete’s simultaneously, Julia invites the shaggy, filing cabinet unlocked. She cannot resist beefcake Smirks to accompany her on a her curiosity and makes a life-changing 6,000-kilometre bike trip in search of her discovery. The threat of something sinister father. The bike journey that gives rise to lingers beneath the surface in many of the title Pedal entails explicit sex, drugs, Fawcett’s stories. drinking and a very disturbing Fawcett was longlisted for encounter in rural Sas- the 2011 CBC Short Sto- katchewan–after which ry Prize and the 2014 she is abandoned Carter V. Cooper/Exile Belly of Blackness Cedar, Salmon and Weed The Jade Frog by Smirks. Short Fiction Com- *NNJHSBOU)JTUPSZt+JN&MMJPU #BNöFME/PWFMt-PVJT%SVFIM $IJMDPUJO/PWFMt#SVDF'SBTFS 978-1-927575-56-7 petition. Born in Mon- treal, raised in Calgary, Fawcett lives in Pemberton and teaches music in Whistler. She plays violin with the Sea to Sky Orches- tra and also the fiddle. 978-1-77187-049-8 Road to Recovery Names on a Cenotaph A Walk on Broken Glass $BS"DDJEFOUt-BXSFODF.BUSJDL 88*)JTUPSZt4ZMWJB$SPPLT )JTUPSJDBM3PNBODFt(MPSJB"MMBO Order from your favourite bookstore or order from [email protected]

For more book and author information www.granvilleislandpublishing.com

New authors are always welcome! [email protected] Chelsea Rooney asserts that sexual Tel: 604 688 0320 Toll Free: 1 877 688 0320 abuse is not a My Electrician simplistic subject. Drives a Porsche? *OWFTUJOHt(JBOOJ,PWBǏFWJǎ

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16 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 MUSIC

EGENDARY SAN FRANCISCO consists of these posters; the artists rock ‘n’ roll promoter are not credited as co-authors. Bill Graham presented Each poster is accompanied by his first rock concert in Drums keep pounding Kruz’ recollections, so The Afterthought California on Novem- doubles as an autobiography. ber 6, 1965, the same Kruz used to go to city hall, wearing day a seventeen-year- a suit, at age 17, to get permits for his Lold in Vancouver named Jerry Kruz rhythms to the brain rock concerts, even though he was not was staging his first show. legally old enough to attend the gigs. Kruz’s promotion company, called The notorious undercover narc of The Afterthought, proceeded to present Jerry Kruz that era, Abe Snidanko, finally busted rock and psychedelic music groups at recalls his glory days. him when he was at the top of his game, Vancouver venues that included a local big-shot. It is implied that John’s Church Hall (27th & Gran- Kruz believes he might have been ville), the Scottish Auditorium, the set up by a business partner. historic Pender Auditorium (339 Jerry Kruz eventually lost his West Pender), the Bunkhouse, way, partly due to drugs, but also the Gazebo at First Beach and at due to a traumatic experience the Kitsilano Theatre (2114 West when he was first jailed. Vancouver Fourth, now known as the Rus- cops left him overnight, squeezed sian Community Centre). At least into a tiny locker in which he could fifteen of his shows were presented not sit or comfortably stand. This at the Pender Auditorium with painful, frightening and abusive the support of the Boilermakers treatment was quite simply tor- Union. ture—and Kruz never fully recov- Kruz’s memoir and art book, ered from it. The Afterthought (RMB $40), By age 19, Kruz had presented not only recalls the glory days of more than sixty events but his the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, glory days were over. By 1968, Steve Miller, The Collectors The Afterthought ventures would (Chilliwack) and Country Joe & soon be eclipsed by a new club on the Fish in Vancouver; it provides Davie Street, the Retinal Circus, a chronological record of perfor- associated with a light show called mances by local bands such as Ectosplasmic Assault. The Nocturnals, United Empire Kruz tried producing some Loyalists, Tom Northcott Trio, concerts on the Sunshine Coast Rocket Norton and the Black and he briefly managed the Riv- Snake Blues Band, Seeds of erqueen coffeehouse in the West Time—among others—with rosters End at 1043 Davie, befriending the for their ever-changing member- legendary blues duo Sonny Terry ships. and Brownie McGee, before the Of all the concerts Kruz at- venue was bought by Gary Taylor, tended, he cites a gig at the Pender a former drummer for The Clas- Auditorium on August 5, 1966, sics, and turned into a jazz venue featuring The Grateful Dead, sup- called Gary Taylor’s Show Lounge. ported by the United Empire Loyal- In 1969 he married his teen ists, as the best ever. Kruz vividly sweetheart Julie. They have been recalls the Dead’s soundman and married ever since. It was Julie in manager Owsley “Bear” Stanley 1965 who provided the odd name “walking through the room dis- for his impromptu coffee house and pensing acid to anyone who opens business, The Afterthought. It was their mouth… This, of course, the title of a poem she had read in results in a high energy crowd.” her Grade 12 English class. The Afterthought is subtitled 9781771600248 West Coast Rock Posters and Recol- lections from the ‘60s because Kruz Because no copy of and his wife (and saviour) Julie this original poster exists, collected posters for the various Gary Anderson created gigs over several decades. Kruz this commemorative says he commissioned many of version. This concert in these posters from artists Doug Vancouver would be the first free concert Cuthbert, Bruce Dowad, Bob The Grateful Dead Masse and the late Frank Lewis. ever gave. Approximately half of his book

N RECENT MEMORY, MOST PEOPLE KNOW THE ICONIC that was primarily used as a urinal, he has cleverly Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver has mixed history with an assortment of rare photos, played host to musical greats like The One Ballroom fits all paraphernalia and posters. Police, The Clash, Blondie and U2, and Chapman’s thorough research also includes more recently Lady Gaga, Tom Waits and How a 1930s dancehall reminiscences from the likes of local bluesman the White Stripes. But that’s only a small became the Fillmore North Jim Byrnes (fondly recalling backstage conversa- Ipart of its story. Live at the Commodore: The tions with the likes of Muddy Waters and Charley Story of Vancouver’s Historic Commodore Ball- Pride) and reviews by the likes of the indomitable room (Arsenal Pulp $28.95) by Aaron Chapman and always perceptive Georgia Straight and Province respectfully and diligently recounts the history of music critic Tom Harrison. Vancouver’s best-loved music venue from its 1930s The central figure in the narrative is longtime conception, when it hosted the city’s decadent so- Commodore head honcho Drew Burns. Back in ciety set, through WWII and the swing era, to its the day, when there was no liquor license, patrons current state. brought their own booze but were required to pur- Having proven himself with Liquor, Lust and the chase ice buckets per table, hiding their liquor from Law: The Story of Vancouver’s Legendary Penthouse police. The staff at the Commodore routinely placed Nightclub (Arsenal Pulp 2012), Chapman has main- the ice buckets on heaters before delivering them to tained a high standard of populism and scholarship patrons, thereby making the ice melt quickly and by digging up stories behind the legendary acts requiring them to order another bucket. that graced the Commodore’s stage, whether it’s Live at the Commodore is commercial, popular the bass player for Talking Heads scoring grass history at its finest—amusing and enlightening. or Patti Smith insisting on taking a bath in a tub Drew Burns in his office at the Commodore, 1973 978-1-55152-566-2

17 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 18 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 review ART

Emily Carr in England [Carr’s mysterious and by Kathryn Bridge possibly damaging treat- (RBCM $27.95) ments for hysteria are at EMILY CARR IN ENGLAND the core of Margaret Hol- lingsworth’s novel about AST FALL, 25 creativity and aging, Be Emily Carr Emily Carr made the most of her early training in England despite Quiet (Coteau, 2003).] paintings acute anaemia and being interned in the East Anglia Sanatorium. Carr was not permit- and sketches ted to paint for 18 months were shipped during her enforced con- from Victoria sites and digitized archival sionary. This trip stirred her Partially to get beyond finement, so she kept a to the UK to records—to learn the true interest in Aboriginal vil- the persistence of her suit- sketchbook that reflects her appear in the first major identities of people she lages. On this trip she also or, she saved enough money experiences in the Sunhill L made anonymous in her gained her name from the to continue her education in international exhibition on Sanatorium. It became Emily Carr at the Dulwich writings through the use Nuu-chah-nulth or Nootka England. the gist of a book of hers Picture Gallery in London. of fictional names,” Bridge people, ‘Klee Wyck,’ mean- During this period she first published in 1953 en- The long overdue show said. “I was able to make ing Laughing One. reportedly collapsed in the titled Pause: A Sketch Book. coincided with the release connections and decipher On her return voyage to fall of 1902 with acute anae- Emily Carr came back to of Kathryn Bridge’s Emily identities, to create a much Victoria, the ship’s purser mia and was interned in the Canada in 1904. Carr in England covering more accurate chronology named William Locke Pad- East Anglia Sanatorium in Carr’s dual adeptness at Carr’s sojourn to England of her whereabouts and don fell in love with her— Suffolk, England for health writing and painting once as a budding artist. interactions, and to make but it was “an immense love reasons that have never prompted George Wood- Carr arrived in 1899, at connections between Carr that I could neither accept been adequately explained cock to comment, “She age 27, and returned five and her peers.” [nor] return.” or identified. would have made a good years later. While at the The Vancouver Art Gal- sister for William Blake.” lery has a permanent room Westminster School of Art, 978-0-7726-6770-0 Carr was keen to participate to show Emily Carr’s work, ✫ but it’s the Royal BC Muse- in a segregated class for DESIGNED TO ACCOMPANY THE female artists drawing from um in Victoria that houses exhibit in London, From the nude. the world’s largest collection the Forest to the Sea: Em- “I had never been taught of Emily Carr’s art—more ily Carr in British Colum- to think of our naked bod- than 1,100 works of art bia (Goose Lane Editions ies as something beautiful,” (paintings and sketches), $50) is edited by Sarah Mil- she wrote, “only as some- plus rugs, pottery and ar- roy and Ian De- thing indecent, something chival and library records. jardin and gives to be hidden… [The model’s] ✫ a panorama of beauty delighted the artist THE YOUNGEST OF FIVE SISTERS, Carr’s entire ca- in us. The illuminated glow Emily Carr was born in reer as an artist. of her flesh made sacred the the year British Colum- 978-0864928696 busy hush as we worked.” bia entered Confederation, ✫ on December 13, 1871. A brother was born several KATHRYN BRIDGE’S BOOK INCLUDES historical photographs, years later. Her mother died Carr’s own sketches, paint- when she was twelve and ings and her so-called “fun- her domineering father died ny books,” some of which in 1888 when ‘Millie’ was have never been published 14. A much detested and before. pious older sister made her One of her illustrated life miserable, sometimes funny books makes fun of whipping her, until Emily the guest house in which Carr was able to study art she lived; another describes in San Francisco. an unsuccessful attempt After returning to Victo- to see Queen Victoria’s ria in 1895, she was invited funeral procession. A third by a missionary friend of describes a painting excur- her sister Lizzie to make sion into the woods of St. the first of her forays into Ives, Cornwall. the primeval rainforests “The five years Emily of the West Coast, visiting Carr spent in England at art Ucluelet in 1899 where her schools have been largely sister was becoming a mis- forgotten or underappreci- ated in terms of her development as an artist and as a mature adult,” Bridge says. “This is in part because in later life Carr did not dwell on this time, although she did write about some aspects in her book, Grow- ing Pains.” Copies of the book have been sent to Dulwich Pic- ture Gallery in London to complement the new Carr exhibit—some 105 years after Carr left. “My motivation in writing this book was to flesh out these years and to use today’s technologies—web-

England wasn’t jolly for Emily Carr in 1901—far from it—but her five- year sojourn made her into an artist.

19 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S AWARD WINNER! CBC CANADA READS 2015 FINALIST!

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20 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 LOOK OUT54 A quarterly forum for and about writers; as well as a series about the origins of B.C. publishing houses.

LUCIA’S CHOICE BY KEVEN DREWS In her unprecedented memoir of uring yet another famine, Lucia Jang was ex- human trafficking and labour camps, pected to choose be- Lucia Jang describes what it takes to tween aborting her late- Dterm baby or giving it up to be survive as a woman in North Korea. killed—a North Korean variation of Sophie’s Choice (the movie set during the Holocaust, starring Meryl Jang was born in the 1970s to an engineer fa- Eventually, after her capture by a border ther and kindergarten-teacher mother. Her par- guard, Jang finds herself imprisoned in North Streep). ents weren’t members of the communist party Korea for a second time. Due to prison over- because relatives had fled to South Korea, which crowding, she returns to her family home where In the final chapters of her nightmarish “was one of the worst things that could befall a the mother of a friend informs Jang she is now memoir, Between the Sun and the Moon: One family.” under her watch. “The baby will be killed after Woman’s Life in North Korea and Escape In North Korea, a family’s status is based on it is born,” the visitor tells her. Who is to do to Freedom (D&M $32.95), Jang takes a third its relationship to the ruling party. A family can the killing? Is it Jang or the state? This infor- option... be punished for generations. Jang’s family was mation is left unclear. Jang’s mother tells her Assisted by award-winning journalist and co- forced to live in an unheated house, far from daughter to do whatever she chooses, and so author Susan McClelland and translator the capital, with no party perks or privileges. her journey to freedom begins. Soohyun Nam, Jang has provided a riveting tes- Food was scarce throughout her life. The Jangs To escape what is arguably the world’s most timony about North Korea’s atrocities and hu- often nibbled weeds to ease their hunger pangs, repressive society, Lucia Jang must turn her man-rights’ violations. Along the way, the reader and as a child she played games like “ration back on her family forever. realizes the adjective “Orwellian” fails to ad- shop.” In his afterword, Professor Stephan Hag- equately describe the culture of North Korea. In school, students learn North Koreans are gard of the UC San Diego School of Interna- The all-knowing, all-powerful state led by of pure spirit and mind, and “all the rest of the tional Relations and Pacific Studies, Kim Il-sung is forever omnipresent in homes people are beasts.” Conversely, despite omnipres- summarizes: “The power of this account rests and schools where portraits of the “great fa- ent surveillance, rape and physical violence are ... on underscoring the oppressive constraints ther and eternal president” are hung. Every- common. Jang’s first child was born from non- of the Kim family regime, a silent but endur- where else there are informants and the secret consensual sex. She chose to marry the father, ing and all-pervasive presence in the life story police, the Boweebu, who can make families van- who turned out to be an alcoholic. He beat her of every North Korean … This memoir, and ish. Party leaders at the local level monitor the and left her. Her mother arranged a forced adop- others like it, pose one of the central, moral behaviour of families. North Koreans must pub- tion for her first child. issues of our day: how to bring freedom to licly denounce their own crimes and personal Desperate to help feed her family in the face of North Korea.” 978-1-77162-035-2 failings at regular meetings known as famine, Jang began to illegally cross into China saenghwalchonghwa. to sell food. She was forced to sell sex at one point Keven Drews is a full-time journalist ✫ just to eat, although how much of a choice and who is concurrently pursuing a Master’s FROM HER DIARY, SANDWICHED BETWEEN TWO LETTERS how much of the situation was rape is murky to degree in creative writing at Pacific Lutheran to the son she refused to kill, we learn Lucia the reader and maybe even to Jang, too. University in Tacoma.

21 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • SPRING • 2015 PUBLISHING

Woody Allen biographer creative writing department, and of course was at the front desk and a writer came storm- Cherie Smith and Buddy Smith. ing in looking for Christopher Lehman- Can you tell us a bit about what you’ve Haupt, an editor who had written a negative David Evanier is helping been working on lately? review of his book. The writer was beet red, I’m currently working on a biography of Woody shaking his fists, screaming, “Where is he? Allen. My most recent books are The Great I’m going to kick him in the balls.” to raise the profile of the Kisser, a novel; a biography of Tony Bennett, Curiously, I found a lot of this writer’s old All the Things You Are; and a biography of novels on a book stall recently and thought of Bobby Darin, Roman Candle. this incident. He’s one of the forgotten ones. publication he started My novel about the Julius and Ethel How did you come up with the name for Rosenberg espionage case, Red Love, has re- EVENT? cently been reissued as an e-book. I wanted each issue to be a notable event, a in 1971. With Woody Allen, recent allegations have memorable event. cast him in a troubling light. What are your What were your feelings on leaving EVENT? round the time David Evanier founded the thoughts on being a biographer as an in- Too much sorrow. I came back a couple of terpreter of others’ lives? years to visit, and almost stayed. literary periodical EVENT for Douglas College, It’s essential to capture the full complexity of After EVENT, you moved on to The Paris when the campus in New Westminster was little any person’s character and life. Obviously I Review. How was that experience? cannot be judgmental or be enticed by colour- George Plimpton was very generous toward more than a collection of trailers, Jon Paul ful accounts, pro or con, by interviewees. I me. He called me from a plane to tell me he FromFrom must respect the artist. was publishing a story of mine. Then he pub- HenryA took an iconic black-and-white photograph of David Woody Allen is a revolutionary. He came lished two more. Then I started reading from Evanier and his memorable sideburns. and conquered the entire world and even his the slush pile for him and coming up with earliest standup comedy is still timeless. So, discoveries. And so he hired me as fiction That quirky photo of Evanier with his black glasses and sideburns has been EVENT is using this 1970s objectivity and fairness are my objectives. editor. incorporated into the design for promotional tote bags that are just weird enough photo of David Evanier as Is non-fiction a recent passion, or were you It was a very glamorous world of George’s, to pique the interest of idiosyncratic New York writerly types who’ve been buying part of their fundraising interested in life stories while you were full of the beautiful people. I was not comfort- them for the past year or so. campaign. Below is David with EVENT? able in it. He couldn’t understand why I didn’t Evanier is now lending his name to a fundraising campaign to bolster the EVENT Evanier as he looks today. EVENT The line for me between fiction and non-fic- want to eat at Elaine’s or hang out with Nor- publication. tion is a thin one. Sometimes, as a result, I man Mailer. So who the heck is he? ✫ will insert a real name into a story or novel. Part of it was certainly my own problem. It’s obvious that certain people we encounter They call it fear of success and I would call it BORN IN NEW YORK CITY IN 1947, David Evanier worked on a kibbutz in Israel, at are fabulous talkers. They just have to open an inferiority complex. I got over it. I guess I The New York Times as a copy boy and editorial assistant, and at The New Leader as their mouths and we know we can just sit saw that world as corrupting and I was a purist an assistant editor, before arriving in Canada in 1968. back and write down what they say without in those days. But in fact the literary world Once he reached Vancouver, being able to say he had worked at The New York altering it. Is that still fiction? Who cares as is saturated with these types of people, and Times helped him get work at Douglas College where he briefly taught creative toto ParisParis long as it works? some of them are brilliant and some of them writing, edited EVENT and gave the publication its name. Some Italians are fabulous talkers; so are are shnooks. “I wanted to implement my ideals and convictions about literature in a maga- some blacks and Jews. Night guards, lonely I also went to Hollywood on a zine that published only the best, most alive writing,” he says. “I wanted each people who have no one to talk to, are haunt- screenwriting fellowship from Stephen issue to be a notable event, a memorable event.” ing talkers. Spielberg’s Chesterfield Film Company and Evanier married in Vancouver in 1970, around the time he Some true stories are so fantastic they have stayed there from 1993 to 2002. That’s a gained an MA in creative writing from UBC. His first novel was to be told straight and not be disguised as whole different kind of literary world where published by Cherie Smith’s fledgling Vancouver imprint called fiction. I think that’s true of my book Making the money, if you make it, is so big and tempt- November House. ReviewReview the Wiseguys Weep, my biography of Jimmy ing you can’t wait to sell out. “Cherie Smith,” he says, “was a passionate, spirited tigress of Roselli, the singer who called himself “the One of my first acts was to visit the house independent publishing. She was closely aligned with Jacob sweetheart of the Mafia.” It’s true that the where Bukowski had lived on Delongpre Av- Zilber, the editor of Prism International at UBC. Mafia did love him, and when I interviewed enue. There was also a bookstore in Holly- “I think November House came about partly because of the many of the characters around Roselli, I just wood run by a guy named Big Red that was a inspiration of one remarkable first novel that Prism published, Cherie Smith could not have invented dialogue better than shrine to Bukowski, it sold only Bukowski Summer of the Black Sun, by Bill T. O’Brien. That was a remark- what I heard from them. books. able discovery written by a young man who was, as I remember, driving a truck at to NYC I thought in my early days as a writer that I’m still in shock from that world, although the time. to NYC only fiction was real literature. Now it’s obvi- Nathanael West got it right in Day of the Lo- “I later published a wonderful story by him in EVENT. Jake Zilber worked ous to me that great writing can come from cust and Miss Lonelyhearts in 1939. I thought closely with Bill in developing that novel. I think you would find that Summer of many different genres. If it jumps off the page I would enjoy all that sleaze, but I got over it. the Black Sun holds up beautifully. I still teach it. and grabs you, it’s great, period. Are you working on anything else at the “November House was, I think, partly financed by Cherie’s brilliant husband, Autobiographies like A Life by Elia Kazan, moment? Julian (Buddy) Smith, who ran a number of bookstore warehouses in Vancou- A Walker in the City by Alfred Kazin, and Act My other projects are my novel in progress ver. Bill O’Brien died very young. One by Moss Hart are masterpieces. and a biography of Morton Sobell, who was ”I will never forget how Cherie accepted my novel, The Swinging Headhunter, What was going on—in your head, in your convicted of espionage for the Soviet Union for publication. I was laid up with a serious bout of hepatitis, and very depressed. life—when you started EVENT? along with Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. I She chose that moment to call me and tell me she was taking my novel for publi- I really wanted to publish the work of writers wrote of Morton fictionally in my novel Red cation. It made for a rapid recovery. Don Porter’s eyes lit up and left no doubt that I loved—those known to me and those I dis- Love. I also have three of my novels coming “I cannot think of Cherie without thinking of Bill O’Brien, Jake Zilber, Alice The following interview was I was hired. covered. out as e-books from Open Road. Munro, Gordon Pinsent, and Buddy Smith all of whom remain vibrant figures for conducted by Joshua Grant, I met my wife Dini the first semester at Charles Bukowski, with whom I was cor- Finally, what are you reading these days? me.” ✫ on-line editor of EVENT. Douglas and we were married in 1970. And I responding for years, was emerging as a great Woody Allen. The plays of August Wilson. know I’ve mentioned him a lot, but George— talent, and I published him in many issues. I The fiction of Jennifer Belle, Alice Munro, DAVID EVANIER LEFT VANCOUVER IN 1973 and later became a fiction editor for The Paris How did it feel when you saw your face on George Wootton—he was the soul of Douglas, also had many contacts in the publishing Edward P. Jones, Philip Roth, Iris Owens Review, working for George Plimpton. our tote bags? ever-questing, galvanizing, full of passion and world and was able to go to writers like (After Claude), Ralph Ellison, Richard Yates, Evanier has since been a writer-in-residence at the MacDowell Colony in New I was elated when I discovered the tote bags. emotion and churning ideas and good vibes. Cynthia Ozick, Charles Reznikoff and Dostoyevsky’s The Insulted and Injured, Toni Hampshire five times, taught at UCLA and won the Aga Khan Fiction Prize and I had Googled my name and there they were. And a very kind and generous man. I never Harvey Shapiro, all of whom I had the deep- Morrison’s Bluest Eye, Jonathan Schwartz’s the McGinniss Ritchie Short Fiction Award. It was a wonderful feeling to have Douglas stop thinking of him. est regard for. The Man Who Knew Cary Grant, Daniel Currently the filmmaking team of Merchant & Ivory is making a movie based on College and EVENT recognize me this way. It And there were other characters who were It seems that you were pretty prescient re- Gordis’s biography of Menachem Begin, the Evanier’s Mafia biography, Making the Wise Guys Weep, that was twice optioned by brought back a flood of memories about Doug- part of my life then: David Watmough, the garding Bukowski and others. Are there any letters of Jonathan Netanyahu, Charles John Travolta. las and EVENT, about some of my most gifted talented Vancouver writer and playwright who writers that you regret turning down? Graeber’s The Good Nurse, Blake Bailey’s bi- For the past year he has been spending twelve hours per day at the Writers students there — Jacqui Polk, David Fal- introduced me to James Colistro, editor of a No, not one. George Plimpton, my boss at The ography of Richard Yates, Yossi Klein Room, an urban writers’ colony in Manhattan, where he has been completing his coner, Lyle Lonneberg, Laverne McPhail new show-business publication he was Paris Review, told me that I had a built-in shit Halevi’s Like Dreamers. Also His Wife Leaves forthcoming biography of Woody Allen. and Bea Dawson, wondering where they are founding, Stage Door. detector. But when you turn down writers, Him by Stephen Dixon and The Cost of Living David Evanier lives in Brooklyn. and how they are doing. I had, of course, been I went on from UBC to become editor of some of them NEVER forgive you. by Mavis Gallant. in touch with Jon Paul Henry [now an in- Stage Door in Toronto, a riotous and happy When my work has been turned down, I structor at Douglas College]. I remembered time that ended very quickly and brought me feel terrible, but I try again, and again, un- For more on David Evanier, including EVENT has garnered numerous national and western magazine awards, as well as a Journey being interviewed for the job by Don Porter back to Vancouver and the hiring by Douglas less I don’t respect the editor. his list of books, see ABCBookWorld. Prize and a Pushcart Prize. To make a donation, visit eventmagazine.ca/donate or donate and George Wootton. The moment I men- College. And I cannot forget my mentors at My first job, before Douglas, was in the His forthcoming book is simply entitled via EVENT, P.O. Box 2503, New Westminster, B.C. V3L 5B2. Donations are tax deductible. tioned having worked at The New York Times, Woody Allen caricature by John Kascht UBC, Doug Bankson and Jacob Zilber of the Sunday Book Review of The New York Times. I Woody (St. Martin’s Press 2015).

22 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • SPRING • 2015 23 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • SPRING • 2015 NEW FROM AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR

When the Worst Happens: Extraordinary Stories of Survival What makes the difference TanyaTanya between survival and death in extreme situations? Read these suspenseful true accounts to find out.

Ages 9–12 / 128 pages LloydLloyd 978-1-55451-682-7 pb KyiKyi 978-1-55451-683-4 hc

Also by Tanya Lloyd Kyi: 50 Body Questions: A Book That Spills Its Guts “A tour (de force) through the human body …” —Kirkus, *starred review The Lowdown on Denim “... detailed, readable, engaging …”—The Deakin Review of Children’s Literature Seeing Red: The True Story of Blood Kyi’s matter of fact, macabre style is very effective in drawing readers (especially reluctant ones) to her text ...” —CM Reviews For a complete listing, visit www.annickpress.com

| annick press | www.annickpress.com | available from your favourite bookseller

New Titles From Oolichan Books

Fernie, B.C. - www.oolichan.com - [email protected]

Cease: A Memoir of Ex-villeE Love, Loss and Desire RhonaR McAdam Lynette Loeppky 978-0-88982-306-89 978-0-88982-309-9 PPoetry - 80 pages Memoir - 400 pages PPaperback • $17.95 Down To Earth Paperback • $22.95 RhonaR McAdam’s sixth JenniferJ Heath & “Cease unfolds as a brilliant ccollection of poems reflects Helen McAllister and devastating memoir of uupon what we leave behind: 978-0-88982-302-0 how two women face the thet people, places and Gardening - 192 pages unpredictable forces of love jjourneys that shape our lives. Paperback • $29.95 and death.” Ex-villeE is a book to welcome ~ARITHA VAN HERK anda celebrate, and then return to, often. Two friends began peeking over fences to find out New & Selected how people grow their own food. In vivid colour, The Trees of Down to Earth celebrates the viability of cold-climate Poems Calan Gray gardening. Stories, tips, and recipes inspire you to W.H. New plant a few seeds and create your own food security. Danial Neil 978-0-88982-310-5 978-0-88982-297-9 No matter where you live, this book will help you Poetry - 248 pages Fiction - 268 pages meet the challenges of a short growing season. Paperback • $21.95 Paperback • $19.95 W. H. (Bill) New became one Calan Gray talks to trees. of our most inspiring and They speak back to him, he innovative Canadian poets Win Books from Oolichan hears the language of trees. with the publication of ten They become his sanctuary volumes of poetry over a span Visit www.oolichan.com and enter against a violent father who of twenty years. The variety our contest to win a selection of wishes to commit him to an and intensity of experience in institution for expressing such titles, a set for yourself and one for these ten books is remarkable delusions. It is 1964, and your local library. and the experimentation with the world is a harsh place for form often extraordinary. those who are different.

24 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 ENVIRONMENT GreatGreat BearBear actionaction figurefigure Like David Suzuki for forty years, Ian McAllister prefers to operate outside the realm of conventional politics.

Ian McAllister

It’s not a painting. This image of two wolves is one of thousands of photos taken by Ian McAllister for Great Bear Wild.

HOW IT ALL STARTED... purchases from B.C.-based operations BY KEVIN DREWS at old canneries and trekking through accused of poor logging methods, to the the rainforest. His photos and nar- IN 1990, IAN MCALLISTER JOINED HIS n Tracking The Great Bear, consternation of the Forest Alliance of rative capture the rhythms of terres- father, Peter McAllister, a past presi- Justin Page, an environ- B.C. spokesman Patrick Moore. trial and marine life. Images of bears, dent of the Sierra Club of Western mental social scientist for The following month Greenpeace wolves, herring, anemones, sea stars Canada, and other environmentalists, an environmental consulting staged anti-logging protests in Antwerp and kelp, humpback whales, orcas and journalists and photographers for a company based in Vancouver and 23 German cities. In Antwerp, 30 rainforests fill the pages. So fantastic one-week reconnaissance voyage to the called ERM Rescan, identi- Belgian activists painted a 100-metre are the photos, so vivid are their co- remote Koeye River. fies Ian McAllister as the slogan on the hull of Saga Wind, a lours, they tend to distract the reader Ian McAllister and his future wife, main member of an “actor network” freighter carrying B.C. lumber. It read, from the written word. Karen Schulz, grew more interested in I that generated the 2006 conservation “Don’t buy rainforest destruction. Stop Many people already take the exis- the area when they later saw an inven- agreement. Page shows that conser- Doman and Interfor.” tence of the Great Bear Rainforest for tory map of habitat, compiled by Keith vation agreement was no small feat The B.C. government eventually granted, as if the area is sacrosanct, Moore, under contract with Earthlife because the stretch of coast was “ma- introduced measures to protect some but parts of the Great Bear Rainforest Canada and Ecotrust. terially and politically aligned with the of the Great Bear Rainforest in 2006, are now being considered for the future To share their vision of protecting interests of the forest industry, and its promising to allocate $30 million if the home of liquefied natural gas plants a 2,000-kilometre strip of coastal bear uninspiring name was simply the ‘Mid- federal government matched that com- and the proposed terminus of Enbridge habitat from Knight Inlet to Alaska, the Coast Timber Supply Area.’” mitment. In 2007, the federal govern- Inc.’s Northern Gateway pipeline. McAllisters and a few friends formed Page traces how environmentalists ment pledged to spend $30 million to Tankers could soon ply those same the Raincoast Conservation Society negotiated the agreement through a help preserve 1.2 million hectares of waters, carrying petroleum products in 1990. “linked series of processes.” That sim- rainforest, the largest intact temperate from Alberta’s oil sands to a port in A boat was needed to properly ex- ply means they mapped the area, giving rainforest left on earth. An additional the coastal community of Kitimat. The plore the area, so when Ian and Karen it boundaries and a physical descrip- $60 million was raised by private or- Great Bear Rainforest is also threat- heard about a used trimaran sailboat tion and shape; they published stories ganizations and philanthropic groups. ened—despite the 2006 agreement—by for sale in Ontario, they bought the 36- and photos of it; they shifted the focus fish farms, industrial logging, seismic foot Companion over the phone, with AND HOW IT IS NOW... and interest of fellow environmental- testing, unsustainable fisheries, and money from their treeplanting jobs. ists to the area, capturing the world’s THE GREAT BEAR RAINFOREST ON B.C.’S hunting. Neither had sailed alone before. attention; and they managed to woo central and northern coastline now McAllister adds towards the end: “... The McAllisters made seven pilgrim- forest companies and First Nations to covers an area three times the size most of these multi-billion-dollar fossil ages in seven years, verifying Moore’s support their cause. McAllister’s work of Prince Edward Island. The cen- fuel transport schemes, including refin- inventory map and collecting stories as a photographer in the field was tral figure in two new books eries and liquefaction plant proposals, and photos for a book that would en- fundamental. For instance, one that focus on the Great Bear are so ill-conceived and economically, gender the safeguarding of the bear of his photos was later used Rainforest is photographer- culturally and environmentally flawed habitat. Ian and Karen McAllister in an environmental adver- writer-activist Ian McAl- that they should be discounted out- eventually chose the name Great Bear tising campaign in The New lister of Bella Bella, who right.” Rainforest for the region along with en- York Times. has written Great Bear That declarative ending seems to vironmental activist Tzeporah Berman Now Ian McAllister has Wild: Dispatches from enforce one of Page’s central argu- in San Francisco in 1996. released Great Bear Wild: a Northern Rainforest ments: McAllister is not just targeting With a foreword by Robert Kennedy Dispatches from a North- (Greystone $50). UBC doc- a general audience; his writing and Jr., the McAllisters’ coffee table book, ern Rainforest. Departing toral student Justin Page has photography is specifically crafted The Great Bear Rainforest: Canada’s from the northern tip of written Tracking The Great to appeal to people who may be con- Forgotten Coast (Harbour, 1997), co- Vancouver Island, he Bear: How Environmentalists vinced to back an environmental cam- written with Cameron Young, quickly stops just to the north Recreated British Columbia’s paign. Saving bears, saving wolves, became one of the most influential in the Triangle Coastal Rainforest saving salmon. Saving ourselves. books in Canadian history. Time Maga- Islands and (UBC $95). 9780774826716 zine heralded Ian and Karen McAllister then visits 978-1-77164-045-9 as “Environmental Leaders for the 21st First Nations PHOTO Century.” communities Justin Page Keven Drews is a full-time journal- While touring Europe in March of like Hartley GRANT ist concurrently pursuing a Master’s

1998, Ian McAllister persuaded some Bay, also degree in creative writing at Pacific JOZI pulp and paper companies to curtail stopping off Lutheran University in Tacoma.

25 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 Live. Create. Sustain. Fresh ideas from New Society Publishers.

The Big Swim A stunningly beautiful memoir Serious adventure on a serious about a world that I love. planet. This is the kind of thinking and Coming Ashore in a —Ruth Ozeki , author, living we need to engage in. World Adrift A Tale for the Time Being —Bill McKibben, author, Oil and Honey, Eaarth and CARRIE SAXIFRAGE Beautifully crafted, often touching and The End of Nature unexpectedly funny, here is your hand- US/Can $16.95 book to living deeply in perilous times. Carrie Saxifrage knows that PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-798-5 —J.B. MacKinnon, author real change comes from the head and The 100-Mile Diet the heart working together, and gently pulls us along on her journey to a The Big Swim is a riveting read. deeper place of understanding. It’s Eat, Pray, Love for the climate era. —Maude Barlow, National Chairperson, I couldn’t put it down. Council of Canadians —Tzeporah Berman, author, This Crazy Time

TOOLS FOR A WORLD OF CHANGE c BOOKS TO BUILD A NEW SOCIETY

Homemade for Sale Seed Libraries The Color of Food Heal Local How to Set Up and Market a And Other Means of Keeping Seeds Stories of Race, Resilience and Farming 20 Essential Herbs for Do-it-Yourself Food Business from Your Home Kitchen in the Hands of the People NATASHA BOWENS Home Healthcare LISA KIVIRIST & JOHN IVANKO CINDY CONNER US/Can $29.95 DAWN COMBS US/Can $22.95 US/Can $19.95 PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-789-3 US/Can $29.95 PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-786-2 Pb ISBN: 978-0-86571-782-4 The Color of Food captures the heart and souls of farmers PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-796-1 Mother Earth News Wiser Living Choice Cindy Conner encourages us to set up our own of color... farmers that are frequently forgotten as the Mother Earth News Wiser Living Choice Like seedlings and piglets, big things start small, and that local seed libraries. As Cindy says, “whoever controls stories of agriculture in our country are told. Homegrown herbal remedies for illness, means you and me, and the kitchen sink. Yes, we can! the seeds controls the food supply.” —Cynthia Hayes, Executive director of Southeastern injuries and preventative health care. —Severine v T Fleming, director of Greenhorns —Ira Wallace, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange African American Farmers Organic Network

Backyard Biodiesel After Progress The Joy of Missing Out Afterburn How to Brew Your Own Fuel Reason and Religion at the Finding Balance in a Wired World Society Beyond Fossil Fuels LYLE ESTILL & BOB ARMANTROUT End of the Industrial Age CHRISTINA CROOK RICHARD HEINBERG US/Can $24.95 JOHN MICHAEL GREER US/Can $17.95 US/Can $18.95 PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-785-5 US/Can $19.95 PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-767-1 PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-788-6 Mother Earth News Wiser Living Choice PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-791-6 A critique of digital assumptions. A welcome The Party’s Over changed my life. At last! —a biofuel book that is realistic about After Progress is an excellent introduction to reminder of the real world and its tech shadows. Perhaps Afterburn will change yours. global supply potential while being hands-on useful Greer’s insightful big-picture thinking grounded —Raffi Cavoukian, C.M., singer, author, —Rob Hopkins, founder of the to the backyard or garage enthusiast… Estill in an all-too-rare knowledge of history, Lightweb Darkweb Transition movement and Armatrout get it right. ecology, and economics. —Richard Heinberg, author, Peak Everything —Rev. Michael Dowd, author, Thank God for Evolution new society PUBLISHERS www.newsociety.com

26 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 ENVIRONMENT

ICK BEAMISH ARRIVED and putting that into the policies and in B.C. in 1974 political decisions that drive how we after breaking new manage the Strait of Georgia? ground as a ‘co- MCFARLANE: In the past we made discoverer’ of acid decisions based on this fish, or are we rain in Ontario. It harming this particular little area. We took 20 years for Strait goods didn’t look at it as a system. I think Dthe science to be recognized and for we’re just beginning to take all the in- governments to set new emission stan- formation we have and use it to assess dards. He was also a member of the “You have to focus the money on the issues the overall ecosystem. International Panel on Climate Change BEAMISH: That’s why the intent of that received the Nobel Prize in 2007. that scientists think are the most important.” the book is to provide people with the Sandy McFarlane has spent 30 background information that exists years as an internationally recognized key to understanding what’s going ing a moratorium [as recommended by scientifically. The experts volunteered fisheries researcher, studying both on with the Strait of Georgia. But you the Cohen Commission] is probably a their time. It’s scientific information, individual species and how the marine know this old issue: you can’t manage good one. All the evidence so far that but it’s not written for scientists. It’s ecosystem functions. what you can’t measure. Sandy and I’ve seen is still pretty inconclusive, but understandable, and the kind of infor- Together, as scientists at the Pa- I both feel that we need a lot better it indicates that having those farms mation that British Columbians need cific Biological Research Station in monitoring and measuring of plankton. in those areas is not quite as bad as to have to make good decisions. Nanaimo, they invited ten It’s just amazing how small some people might think. We’ve given We are not going to stop all develop- other experts to help them changes in the environment the aquaculture industry eight years to ment. But the development that we do complete an unprecedented, affect plankton, which then show us that, in fact, that statement is have, we want to make sure that there is 384-page book about the affects all the other species. correct. And in those eight years there’s an understanding of what impacts could geology, biology and an- BCBW: The Pacific Bio- been a moratorium; so there’s been no be. And if there are impacts, they are thropology of the Strait of logical Research Station is a new farms. That’s probably a reason- going to be monitored and measured. Georgia, illustrated by more LOUISE federally funded institution. able approach on the part of the govern- BCBW: So how would you rate the than 250 colour photos, MARK Given the recent cutbacks, ment to address this issue because it’s overall health of the strait? maps and charts. FOYSYTHEDONNELLY do we have the resources of huge concern to British Columbians. BEAMISH: Well, first you have to The Strait of Georgia, as and people required to do BCBW: What do you see coming in gather background information from defined in The Sea Among Us: The what you’re describing: to monitor the terms of population expansion and in- the people that have expertise, then you Amazing Strait of Georgia (Harbour health of plankton? Or anything else dustrial development around the strait? can start to decide not just what the $39.95), is part of the larger Salish Sea, in Georgia Strait? MCFARLANE: I think the estimates health is, but also what the complexity which also includes the Strait of Juan BEAMISH: The short answer probably right now are 75% of British Colum- is for stewardship. de Fuca and Puget Sound. is no. But the amount of monitoring bians live within 10 km of the Strait MCFARLANE: You have to bring all Mark Forsythe, former host of BC that needs to be done is probably of Georgia and that is projected to parties to the same table. If they have Almanac on CBC Radio, spoke with Dick beyond the ability of governments to double within the next 30 to 40 years. a common understanding of how the Beamish and Sandy McFarlane the day afford. So you have to focus the money It’s going to be a tremendous amount actual ecosystem works, then you can their book was launched. 978-1-55017-683-4 on the issues that scientists think are of new stress on the strait. More con- be talking from the same baseline. most critical. As you know, that’s not taminants. There will be increases in BCBW: You talk a lot about plankton always an easy thing to do. marine traffic, no matter what. Mark Forsythe recently retired from in the book—and how much one degree BCBW: How should we be responding BCBW: Obviously many people are CBC Radio and plans to spend more of warming can affect the food chain to the impact of open net cage fish concerned about increased tanker traf- time exploring and writing about supply… farming on wild stocks? fic and pipelines. So how well are we B.C. This transcript is an edited BEAMISH: Plankton is probably the MCFARLANE: I think the idea of hav- doing at taking what scientists know version of a longer conversation.

STRAIT FACTS: • The Strait of Georgia now has the highest density of harbour seals in the world even though harbour seals were once hunted almost to extinction. • Pacific white-sided dolphins have returned after an absence of more than 100 years. • There are 223 marine fish species, with at least 350 marine plants. • Royalties from book sales for The Sea Among Us will be directed to the Pacific Salmon Foundation to benefit its Salish Sea Marine Survival Project • The Strait of Georgia is critical habitat for millions of migratory birds. • The world’s largest octopus lives in its waters.

Sandy McFarlane (left) and Dick Beamish have received the 2015 American Fisheries Society’s Haig-Brown Award that recognizes outstanding, non-technical publi- PHOTO

Gulls attack a spawning cations on fishery management, Pacific herring research, and habitat protection. PENNELL

BILL

27 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 WRITING, PROOFREADING, FLYING WITH EDITING, SECRETARIAL WHITE EAGLE reviews 25+ years of experience writing Ayliffe “Pat” Carey letters and preparing documents (1903–1999) in his own words – as told to Ben Nuttall-Smith in government and for law firms Pat’s experiences In this image from - no job too small - from a 1 page Caravaggio: Signed growing up in in Blood, the artist resume to a 600 page manuscript B.C.’s Fraser Caravaggio ostensibly - research projects - fact-checking Valley, and as a used his own face to reasonable I homesteader and depict the severed - rates - will meet head of Goliath your deadline - let’s discuss how logger, provide and the face of his I can be of help insight into companion Beppo to pioneering days depict David. in the early “His work is in all respects 20th century. excellent. Darren is an intelligent His stories of person who approaches his work flying from with common sense and initiative.” Chilliwack to Canada’s Far North ISBN 978-0-9865938-9-5 are fascinating Darren Lowe $14.95 CN (146 pages) tales of aviation Available from the author at [email protected] history. www.bennuttall-smith.ca

New Spring Fiction from Thistledown Press

The Little Washer of Sorrows by Katherine Fawcett “Katherine Fawcett works magic here, whips imagination, wit, and anarchy into gold. Each story finds a place where our culture is already strange and jumps off from there.” – Fred Stenson, author of CARAVAGGIO & ME The Great Karoo On the run with one of history’s wildest artists.

Caravaggio: Signed in Blood On the run through the crowded $18.95 / 978-1-771870-49-8 (Tradewind $12.95) by Mark Smith Milano streets, Beppo chances upon “the most famous painter in all of Ita- Brunch with the Jackals lia,” Caravaggio, who is taunting the by Don McLellan ETTER KNOWN IN THE 20TH CENTURY murderous dandy and his brother at ReLit Award nominee Don McLellan as Caravaggio, the artist who an out-door tennis court. A brawl en- returns with a new collection of gritty and was born in Milan in 1571 sues and Beppo watches in horror as darkly satirical short fiction set in a world of as Michelangelo di Merisi the painter, despite serious wounds, B casually kills the dandy. racism, greed, and betrayal. led a volatile life. Although ostensibly Biblical in origin, his disturbingly real- Quick-thinking Beppo spirits the istic paintings—such as The Behead- painter away and, at the home of Cardinal Del Monte, Beppo poses as $18.95$18 95 / 978-1-771870-50-4978 1 771870 50 4 ing of John the Baptist or David and Goliath—revealed his passionate and the great artist’s servant. The risk of earthy character. He was a man given sheltering two men who are wanted

The Greatest Lover of Last Tuesday to hubris and impulsive violence. for separate murders is too much for by Neil McKinnon By age 20, Caravaggio was toiling Caravaggio’s patron, so Beppo and Eighty-year-old Alberto Camelo has in a factory-like studio in Rome, hav- Caravaggio must flee. proclaimed himself the World’s Greatest ing been forced to flee Milan First, they seek refuge Lover, and he aims to prove it by recounting after wounding a police of- in Napoli, “the richest and the lascivious details of his experience in ficer. Underpaid and grossly most depraved city in the this comic masterpiece about sexuality, over-qualified, he turned world,” where Beppo meets relationships, and aging. out hundreds of masterful the courtesan Fortunata paintings of flowers and fruit Fiammini and becomes $19.95$19 95 / 978-1-771870-62-7 978 1 771870 62 7 until his work was brought besotted with her daughter to the attention of an influ- LOUISE Dolcetta. available March 31 in bookstores and online ential cardinal. DONNELLY Next, there’s a stomach- www.thistledownpress.com ň follow us on Twitter @ReadThistledown Caravaggio became one heaving voyage to Malta, of Italy’s most well-known painters. then a battle with Barbary pirates, a Lucrative commissions and accom- daring escape and a fatal sword fight modating patrons afforded him the op- that makes young Beppo the recipient, portunity to develop a style of painting “by every law of the sea,” of the consid- DYED IN THE GREEN that fused a dramatic play of shadow erable fortune on the pirate caravel. and light with an insistence on working Meanwhile, hot-headed Caravaggio directly from life. This approach was has been imprisoned for shooting a BY GEORGE MERCER a controversial deviation in a time of Maltese knight, and it’s up to Beppo to idealized piety in art. set him free before racing back to Rome In his fast-paced debut teen ad- with a mad plan to claim the hand of Part one of a six-book venture novel Caravaggio: Signed in the delectable Dolcetta. mystery-suspense series Blood, Burnaby English teacher Mark History tells us Caravaggio did in- about Canadian national park Smith picks up the story of Caravag- deed escape from Malta, although he gio’s tempestuous life just before Cara- was stripped of his knighthood. He also wardens and their exploits vaggio kills a man in a street fight. travelled to Sicily and Naples, gaining with poachers, developers The narrator is an orphaned and ever more prominence for his paintings, and bureaucrats. resourceful 15-year-old, Beppo, an and in 1610 he was returning to Rome indentured servant, who has put in for a papal pardon for his crimes when two long years with his “bloated pig of he died. It is assumed he succumbed ISBN 978-0-9879754-0-9 • $19.99 a master” scraping old wine barrels so to lead poisoning, a danger for artists www.georgemercer.com they could be lined with “new wafer-thin of the day. There is also a theory that oak planks” and fobbed off as still us- lead poisoning accounted for his violent Available at Independent Bookstores across Canada. able. When this wine merchant is killed nature. 978-896580-05-0 Also available as an ebook from Amazon and Kobo. by a young dandy in a yellow silk dou- blet, Beppo is accused of the murder. Louise Donnelly writes from Vernon.

28 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 KIDLIT British Columbia Do Your Own Divorce NEW Kit - 2nd Edition EDITION by Alison Sawyer, LAWYER ANYTHING • It’s 100% legal and easy! Do- it-yourself, no lawyer required. • Save hundreds of dollars in IS POSSIBLE legal fees. • Restructured format and order- Joan Betty Stuchner’s books are fueled by optimism. ing for easier understanding. • New edition updated for 2015. Bagels The Brave! (Orca $6.95) boy, David Nathan, and his family try- (Orca $7.95) $39.95 Guide & Forms Bagels On Board ing to keep their bakery open. David’s by Joan Betty Stuchner papa still does the best baking in the + CD-ROM city and mama is making her special honey cake for Rosh Hashanah to wel- Aging Safely in Your Home RIOR TO THE IMMINENT RELEASE OF come the Jewish New Year but very little by Yvonne Poulin and Gordon Morrison her Bagels The Brave! and is sweet in Denmark after three years of Bagels On Board, both se- Nazi occupation. When David is asked • Renovate your surroundings to Pquels to Bagels Come Home! to make a delivery of chocolate éclairs— reﬂect your aging needs. (Orca, 2014) and coincidental with a rare treat with cream and butter so • Make your house or apartment the re-publication of Honey Cake as scarce—he learns his sister is in the safer. A Time To Be Brave from Random Resistance, blowing up buildings and House, Joan Betty Stuchner died of railway tracks. • Tips to stay put and avoid a pancreatic cancer on June 7, 2014. Stuchner included a recipe for the move. She finished the final edits for the new spicy, coffee-flavoured honey cake and • Make the plan to stay in your books from her hospital bed. an afterword about the history of the “Joan was a delight to work with,” Danish Jews. own home for as long as pos- says Orca editor Amy Collins. “Her ✫ sible. joyfulness and enthusiasm JOAN BETTY STUCHNER’S ELEVEN $15.95 Paperback + Download Kit for stories, and for life in books are suffused with op- general, was impossible to timism and delight. “I know miss.” that many writers tell you to Business Cyberbullies and How to Fight Back Stuchner’s stories about imagine you are writing for by Debbie Elicksen an energetic puppy named a specific child,” she once Bagels, rescued from the said, “but I always want to • Protect your brand and your on- pound, were inspired by write for both myself and line reputation. her late mother-in-law’s everyone else, regardless • Respond to hackers and haters. sheltie. She described the of age.” real life model as “not only In The Kugel Valley • Save customers, time, and an escape artist, but totally Klezmer Band (Scholastic, money. uncontrollable, disobedient 1998), Shira wants nothing • Learn how to effectively monitor and ended up being expelled more than to play fiddle with Joan Betty Stuchner, age your social media accounts. from puppy preschool.” eight in Leeds, England Benny and Yossi in their The dog emerged in print klezmer band at weddings $19.95 Paperback + as a mixture of Sheltie, Whippet and and bar mitzvahs. But ten-year-old girls Download Kit Jack Russell terrier. can’t play, says her father. Especially “Joan was my unflagging cheer- one who’s never had a music lesson. leader,” says fellow author Cynthia “This is Canada,” Shira says. “Anything The Nine Rules of Credit: Heinrichs, “and Bagels the Brave! and is possible.” What Everyone Needs to Know Bagels On Board are a joyful legacy. Stuchner continued her “anything is by Richard Moxley They will undoubtedly earn her a whole possible” theme with Sadie the Ballerina new group of readers.” (Scholastic, 2007), the story of a clumsy • Avoid paying thousands more in ✫ girl who wants to be a ballerina. Simi- unnecessary bank rates and fees. BORN ON FEBRUARY 5, 1947 IN LEEDS, ENG- larly her Josephine’s Dream (Silverleaf • Start, rebuild, and maintain per- land, Joan Betty Stuchner arrived in Press, 2008) is a picture-book biography Canada in 1965 and received her B.A. about the life of black singer and dancer sonal credit excellence. in English and teaching from UBC Josephine Baker who left America • Learn insider secrets, money in 1977. Also a Hebrew school to become famous in Paris. saving tips, and how to work the teacher, library assistant and an Set in the mythical Jewish credit scoring model to your ad- occasional stage performer, town of Chelm, populated by vantage. Stuchner wrote the book fools, Stuchner’s Can Hens Give and lyrics for a musical Milk? (Orca, 2011) is • Understand the rules of credit production called Ha- about a rural fam- inside and out. nukkah in Chelm that ily with five children, was produced twice in twelve scrawny chick- $14.95 Paperback + Download Kit Vancouver. Much of the ens, one rooster and writing was derived from not much money. The her Jewish faith. father Shlomo dreams he Wedding Bliss on a Budget by Ethan Baron Set in Nazi-occupied can get milk from their Copenhagen in 1943, chickens. • Tie the knot without going bank- Stuchner’s Honey Anything is possible. rupt Cake (Tradewind, Bagels the Brave: 2007), is about a 9781459804937 • Save thousands of dollars, in Bagels on Board: young Jewish 9781459806955 style. • Tips for a fantastic, frugal event. • Maintain control of your money, your time, and your sanity! $14.95 Paperback + Download Kit www.self-counsel.com 1-800-663-3007 Joan Betty Stuchner dresses as one of her characters, Sadie the Ballerina, for a fundraiser.

29 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 HISTORY Staff From the beautiful Pick to the bizarre It was not all sweetness ‘n’ free love back in the Sixties.

ATHER THAN BEING A PAEAN TO ECCENTRICITY AND BUCOLIC SHARING, Douglas L. Hamilton and Darlene Olesko’s Accidental Eden: Hippie Days on Lasqueti Island (Caitlin Press R$24.95) tells it like was. It’s a riveting and responsible reflection of back-to-land idealism, ingenuity and goofiness. This amusing, warm, smart and well-written local history includes a chapter on the unsolved murder of longtime resident Terry Beck in August of 1980 when he was shot with an ancient .303 rifle, whereupon an islander named OLESKO Brother Richard disappeared soon afterward, possibly mur- DARLENE dered for knowing too much. OF More often levity and kind- ness were the norm. Lasqueti COURTESY Islanders became justifiably

renowned as purists who re- PHOTO fused mod cons. Specifically, the community convinced BC Hydro to re-route its Cheekye-Dunsmuir power line around, rather than through, their island, changing the way BC Hydro managed its power delivery into rural areas. Sitarist on Lasqueti Island photo There have been precious few books attempting to realistically by Barry Churchill, courtesy Caitlin and fully capture the zeitgeist of the hugely influential counter- Press. The Acapella Singers (at(at left)left) culture movement in B.C. Accidental Eden is easily one of the best in their ’Forties attire in 1978: Sue of them. Caitlin Press has also re-issued Gumboot Girls: Adventure, Taylor, Judy Harper, Bonnie, Sherry Love & Survival on the North Coast of B.C., a rare reflection of and Darlene Olesko (co-author). female lives during that era. 978-1-927575-52-9 GOING COASTAL VISITING OUR ROOTS

French Canadians, Furs, and 7UDFNLQJWKH*UHDW%HDU Indigenous Women in the Making How Environmentalists Recreated British RIWKH3DFLȴF1RUWKZHVW Columbia’s Coastal Rainforest -($1%$50$1 -867Ζ13$*( Jean Barman uncovers the forgotten story of the A detailed and conceptually rich account of how French Canadians who, along with the Indigenous the landmark agreement was reached to save women in their lives, shaped the Canadian WKH*UHDW%HDU5DLQIRUHVW DQG$PHULFDQ3DFLȴF1RUWKZHVW January 2015 | paperback | 978-0-7748-2672-3

February 2015 | paperback | 978-0-7748-2805-5

:ULWWHQDVΖ5HPHPEHUΖW Teachings (Ǻŏms tȇǺȇw) from the Life of a Sliammon Elder

(/6Ζ(3$8/Ζ1&2//$%25$7Ζ21:Ζ7+PAIGE 5$Ζ%021$1'+$5021<-2+1621 7KLVH[WUDRUGLQDU\ERRNR΍HUVDUDUHJOLPSVH into the life of a Coast Salish woman and the teachings of the Sliammon people, as told in KHURZQZRUGVDQGVWRU\WHOOLQJVW\OH

January 2015 | paperback | 978-0-7748-2711-9

www.ubcpress.ca stay connected thought that counts

30 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 HERITAGE GROUP DISTRIBUTION

Arctic Ambitions Captain Cook and the Northwest Passage James Barnett and David Nicandri, eds. Much more than a historical account, this handsome anthology, featuring full-colour illustrations and commentary by international scholars, is a timely addition to current debates on climate, culture, and sovereignty in the Canadian north. Heritage House Publishing | $59.95 hc

Camping with Kids in the West To the Lighthouse Roadside Geology in Southern BC and Alberta’s Best Family Campgrounds An Explorer’s Guide to the Island Lighthouses British Columbia Jayne Seagrave of Southwestern BC Bill Mathews and Jim Monger Bestselling travel author Jayne Seagrave is back Peter Johnson, John Walls, and Richard Paddle The fascinating geologic history of southern BC with a new guide on the fine art of family camp- With its lively narrative, detailed maps, and is explained in this user-friendly guide to rocks ing. Includes tips, reviews, and practical ideas for gorgeous photography, this unique companion to and landforms as viewed from the province’s engaging young campers of all ages. southern BC’s amazing coastal beacons will delight highways and ferry routes. Heritage House Publishing | $19.95 pb | $15.99 ebook visitors and locals alike. Heritage House Publishing | $24.95 pb Heritage House Publishing | $19.95 pb | $15.99 ebook

An Altar in the Wilderness The Columbia River Treaty: A Primer Salmon An RMB Manifesto An RMB Manifesto A Scientific Memoir Kaleeg Hainsworth Robert William Sandford, Deborah Harford, Jude Isabella Hainsworth grounds this manifesto in the literary, Jon O’Riordan Investigates a narrative that is important to the philosophical, mystical and historical teachings of Explains the nature of this complex water agree- identity of the Pacific Northwest Coast—the the spiritual masters of both East and West, out- ment and how its impending update will impact salmon as an iconic species. Traditionally it’s been lining the human experience of the sacred in nature. communities, landscapes, industry and water a narrative that is overwhelmingly about conflict. RMB | Rocky Mountain Books | $16 hc | $7.99 ebook supplies for years to come. But is that always necessarily the case? RMB | Rocky Mountain Books | $16 hc | $7.99 ebook RMB | Rocky Mountain Books | $20 pb | $9.99 ebook

All the Dirt Beauty by Design The Deerholme Foraging Book Reflections on Organic Farming Inspired Gardening in the Pacific Northwest Wild Foods and Recipes from the Pacific Northwest Rachel Fisher, Heather Stretch, and Robin Tunnicliffe Bill Terry and Rosemary Bates Bill Jones Proving that there is no right way to start a farm Terry and Bates travel to eleven of the Pacific This ultimate guide to foraging in the Pacific and no single solution to any problem, this how-to Northwest’s most beautiful gardens to share Northwest features recipes for local edible book about small-scale organic farming from the a treasure trove of ideas and enchantment for plants, sea vegetables, and shellfish, and includes co-owners of Saanich Organics is a must-read. seasoned gardeners and beginners alike. techniques for harvesting, processing, and TouchWood Editions | $29.95 pb | $24.99 ebook TouchWood Editions | $24.95 pb | $19.99 ebook preserving foraged products. TouchWood Editions | $29.95 pb | $24.99 ebook HERITAGE GROUP DISTRIBUTION 1.800.665.3302

31 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 NEW from the Royal BC Museum HEALTH

Stewards of the People’s Emily Carr in England Forests: A Short History of the Kathryn Bridge British Columbia Forest Service Robert Grifﬁn and Lorne Hammond

While searching for ‘patient zero,’ tropical disease experts traced the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa to a toddler’s chance encounter with an infected fruit bat in the village of Meliandoua in remote eastern Guinea.

$22.95 / paperback $27.95 / hardcover 978-0-7726-6832-5 978-0-7726-6770-0 Zero heroes Robert Griffin and Lorne Hammond Kathryn Bridge takes a fresh look tell the story of the BC Forest Service, at Emily Carr’s five years in England, which has watched over the from 1899 to 1904, to attend art schools. How researchers must discover province’s largest industry for more But an unexpected illness forced Carr than 100 years. They relate not just to convalesce in the East Anglia Sana- the origins of epidemics the big stories involving the likes of torium for 15 months. Bridge illustrates H.R. MacMillan and Ernest Manning, her findings with a selection of the OOKS DON’T ALWAYS tually good news. It means antibiotics but also those of the forest rangers artist’s sketches and three of her “funny start with authors. and vaccines can be used to combat and firefighters who dedicated their books”, including A London Student When publisher this most dreaded disease. With this lives – and sometimes risked them – Sojourn, which makes fun of life in a Rick Wilks heard understanding, we have new methods to protect BC’s forests. London guest house for young women. a Radio Lab docu- of preventing cancer, and perhaps we mentary about the may be able to look forward to a day origins of HIV/AIDS, when we will no more fear cancer than Bhe imagined there ought to be an edu- we do polio or rubella.” cational book for young adults about Catching Cancer features Corn- Royal BC Museum books are distributed by Heritage Group. the scientific and social origins of epi- wall’s interviews with Nobel laureates, hgdistribution.com 1-800-665-3302. demics, sometimes called pandemics. Harald zur Hausen, Barry Marshall, As someone who thrives on research, and Robin Warren, as well as other Marilee Peters, the editor of BC Organ- notable scientists, taking the reader ic Grower, was asked by Wilks to write inside the research labs to describe Patient Zero: Solving the Mysteries discoveries that are altering medical of Deadly Epidemics (Annick $14.95), approaches to the confounding disease. a fascinating compendium, for readers It was selected by the American Library aged ten and up, tracing the origins of Association as one of the year’s best epidemics. books when it was published. More people have died from epidem- 9781442215207 ics than from wars and natural disas- ✫ ters combined, so scientists in recent A MIXTURE OF BIOGRAPHY AND SCIENCE, centuries have doubled as detectives, Vanessa Farnsworth’s Rain on a often looking for “patient zero”—the Distant Roof: A Personal Journey first person known to have contracted Through Lyme Disease in Cana- the disease. Back in the da (Signature Editions 19th century, physician $19.95) not only intro- Dr. John Snow in London duces the reader to the traced a cholera epidemic bizarrely intelligent bac- to a six-month-old child terium at the root of Lyme whose cholera-laden diar- disease; it recounts the rhea contaminated water Creston, B.C. resident’s at a local pump, leading own horrendous battle to 10,000 deaths. with the disease since With two children of 2007. Farnsworth has her own, Peters hopes the previously written nu- stories of medical sleuth- merous articles on the Vanessa Farnsworth ing she shares in Patient disease and now discuss- Zero will inspire kids to learn more es “the inability of doctors to properly about the science of epidemiology. Her diagnose the illness, the absence of chapter on tracing the origins of Ebola reliable medical tests, controversial can be found on our affiliate news site, treatment guidelines, and a public BCBookLook. 978-1554516704 health response that is, at best, prob- ✫ lematic.” By 2020, it’s estimated that CLAUDIA CORNWALL’S CATCHING CANCER: THE more than 80 percent of the population Quest for Its Viral & Bacterial Causes of eastern Canada will be living in re- (Rowman & Littlefield $36) profiles gions where Lyme disease is endemic. groundbreaking cancer researchers 978-1927426-23-4 and describes a link between infections ✫ and cancer. “For years, we’ve thought ELDER CARE AND THE MANAGEMENT OF ELDERS’ cancer was the result of lifestyle finances and estates is the subject for choices, environmental factors, or ge- Susan Bewsey’s Estate Downsizing netic mutations,” says Cornwall. “But for Caregivers (Self Counsel $12.95) pioneering investigators have begun to that shares her experience with “down- change that picture. We now know that sizing someone else’s life.” Specifically, infections cause 20 percent of cancers, Bewsey describes the pitfalls and stress including liver, stomach, and cervical of amalgamating households and cancer, which together kill almost 1.8 making wills. According to Bewsey, million people every year. caregivers of all types can easily make “While the idea that you can catch mistakes when acting in someone’s cancer may sound unsettling, it is ac- best interest. 978-1-77040-1901-4

32 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 reviews The Gravitational Little One Pull of and Other POETRY Bernice Plays by Trimble Hannah by Beth Moscovitch, Graham, author of co-author GETTING TO GURTA East of of The Berlin and Drowning This Is War. The wit and wisdom of Johann Goethe Girls and Comrades. Goethe’s Poems translated by Graham Good (Ronsdale $18.95) Get 20% off these books and other great reads until May 1 when you shop online at playwrightscanada.com IKE VAN GOGH, YOU PROBABLY STILL Promo code: Spring15 can’t pronounce his name properly. But you’ve seen it Read. Play. Perform. Loften enough. On a quiz show, given multiple choices, you could likely identify the polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as a German who spent about sixty years refining his story about Faust, a guy who sells his soul to the devil. They re-did that story as a 1958 baseball movie called Damn Yankees, derived from a 1955 musical of the same name. Johann Goethe And if you have a literary background, you’d know his novel about a medicine, crystal meth and crack. doomed romantic, The Sorrows of Young Three relationships significantly Werther (1774), caused a sensation impact her life: her marriage to Leigh, back in the 18th century, leading to a much older man; her unrequited love a spate of mimicked suicides by over- for Dr. P, her therapist; and her health- wrought young Romeos across Europe. ier relationship with Richard, an Ameri- The hero’s quest for lifelong self- can she meets through her blog. She development in Faust reflects Goethe’s was bulimic since she was sixteen, but Think own creed: “Whoever occupies himself with the help of her with constant striving, he can be re- psychiatrist and oth- AUTHOR deemed.” Hence much of Goethe’s writers, she has gained ing rings true for egocentric lifestyles in a period of health There’s a story inside you. the 21st century. and peacefulness, in Join our community of Goethe had the luxury of being a remission from buli- writers and let it out. free-thinker—thanks to the nearly life- mia. “Mental illness is reaching epidemic long patronage of Karl August, Duke Trisha Cull of Saxe-Weimar—so his wide-ranging proportions,” she travels and studies led to remarkably says, “so I hope that my book will help modern views, well beyond his affinity people dealing with similar struggles to for Spinoza’s notion of God-in-Nature. feel connected to something outside of Nonetheless, you probably have yet themselves, to have hope.” Choose from four part-time creative writing to bump into his poetry and epigrams. A graduate of UBC’s Creative Writing options in Vancouver, Surrey and Online: Goethe wrote love poems from age Program, Cull lives in Victoria. 978-0-88971-307-9 eighteen to eighty, as translator Gra- • The Southbank Writer’s Program, ham Good notes in his introduction to Goethe’s Poem, but arguably it’s his our summer program (apply by May 10) wit and wisdom as a philosopher that AFTER YEARNINGS make this collection most enticing. • The Writer’s Studio, Passing Strangers If the world had German fortune by Pam Galloway (Innana $18.95) now available online (apply by June 30) cookies, these could work nicely: Where would the joy of certainty be. • Specialized creative writing courses If we had never experienced doubt? AM GALLOWAY’S MEMOIR IN POETRY, • Manuscript consultations Above all, don’t hate anyone; Passing Strangers, recalls the Let God take care of everything else. Pcomplexities of a long marriage and motherhood, leading to pregnancy Learn more at www.sfu.ca/creative-writing For Johann Göethe, the “ö”, or um- and eventually divorce after her 30-year laut (double dots), is usually dumped marriage fails. The poems in Passing in English, resulting in Goethe, roughly Strangers go inward as Galloway writes spoken as “Gurta.” frankly about her desire for children It’s not Van-go. For Vincent van through numerous miscarriages. This Gogh, it’s closer to Vun- hougkh or, if pattern of expectation and loss is bro- Songs about you like, “Vun-hoff.” 978-1-55380-356-0 ken with the arrival of two babies. grand gestures “The poems in this book were written in response to the obsession which and chance meetings BI-POLAR IMPACT overtook me as I longed for a child. They are written for all women who are that dramatically alter The Death of Small Creatures struggling or have struggled with the and derail lives. by Trisha Cull (Nightwood $22.95) most intimate and passionate of life experiences, becoming a mother. It is a "This is a masterpiece topic which has long been overlooked as of story and manifesto, RISHA CULL’S FIRST BOOK, THE DEATH perhaps not being ‘serious’ or ‘erudite’ a lesson in life”–Sean Michaels, of Small Creatures, due in enough for poetry.” Giller Prize winning author of TApril, is a memoir about her “Divorce may well be another one. Us Conductors experiences with bipolar disorder, Yet more and more women in middle substance abuse and bulimia, “and my age and beyond are realizing their The new album by Vancouver underground rock duo fervent need for the approval and love capacity for independence. They are of any and all men.” finding strength in their ability to walk MECCA NORMAL Having been bipolar for twenty-five away from marriages which at best years, Cull writes poetry about her have grown cold and un-nourishing Produced by KRAMER • LP / CD / mp3 on M’lady’s Records abuse of many substances, including and, at worst, neglectful and abusive.” www.mladysrecords.com alcohol, prescription medication, cough 978-177133-184-5

33 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 SUBSCRIBE OPINION to BC BookWorld To receive 4 issues by mail, send a cheque for $25 or use PayPal: www.bcbookworld.com T’ain’t funny, McGee Name ...... FIRSTFIRST NANATIONSTIONS ...... Apt/Box #...... Our prime minister has his priorities & BC HISTORY Street...... All titles at sale prices and ...... and women aren’t on his shortlist. many of these titles are City...... extremely hard to come by. Prov/Code...... ALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY IS TRYING for a CBC drama and as part of the Contact: to figure out what to do research was given a tour of “Project David Ellis BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., with some fourth-year P,” the anti-pornography unit of the [email protected] Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 Ddentistry students who Toronto City Police. I’ll spare you a de- formed some kind of scription of what we were shown but I “gentleman’s club” on Facebook and will tell you I wound up hurling into a regaled each other with grotty posts waste paper basket. And we were still about rape and about sex with patients on the bottom shelves of the evidence POTENT SPRING POETRY who were under anaesthetic. Some of room, and what we were seeing was the women in the class learned about evidence presented in cases which did CHELENE KNIGHT it and complained and now the fat is not result in conviction. That’s right. Braided Skin in the fire and the debate rages. In Did NOT result in conviction but did The vibrant telling of experiences of mixed ethnicity, urban many ways it’s like a continuation of result in me losing my morning coffee. childhood, poverty and youthful dreams through various voices. the uproar when Jian Gomeshi was There used to be a programme on Chelene Knight is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at SFU. fired. Amazing how many people seem the radio (remember radio?) called Fib- This is her remarkable debut book!’ willing to accept “boys will be boys” ber McGee and Molly and in almost ev- ´7KHVHSRHPVGRQRWOHWWULEXODWLRQGHÀQHWKHMRXUQH\WKRXJKLW·V and let such evi- ery episode Molly WKHUHEXWVRPHWKLQJGDQFHVDQGODXJKVLWVZD\WKURXJKWKLV dence of hatred go would say “T’ain’t ERRNDWHYHU\WXUQµ unpunished. funny, McGee.” –WAYDE COMPTON, AUTHOR OF THE OUTER HARBOUR There are That’s how I feel people who seem about rape jokes. SDJHV)UHQFKÁDSV__ incapable of con- It’s how I feel about necting the dots, violence against people who can’t women and girls. Creating a Legacy see that those kind There is an B BDI=:GIDC

34 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 THE WORLD

on Jeopardy—but he has a healthy, anti-elitist mindset that makes him a chronic outsider. It is increasingly rare in this era of spellcheck and Google to find someone whose writing style is uniquely their own. Anyone who values such originality would be well-advised to be curious about Around the World on Minimum Wage. It is the sort of book that is far too audaciously unlike any other book that nobody outside of British Columbia is likely to notice. For anyone on non-fiction prize juries in Ontario, it might as well be sanskrit. It is maverick, West Coastal to the bone. Danial Neil You will laugh. You will learn. And you will hesitate to recommend it to everyone because not everyone is going to From the prairies be prepared to digest the denseness of its intelligence. As a longtime resident of Tofino, to Greenpeace Andrew Struthers has also produced a comic graphic novel about the strife A novel that hears between hippie environmentalists and local rednecks, The Green Shadow the language of trees (Transmontanus 3: New Star, 1995), based on the confrontations about log- The Trees of Calan Gray (Ooli- ging in Clayoquot Sound. The original chan $19.95) by Danial Neil was serialised version of this story received inspired, in part, by a 2010 CBC a National Magazine Award for humour. interview with Diana Beresford- His follow-up was a memoir of living aboard a ‘Mifflin fleet’ fishboat, the Loch Kroeger, author of The Global Ryan, with his young daughter Pashea- Forest. The novel was also written bell. Called The Last Voyage of the Loch to commemorate the United Na- Ryan: A Story from the West Coast (New tions declaration of 2011 as the Star, 2004), it contains shipbuilding International Year of Forests—an lore, local history and observations of invitation to the world to come Illustration from Andrew Struthers’ (below right) memoir his neighbours on the docks of Tofino after he was forced to give up his pyramid- together and work with govern- treehouse on the outskirts of town. The ments, international organiza- ‘mechanically declined’ author prefers tions and civil society to ensure local ship lore to making repairs on his that our forests are managed O, Struthers, where art thou? bargain-priced wooden boat courtesy of sustainably for current and the federal government’s fishing license buyback program. future generations. Neil’s fourth Struthers’ cartoon called The Cheese novel centres upon a character An undeniably brilliant and original memoir Club has been syndicated throughout named Calan Gray who hears the North America. He once tried making OR VERY SMART PEO- magpie mind. Mimicking language of trees. In 1964, his “an ill-advised solo-attempt on Ever- ple who like to the language and structure violent father wants to commit est,” as referenced in Around the World laugh a lot and of a Victorian travelogue, him to an institution, believing on Minimum Wage. 978-1-55420-086-3 learn a lot at the Staff the Scottish-born, Ugan- his son is delusionary. The arrival F same time, iconoclast An- da/Prince George-raised of his grandfather from Scotland, drew Struthers of Tofino Struthers can be hilarious Dunmore McLeod, kickstarts has written an undeniably Pick on paper. His description Calan’s journey from the prairies brilliant and original mem- of taking some hasty sky- oir that surprises on every diving instructions from a to the West Coast where Green- page. Around the World on Minimum quintessentially coarse-mouthed Aus- peace is organizing protests to Wage (New Star Books $21) has been sie, then absurdly risking his life in halt the Amchitka nuclear tests described as a comedic memoir/ philo- order to avoid embarrassment, should in Alaska in 1971. Under the sophical investigation of the tensions be enough to gain him an invitation tutelage of Grandpa Dunny, between eastern and western philoso- to every writers festival in the land. phies. That’s very misleading and it Calan broadens his affinity for Struthers is one of those rare people doesn’t do justice to the brilliance of who obviously reads and retains ten the natural world. 978-0-88982-297-9 his writing style, the clever candour of times more than normal folks—one his observations and the genius of his of those oddniks who might do well

The Hills Are Shadows Paul Yee & Shaoli Wang by Joan Givner Lost in an unfamiliar world, will launch their new book a girl named Tennyson and her at friends search for home and ͍ƙΎȱȽȺȺȳȱɂȷȽȼΎɂȽΎ ȴȳȳȲΎɂȶȳΎȻȷȼȲΎȯȼȲΎ parents and have strange, ɂȶȳΎȰȽȲɇ˷͍ dangerous encounters with ³3XEOLVKHU V:HHNO\ humans and non-humans. ͍ƬȶȳΎȱȽȺȽɃɀȴɃȺΎ 578 Carrall St ȷȺȺɃɁɂɀȯɂȷȽȼɁΎȰɇΎ Chinatown ƫȶȯȽȺȷΎƯȯȼȵΎȲȯɈɈȺȳ˷͍Ύ Vancouver ³4XLOO 4XLUH on “Plenty of action . . . a fantasy to transport ͍ƬȶȳΎɁɇȻȰȷȽɁȷɁΎ Sunday May 3rd readers from their daily ȰȳɂɅȳȳȼΎɂȶȳΎɀȳȱȷȾȳɁΎ at 4pm. reality to another world.” C.M. MAGAZINE ȯȼȲΎɂȶȳΎɁɂȽɀȷȳɁΎȷɁΎ ȷȻȾɀȳɁɁȷɄȳ˷͍Ύ ³6FKRRO/LEUDU\-RXUQDO thistledownpress.com THISTLEDOWN PRESS 978-1-927068-91-5 • $12.95 • JUVENILE NOVEL

35 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 His one-man show Tales of an Urban Indian was nominated for two Dora A is for Arleen Awards. He has lived in Vancouver, Williams Lake, Alkali Lake, Toronto Arleen Paré’s second collection of and New York City. When his first poetry, Lake of Two Mountains book was published, he was living (Brick $20), has won the Governor who’s in Los Angeles. 978-1-77100-040-6 General’s Award for English poetry BRITISH COLUMBIA in 2014. It explores the geography and history of the area between the Ot- is for Eco-Poetics tawa and St. Lawrence Rivers that E includes the 1990 Oka Crisis, Over the years Barry MacKinnon of Pleistocene shifts and a Trappist who Prince George has amassed a sizeable monastery. Born and raised in Mon- archive of “really good smelling” small treal, Paré received sociology, history press items such as old issues of TISH and social work degrees from McGill Victoria Slam magazine and gestetnered books. University, then moved to Vancouver Champion Missie MacKinnon will bring some samples where she worked in bureaucratic Peters will be when he joins poetry veteran George office situations for two decades. She part of the first Stanley and two-time Victoria Slam received a Master’s degree in adult Eco-Poetics Champion Missie Peters, who will education from UBC, and a Master’s Bioregionalism be part of the B.C. contingent for the of creative writing from the Univer- Small Press Fair, first Eco-Poetics Bioregionalism Small sity of Victoria, where she now lives. Nanaimo, Press Fair to be held in Nanaimo, at 978-1-926829-87-6 April 30-May 3. Vancouver Island University, April 30- May 3. Other participants in this Cascadia initiative will include Ameri- cans Anastacia Tolbert, Brenda Hillman, Paul Nelson and Nadine Antoinette Maestas. For more information, you can contact organizer David Fraser at [email protected]. F is for Fraser

Bruce F. Fraser QC owns a ranch at Lac La Hache in the Cariboo, giving Arleen Paré with GG Right rise to his trilogy-in-progress set in Honourable David Johnston the Chilcotin. Having often repre- sented First Nations clients, Fraser first used his experiences as a lawyer to write On Potato Mountain B is for Brooks (Granville Island Publishing, 2010), a murder mystery. With an uncapitalized title, one hun- Fraser again fol- dred days of rain (Bookthug $20) by lows the path of his Carellin Brooks is written in the form artist-shaman pro- of journal of 99 days in the life of a tagonist Noah Han- woman who struggles to raise her lon across the child in Vancouver. Cariboo-Chilcotin Promotional materials draw a com- as he helps track parison to Elizabeth Smart’s classic down a murderer in West Coast memoir of pregnancy out Bruce F. Fraser the follow-up novel of wedlock, By Grand Central Sta- called The Jade tion I Sat Down and Wept, in which Frog (Granville Island $19.95). the narrator is marooned in Pender Set in the 1980s, this story also Harbour, doomed to love a thoroughly describes how the Chilcotin Nation egocentric, married man in a more con- was determined to preserve their an- servative time. cestral homeland. The struggle cul- Brooks’ narrator copes with a dis- minates in an historic court case. In astrous break-up with her female ex- June, 1914, the Supreme Court of partner and a lack of responsiveness Canada affirmed the right of the from the estranged father. The har- Chilcotin people to a significant part ried life of Brooks’ modern, independ- C is for Christy is for Dennis of their land. ent narrator is far less dire than being D Bruce Fraser received the Harry stuck in a tiny, coastal hamlet, so the Darrell Dennis is a Secwepemc Rankin QC Pro comparison to By Grand Central Sta- One publisher has called him a hip (Shuswap)-raised comedian, actor and Bono Award from tion is a tad misleading. the Canadian But there is no question that Indiana Jones; one broadcaster who has provided a humorous but astute overview of First Bar Association Brooks is a very bright writer with reviewer credited Nations issues — particularly pertain- in 2012. acute critical faculties. Hers is a col- him with a ‘Gary ing to identity — with his essays in 978-1-926991-54-2 lection of poignant vignettes more Cooper-like pres- Peace Pipe Dreams: The Truth about than it is a crafted novel. Repetitive ence’. Lies about Indians (D&M $22.95). descriptions of rain in the Lower Now, in case Mainland have given rise to the title. anyone is counting, The book arises from his experiences Jim Christy has Jim Christy as an actor best-known for his roles 978-177-166-090-7 just published his as Brian Potter on Northwood 32nd book since 1972, The Big and Frank Fencepost on The Thirst and other Doggone Poems Rez, but also from his roles (Ekstasis $23.95), followed by his as producer and host for 33rd, Rogues, Rascals, and Scala- ReVision Quest, a show chal- wags Too: Ne’er-Do-Wells Through lenging First Nations stere- the Ages (Anvil $20). otypes on CBC Radio One in Always in search of original char- the summer of 2008. acters and experiences, Jim Christy According to IMDb, is a literary vagabond whose follow- Dennis’s career in show up volume to Scalawags: Rogues, business began when he Roustabouts, Wags & Scamps (Anvil, walked into his first profes- 2008) profiles among others, Carolina sional audition at age sev- Otero, Andre Malraux, Lord Timo- enteen and was hired to thy Dexter, Suzanne Valadon, play the lead role of Brian William Hunt, Mata Hari, Emma Potter in Northwood. Hamilton and Bata Kindai Amgoza. Thirst 978-1-77171-073-2; Darrell Dennis Carellin Brooks Ages 978-1-77214-017-0

36 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 Make It True Poems from Cascadia WANTED eds. Paul Nelson, George Stanley Barry McKinnon, Nadine Maestas Gently Used Books 9711926655819 $32.00 April (CDs, DVDs, LPs too) for WHO’S WHO A reimagination of ourselves in terms of ecology, sustainability, Friends of the VPL Harry Adaskin is revered as an out- harmony with natural systems. standing musician; Nathan Nemetz USED BOOK SALE G is for Gifford was a lawyer who became the first I Want Sorry NO encyclopaedias poems by Joseph A. Dandurand James Gifford of Jewish Chief Justice of British Co- Drop off until April 15 lumbia. 978-0-9881101-2-0 9711926655796 $20.00 May at Dunbar, Oakridge, Fairleigh or “Good Lord – what a voice!!!!” Renfrew Branches Central Dickinson Univer- —Richard van Camp (delivery bay off Hamilton M-F 10-4; sity in Vancouver or book’mark, The Library Store). “Honesty that gets bare bones PLEASE BOX OR BAG & LABEL “FRIENDS” has edited From K is for Kyi scary” —Daniel David Moses the Elephant’s Info: 604 331.4049 or Back: Collected A shipwreck on a Newborn: friendsofthevpl.ca remote island. A A Book of Verse Essays & Travel FRIENDS’ Used Book Sale plane crash in the Writings (Univer- eds. AG Walker and U Vaira May 21-23 • Central Library Peruvian jungle. 9711926655802 $18.00 May James Gifford sity of Alberta “ ” USED BOOK SALE Trapped deep in A book about the almost born, FRIENDS Press $34.95), a the newly born, the journey Proceeds from sale donated to the earth with 33 collection of 38 previously unpub- in-between. .ca Vancouver Public Library lished or out-of-print essays and let- others in a Chilean ters by Lawrence Durrell, renowned mine. Illustrated by for the Alexandrian Quartet novels. David Parkins, Tanya L. Kyi When the Worst 978-1772120516 Happens: Extraor- dinary Tales of Survival (Annick Mark Your Calendar H is for Harrison Press $14.95) is Tanya Lloyd Kyi’s collection of true, action-packed sto- May 15th - 17th, 2015 As principal of the ries about young people around the at Kootenay School of world who have had death-defying Ministry in Ke- experiences. The accounts generally Prestige Harbourfront Resort lowna, William H. reveal how the youthful survivors used Salmon Arm, BC Harrison has fol- their unusual courage, skills and in- lowed Frequently genuity to survive. It’s her 22nd book Asked Questions in and is suitable for ages 9-12. Christian Theology 9781554516827 (Mowbray, 2008) Presenters for 2015: W.H. Harrison with In Praise of Kelsey Attard, Mixed Religion: L is for Lowther Treat yourself Gail Bowen, Brian Brett, The Syncretism Solution in a Norma Charles, Christine to an inspiring Multifaith World (McGill-Queens Victoria Day Margaret Curelas, Anne $34.95) advocating the mixing of Lowther, daughter De Grace, Charles de Lint, ideas, beliefs and practices from dif- of Pat Lowther, weekend on the Gary Fjellgaard, Grant has written about ferent faiths. The process of inten- shores of Lawrence, Kathryn Para, her family back- tionally combining elements from beautiful Jodie Renner, various religious heritages—known as ground, and how the murder of her Shuswap Lake Harold Rhenisch syncretism—has long been dismissed and Louise Wallace by conventional religion practitioners mother by her fa- who have subscribed to only one faith. ther affected her Chris Lowther and her sister 978-0-7735-4358-4 Beth, in a short essay called Gifts From Lands So Far I is for Indigo Apart near the outset of her new memoir Born Out Of This (Caitlin Yes, we know we are supposed to be- $21.95). “My mother had read her moan the loss of any bookstore, but poems at peace rallies while we each when Canada’s largest bookstore took our turn in her womb.” chain, Indigo Books & Music Inc., an- The book also contains her reflec- on the nounced the imminent closure of its tions on the positive influence of Lake flagship Vancouver store on Robson punk rock and alternative music Street in June, well, we couldn’t help groups such as Mecca Normal over Writers’ Festival but remember how many independent several decades in a piece called Gen- bookstores have been out of business erally Giving A Damn. by the aggressive Indigo/Chapters jug- She lives on a floathouse in Tofino. Information on workshops, Saturday night 978-1-927575-55-0 entertainment, banquet, coffee house and more at: gernaut. Indigo strong-arms publish- www.wordonthelakewritersfestival.com ers into hardcore discounts; it has diluted the viability of regional books and authors; and it has had a devas- M is for Munsil tating impact on the quality of bookselling in B.C. Go, Indigo, go. Janet Munsil’s That Elusive Spark (Playwrights Canada $16.95) was shortlisted for a 2014 Governor-Gen- WENDY ATKINSON J is for Jews eral’s Award for drama. That Elusive Spark brings together the stories of THE LAST FRET Lillooet Phineas Gage, a Wendy Atkinson is a solo Nördlinger construction fore- experimental bass-player who McDonnell’s man who miracu- explores the low-end world of lously survives an Raincoast Jews: electric, acoustic and double explosion that Integration in basses. The Last Fret includes shoots an iron rod British Columbia ebow, toy piano, field record- into his brain in (Midtown Press ings and prepared bass. The $22.95) recounts 1848, and Helen Harlow, a young songs range from ambient, the lives of five im- textured pieces to rhythmic L. N. McDonnell Janet Munsil neuropsychologist portant Jews in poppy instrumentals to spoken B.C. between 1860 in modern times. word but, always, bass is and 1970. Cecelia Davies is remem- Munsil has produced the Victoria the core. bered for her charity work in Victo- Fringe Festival, Uno Fest and ria; Hannah Director became head of Winterlab. She was recently commis- SMARTEN UP! & Get to the Point Records the school board in Prince George; sioned by Theatre Calgary and Cana- as a refugee from Czechoslovakia, da’s National Arts Centre to adapt Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Download via BANDCAMP: wendyatkinson.bandcamp.com/releases Leon Koerner was a progressive fig- CDs: wendyatkinsonbassplayer.wordpress.com ure from the B.C. lumber industry; 9781770912045 founder of UBC’s School of Music, continued on page 38

37 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 who’s who BRITISH COLUMBIA

Spanish Banks in Vancouver, photo by David Nunuk, from his Vancouver Light: Visions of a City

characters she writes? Publicity main a World Adrift (New Society is for Nunuk is for Partridge terials suggest Quartermain is taking $16.95), she uses wit and lyricism to N P her cue from “genre-bending writers confront climate change in twelve per- like Robert Walser and Enrique Vila- sonal essays to demonstrate how re- David Nunuk has been photograph- Elise Partridge died of cancer at age Matas.” The collection called I, sponding to threats to the biosphere ing the landscapes of B.C. for thirty 56 on January 31, 2015, prior to the Bartleby (Talonbooks $14.95) blurs can generate personal growth. years, often travelling far off the release of her third collection of po- the lines between fiction and reality. Carrie Saxifrage will be profiled in beaten path to take stunning images etry, The Exiles’ Gallery (Anansi 9780889229181 our summer issue. 9780865717985 of the natural world. The Aldergrove- $19.95), which contains work pertain- based photographer was previously ing to her fatal illness. Having been nominated for a B.C. Book Prize for raised in Pennsylvania and having R is for Rogers is for Tammemagi his Natural Light: Visions of British Co- studied at Harvard (where she was T lumbia (Harbour, 2003). In his Van- taught by Robert Lowell), she came The release of Hans Tammemagi couver Light: Visions of a City to Vancouver in 1992 and was Janet Rogers’ lat- knows how to get (Harbour $49.95), Nunuk sets out to shortlisted ten years later for the est collection of po- what he wants; capture vistas of Vancouver. He meas- Gerald Lampert Memorial Award with etry, Peace in that’s why he wrote ures the changing lights, colours and her first poetry collection, Fielder’s Duress PHOTO Winning Propos- moods of the city, and through the Choice. Her second book, Chameleon (Talonbooks als (Self Counsel camera’s eye finds the pink blush of Hours, in 2008, was a finalist for the $16.95), occurs at Press $16.95), scattered cherry blossoms and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and win- ARDIZZONE the conclusion of now into its third urban still life reflected in the silent ner of the Canadian Authors Associa- her three-year ten- ANNA edition. waters of Coal Harbour. The collection Poetry Award. Partridge also Janet Rogers ure as poet laureate H. Tammemagi As an environ- tion of over 100 images from Howe published in The New Yorker, Slate, of Victoria. Promo- mental columnist Sound to the Fraser River is remark- and The New Republic. Her husband, tional material says, “Rogers’ newest for the Vancouver Sun and a professor ably original considering the vistas Stephen Partridge, teaches medieval collection pulses with the rhythms at the School of Environmental Stud- are well-known. 978-1-55017-663-6 literature at UBC. 978-1770899797 of the drum and the beat of the heart.” ies at the University of Victoria, Janet Rogers was born in Vancouver, Tammemagi, of Pender Island, also in 1963. She has been living in the wrote Air: Our Planet’s Ailing Atmosphere O is for Oolichan Q is for Quartermain traditional lands of the Coast Salish (Oxford, 2009), an exploration of the people, in Victoria, since 1994. She myriad problems affecting our at- Originally from Earle Birney once began her creative career as a visual mosphere, including smog, acid Newfoundland, concluded a satiri- artist, and began writing in 1996. rain, ozone depletion and climate Jennifer Heath is cal poem called Can. 978-0-88922-911-2 change. He has a B.Sc. Physics; a former massage Lit. 1947 with the M.Sc. & Ph.D. in geophysics. therapist who lines: “no Whitman 978-1-77040-060-3 spent a year study- wanted / it’s by our S is for Saxifrage ing organic farming lack of ghosts / at Linnea Farm on we’re haunted.” Carrie Saxifrage is U is for Uganda Cortes. Helen Meredith a journalist for the Jennifer Heath McCallister is a M. Quartermain Quartermain is Vancouver Observer Ainslie Manson’s thirteenth chil- paediatric physi- solving the prob- who also honed her dren’s book, A Giraffe Called Gera- otherapist from Ontario. As relative lem. In her collection of short stories research skills as nium (Red Diamond / Sandhill newcomers to Fernie, they kept peek- about writers and writing, Quarter- an environmental $19.95) was inspired by her trip to ing over the fences of their neigh- main is haunted by the writers who lawyer in the US. Uganda where her niece manages bours in the Elk Valley to turn a 2010 have walked the streets of Vancouver Having climbed safari camps. Manson learned about multimedia exhibit called Down to before her, such as Pauline mountains that in- poaching problems and the need to Earth: Elk Valley Gardens and Their Johnson, Malcolm Lowry, Robin Carrie Saxifrage clude the Matter- protect giraffes, prompting her to cre- Keepers into a book of growing tips Blaser and Daphne Marlatt. This horn and Chimbo- ate a whimsical story, illustrated by from thirteen local gardeners, Down collection is a meditation on the na- razo, she homesteads on Cortes Is- Mary Baker, about a giraffe that to Earth: Cold-Climate Gardens & ture of creative writing, raising eso- land where she has adopted a low makes an inexplicable appearance in Their Keepers (Oolichan $29.95). It’s teric questions such as: Who is carbon lifestyle. She has worked with a West Coast garden. A girl named a joyful, well-illustrated celebration writing whom and what? The writer First Nation communities in their Susanna comforts and names the gi- on family gardens and the concept of or the written? The thinker or the struggles with the proposed North- raffe, but it’s homesick for the Afri- sharing knowledge and recipes. alphabet? The calligrapher or the ern Gateway Pipeline. In her first can savannah—so they set sail for 978-0-88982-302-0 pictograms hidden in the Chinese book, The Big Swim: Coming Ashore Africa. 978-0-9937341-0-6

38 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 Journey to the Cariboo British Columbia Historical Federation Annual Conference WHO’S WHO May 21- 23, 2015

Lurancy Harris, as suggested in Sen- Quesnel, BC sational Vancouver. “Research shows V is for Vitzentzos Rose Fortune, who I included in my book 100 Canadian Heroines, was the Manolis Aligizakis has announced first female police officer in Canada,” his most extraordinary book—a fac- Forster writes. “A former slave, she simile of his own handwritten ver- lived from about 1774 to 1864. She sion of Erotokritos, a romantic-epic became a police officer in Annapolis poem composed by Vitzentzos Royal. The Canadian Encyclopedia Kornaros of Crete, a contemporary notes she is considered to be the first of William Shakespeare and Miguel policewoman in Canada. Rose’s claim de Cervantes. The text consists of to fame as the first black female po- Registration open to all history enthusiasts 10,012 fifteen-syllable rhyming lice officer in Canada has been rec- Beer Tasting | Barkerville | Talks | Authors’ Fair | Theatre verses by Kornaros (1553–1614) that ognized by the Association of Black Manolis hand-copied in 1958 at the Law Enforcers.” www.bchistory.ca age of eleven. This unusual publishing venture will constitute a limited print run of 100 copies, each to be Y is for Yam autographed and dedicated by Manolis, for $5,000 per copy. Yam Cooper of Penticton has written, illustrated and self-published The Story of Bill and His House on W is for Wang the Hill ($19.95), described as a humorous and refreshing tale for all ages Jack and Holman Wang, as twin about diversity, leadership and xeno- brothers in Vancouver, were big Stars phobia. Bill has grass hair. As an out- Wars fans. Jack became a professor cast, he forms a friendship with a of writing at Ithaca College in New deaf-blind critter and reinvents a lan- York and Holman, a former lawyer guage that bypasses discrimination and school teacher, and connects people now works full-time as through the heart. Edu- 20 plus an artisan with felt ac- cator and humourist tion figures in Vancou- Yam Cooper is a mem- varieties Customer ver. ber of the non-profit Katrin As co-creators of family band Vivibe, Horowitz Cozy Classics board “playing world music just dropped books, they have for peace and deepen- off a copy of teamed up for a re-telling the human to hu- her new novel ing of the Star Wars man and human to The Best story for pre-school planet connection,” Soldier’s Wife children. Starting with and he’s on the board (Quadra Books). Star Wars Epic Yarns: of directors of Happy A New Hope (Chroni- Hive Creative Learning cle $11.95), their series Jack and Holman Wang Society, “a fresh new will reduce the saga organization of awe- into board books. Their first volume some visionaries creating innovative features twelve iconic scenes: Prin- creativity, life skills, and teamwork cess Leia sends a hologram message programs for children.” via R2-D2; Luke Skywalker learns how to use a lightsabre, etc. Jack Holman provides the pithy narra- Z is for Zig-Zag tion—as pithy as one-word per page— and Holman Wang has handcrafted Set during the Vietnam War and the the felt action figures. George Lucas counter-culture response to it within has given his permission/blessing for Canada, The Whale Chaser (Chicago #5 - 1046 Mason St. Victoria, B.C. V8T 1A3 the project. 9781452133935 Review Press $16.95) by Tony Ardizzone follows the life of Vincent (just off Cook Street) • Tel: 1-250-384-0905 Sansone, the eldest child and only Hand sorted for premium quality • Full selection of exotic teas X is for Correction son in a large Italian American fam- • B.C. honey and Belgian chocolates • Mail orders welcome ily, who is a disappointment to his Merna Forster notes that three violent, fishmonger father in Chicago. www.yokascoffee.com women featured in Eve Lazarus’ Sen- Vince hightails it to Tofino where he sational Vancouver book—Nellie Yip first gets a job gutting fish, then joins Quong, Elsie MacGill and Phyllis the marijuana trade as a salesman for Munday — were profiled in her books a dealer named Mr. Zig-Zag until his 100 Canadian Heroines: Famous and friendship with an Ahousaht aborigi- photo by Mark Mushet Forgotten Faces (2004) and 100 More nal, Ignatius George, results in a job Canadian Heroines (2011) and that as guide for tours to see whales. Canada’s first female cop was not 9780897339230

Annual Non-Fiction Contest* Contest Judge: Andrew Westoll $1500 in prizes available, plus publication! $34.95 entry fee includes 1 year of EVENT Deadline April 15, 2015 Reading Service for Writers If you are a new writer, or a writer with a troublesome manuscript, it may be just what you need. Visit eventmagazine.ca The best little magazine in Canada. As a translator and publisher of Greek literature, Manolis Aligizakis visited the tomb of Zorba the Greek novelist Nikos Kazantzakis in Crete.

39 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 OBITS

Sean Rossiter (1946-2015)

BORN IN HALIFAX IN 1946, SEAN ROSSITER died on January 5, 2015. Rossiter came to B.C. in 1972 where he became a freelance writer on Vancouver civic affairs for many years, writing a popular column on city hall for Vancouver Magazine. An intrepid and lifelong aviation enthusiast, Rossiter wrote numerous books about airplanes. With a similar passion for hockey, a game he contin- Sean Rossiter ued to play beyond his youth, Rossiter wrote many books about hockey, some with Paul Carson. His excellent pictorial history of the Hotel Georgia in 1998 arose from his abiding interest in Vancouver archi- tecture. “Sean was one of the most professional writers I have had the good fortune to work with over the years,” says Greystone publisher Rob Sand- ers, “and the series of Hockey The NHL Way skill books Sean wrote set the bar where it still stands to this day. Sean was also a skilled goalie. I never did get a puck by him the day I tried. But most importantly, he was an exceptional guy.” Grant Kennedy Self-publisher (1935-2014) Betty Pratt-Johnson

in orange diving GRANT HUGH KENNEDY, WHO DEVELOPED suit, 1977. Lone Pine Publishing into one of the most commercially successful publishing companies in Western Canada (later managed by his son, Shane [1930-2014] Kennedy), died on October 14, 2014 Betty Pratt-Johnson at St. Mary’s Hospital in Sechelt, B.C. In 1980, Grant Kennedy created Lone

PIONEER OF SELF-PUBLISHING AND Places at which Pratt-Johnson dived Pine Publishing in Edmonton, focusing sport diving, Betty Pratt- include the Red Sea, East China Sea, on nature and recreation guides, and Johnson was born in 1930 Greece, Formentera, Hawaii, Indone- he later became a prominent figure in in Illinois and moved to BC sia, Fiji, the northern Great Barrier Canadian publishing. A Grant Kennedy was born in Hoey, Reef, Martinique, Jamaica, Mexico, in 1961. She learned to dive in 1967 at the YMCA in Vancouver when there Bermuda, Andros and Eleuthera in the Saskatchewan on March 27, 1935 and was only one dive shop in the city. Bahamas, Brazil, Tobago, Colombia, grew up in Dawson Creek. He loved to She was certified #55 on the BC Safety the Galapagos Islands and freshwater tell stories about his formative years Council and certified as Sport Diver lakes in Alberta. as the Alaska Highway was being built. 363 by the National Association of “She was one of the first, if not the Underwater Instructors (NAUI) in 1973. first, freelance writing diver to travel to She became the first writer to present Mexico,” says Vassilopoulos, “search Alicia Priest Pacific Diver magazine with an article out diving opportunities and make on scuba diving in local BC waters. connections with fishermen and others (1953 - 2015] “It was 1975,” Pacific Diver publisher who would turn to recreational diving Peter Vassilopoulos says, “and the as a business in the future. She will A JOURNALIST FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, MOST magazine had just been founded and be missed but her books will keep her recently recognized for her family published in Vancouver.” memory alive indefinitely.” memoir A Rock Fell on the Moon: Dad First released in 1976, her authori- She settled in the Kootenays, mov- and the Great Yukon Silver Ore Heist, tative, self-published guide to scuba ing to Kaslo in 1997. “In 2002 I put Victoria-based Alicia Priest died from and skin diving in B.C. and Wash- my foot in the door of technical diving amyotrophic lateral sclerosis on Janu- ington, 141 Dives, has been reprinted when I certified for nitrox,” she said, ary 13, 2015, having been diagnosed umpteen times. “I decided to write the “and have dived with it ever since.” She in 2012. She overcame “the ultimate very book I wanted to buy,” she said, was certified as Nitrox Diver 76578 by deadline” to finish A Rock Fell on the “and it was a great excuse to go diving.” Technical Diving International. Moon which recalls how her father, This work is still available from Sand- When she was no longer able to dive Gerald Priest, in the small Yukon hill Distributing as 151 Dives (2007). due to aging eyes at age seventy-nine, mining town of Elsa in the 1960s, stole Back in 1976, when her first diving she went to Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, $160,000 worth of silver ore from one book appeared, she became a contrib- researching Little Walks Across Cana- Alicia Priest of the largest mining companies in uting editor for Pacific Diver magazine, da. “I am a total optimist,” she said, Canada—and how he got caught. She now called Diver Magazine, and wrote “and I love the process of researching was able to attend multiple book events for every issue for 6½ years. She also books and writing them.” For more info on these authors, visit and sign books while her husband, Ben wrote books on whitewater trips for Betty Pratt-Johnson died on October ABCBOOKWORLD.COM Parfitt, and her daughter, Charlotte, kayakers, canoeists and rafters. 21, 2014. read for packed bookstores.

40 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 LETTERS BOOKSTORES

And so, Tibet Reader disapproves

THANKS FOR THE WONDERFUL EXPOSURE IN MICHAEL BUCKLEY’S “MELTDOWN IN TIBET” the BC BookWorld winter issue for my blames Chinese coal burning for melt- book, Meltdown in Tibet. The book has ing glaciers, while simultaneously An Independent Bookseller in Vancouver for over 40 years! taken on a life of its own, with review decrying the hydroelectric power dams ROGER HOUSDEN coverage ranging from New Scientist that are the primary alternative clean to the Washington Post (January 2nd). power option to dirty coal. He blames Author of 10 Poems to Change Incredibly, at book-launch time in No- Chinese mining for deteriorating grass- vember, I found myself sitting opposite land quality, but anyone with access to Your Life and Keeping the famed environmental writer Barry Lo- Google earth can observe that mining Faith Without a Religion pez, on a panel at the Singapore Writ- has an infinitesimal footprint on the ers Festival, and also chatting to famed Tibetan plateau compared to the vast Tuesday, May 26, 7pm travel author Paul Theroux—who was areas of grassland. He may have a few FREE Talk and Signing banned from entering Singapore for valid points, but his inconsistencies at VPL Central Branch more than 20 years. Theroux was the make it clear that this is a polemic hit of the festival. I moved along to Hong rather than a documentary. 3608 West 4th Ave. Vancouver, BC 604-732-7912 banyen.com Kong for presentations there, includ- Jonathan Colvin ing the prestigious Royal Geographical Galiano Island

Michael Buckley (left) at the Singa- pore Writers Festival, meets Paul Hunting Elk in Kitsilano Theroux, author of the novel The Mosquito Coast on which a major YEARS AGO A FRIEND ADVISED ME TO SEND 1986 ﬁ lm was based. you a copy of my closer-to-silly-than- absurd, little book, Hunting Elk in Society. Theroux delivered the keynote Kitsilano. As you had left the Georgia speech at the RGS Annual Dinner. Straight when they hired Doug Collins, At the end, he actually signed a few your kind review of my book only saw trains. Well, toy trains that decorated the light of day in a tightly circulated the guest tables at his keynote presen- literary newsletter at the time. I had tation. Books open many doors—with just completed a graduate fellowship some surprising ones! at the San Francisco Art Institute, but Michael Buckley chose to go into law, so Hunting Elk Vancouver was intended to be an adventure; an unedited rough sketch, but the fact that you gave it your attention meant Dharamsala approves a lot to me. Since then I pursued a career as I RECENTLY PICKED UP A COPY OF BC BOOKWORLD trial and appellate counsel on free- on the Langdale ferry and read the dom of expression cases, as well as compelling and troubling cover story contempt, environmental, and many by Michael Buckley; “Why Michael murder cases; basically everything Buckley became a Yaktivist.” Thank from white collar to black leather. But you for giving some exposure to this I hit a tipping point, quit, and now live distressing situation which has been above a Teddy Bear Museum in Thai- given very little coverage in the con- land where I have no wife, TV or dog, ventional media. so I’m writing. community-minded but globally connected The world stands by while an entire Now it’s time for me to recognize indigenous culture of ethnic Tibetans you. Congratulations on getting the and their land is being destroyed by Order of Canada for, amongst other the Chinese. You’ll be pleased to hear things, supporting fledglings like me that upon seeing the cover of this issue in the daunting task of putting them- of BC BookWorld online, the Tibetan selves out there. Kudos to you, Alan community in Dharamsala was very Twigg, for following your heart and for We are proud encouraged. They were most interested helping others to do the same. to be nominated to have a spotlight put on Tibet and to Jim Millar for a Libris award learn about Mr. Buckley’s book Melt- Thailand for Bookseller down in Tibet. I vaguely recall your book (from the mid- of the Year! Your readers might also want to 80s?). The size of the publishing house know about a self-published book, generally determines the receptivity of Dharamsala Days, Dharamsala Nights, media, but one tries to operate beyond O penOpen year-round year-round with with over over 25,00025,000 titles titles plus plus great a great selection selection by B.C. writer Pauline Macdonald. the boundaries of mere commerce. Slice of Canadian authors, used books, art supplies, and gifts. of Canadian authors, used books, art supplies, and gifts. It’s about the plight of ethnic Tibetan the pie fairly. And educate. Please take Visit us at www.galianoislandbooks.com refugees in Dharamsala who are being a moment to send brief biographical V isit us at www.galianoislandbooks.com “returned” to Tibet/China, possibly to info, as well as a headshot, and I will 250.539.3340 • [email protected] face persecution. add your book to our public service web- 250.539.334076 Madrona Drive, Galiano [email protected] Island, BC V0N 1P0 Bette Chadwick site at ABCBookWorld, for and about Please Join Us 76for ourMadrona Annual Drive Literary Galiano Festival Island • www.galianoliteraryfestival.com BC V0N 1P0 Sechelt 10,800 B.C. authors. – A.T.

41 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 QUICKIES LETTERS A COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD FOR INDEPENDENTS

QUICKIES is an affordable advertising vehicle for writers, artists & events. For info on how to be included: [email protected]

Political intrigue, A passion racial for social prejudice justice and ruthless and global ambition human prevail after rights the death of illuminate Alexander these the Great poems. at age 33, in 323 B.C. Captain Joe & Grateful Jake Love and Resistance Shadow of the Lion: by Emily Madill by Theresa J. Wolfwood Blood on the Moon Confidence boosting books for kids. Smallberry Press, London, UK by W. Ruth Kozak ISBN 978-0981257907•$11.95 each ISBN: 978-0993031502 AVAILABLE: AVAILABLE: ISBN 978-0992715519 • $36.95 Amazon, Barnes & Noble & Chapters Ivy’s bookshop (Victoria) & on-line mediaaria-cdm.com/w-ruth-kozak emilymadill.com www.smallberrypress.co.uk HISTORICAL NOVEL KIDLIT POETRY

A humorous, collection of short stories set in 1986 in a fictional Your village called Chat, population 170, ad somewhere in rural B.C. here. NDP Country Chitchat by Jennifer Woodroff A chronicle of Gwen O’Mahony’s by Laurel Mae Hislop year as the first New Democrat and Call the first woman to ever win in the eBook: 978-0-9938237-0-1 Fraser Valley as told in a first Apple iBook: $4.99 (eBook) person narrative style. Print: 978-0-9938237-1-8 604-736-4011 Amazon at $10 print ISBN 978-0-9936653-0-1 or email $8.91 (Amazon.com) • $4.49 (Kindle) laurelhislop.tumblr.com [email protected] www.amazon.com SHORT STORIES POLITICS / HISTORY Literary duo Edith Iglauer and Frank White, aged 97 and 100 respectively.

First Three Songs... First No Flash A couple more 10 more B.C. by Dee Lippingwell I’M SURE YOU’LL BE GETTING MORE SUGGESTIONS All from readers about writing couples— literary couples Nations & books signed nice idea for a piece. Here are a few Esi Edugyan & Steven Price by the more B.C. writing couples: Esi David Leach & Jenny Manzer BC History, author. 210 page Edugyan and Steven Price (especially Kevin Kerr & Marita Daschel coffee table considering the rumoured 6-figure sale Edith Iglauer & Frank White all titles size. Erotokritos for his new novel!), David Leach and Wendy Wickwire & by Vitzentzos Kornaros All titles at sale prices and Stories about and photos of Rod Transcribed by Manolis Jenny Manzer (forthcoming Kurt Michael M’Gonigle many of these titles are Stewart, Celine Dion, Tina Turner, The only longhand book of its kind–a Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, Elton John, Cobain novel), playwright Kevin Kerr Richard Mackie & Susan Safyan long poem 500 years old–transcribed extremely hard to come by. Bruce Springsteen, ZZ Top, Rolling by an 11-year-old boy. Stones, Loverboy, Bryan Adams etc. and poet Marita Daschel. Rob Budde & Debbie Keahey Contact: David Ellis ISBN 978-1-926763-36-1 • $5,000 ISBN 978-1460205082 • $40 John Threlfall Ken Belford & Si Transken [email protected] libroslibertad.ca deelippingwell.com Victoria Karin Beeler and Stan Beeler EPIC POEM BOOK SALES PHOTO BOOK A roomful of our own

I WAS HONOURED TO BE FEATURED, ALONG WITH Mark Zuehlke, in your recent story on Graphic literary couples. People often ask us novel of the year what it’s like for two writers to live finalist. FOREWORD together and David Conn did a great REVIEWS job of answering that question, at least as it applies to us. I’d love to get to- Mary Lou’s Brew The Listener Brother Xll gether with a roomful of other literary by Jennifer Craig couples and compare notes. Small cor- by David Lester by John Oliphant A humorous social and academic commentary rection: My Children of the Klondike was Vivien Lougheed & John Harris “A dense and fiercely intelligent work... for adults of all ages and is not to be taken The strange odyssey of a 20th-century seriously. It is written by a Yorkshire woman all in a lyrical and stirring tone.” prophet & his quest for a new world. published by Whitecap Books, not Fire- — Publishers Weekly (NY) who knows her science and her brews. ISBN 978-0978097202 • $24.95 fly, who also published my Woodpeck- Send letters or emails to: ISBN 9781894037488 • $19.95 ISBN 978-1-4602-4484-5 • $16.99 amazon.ca BrotherXll.com jennifercraig.net ers of North America and Owls of North BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., GRAPHIC NOVEL BIOGRAPHY FICTION SATIRE America. Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 Frances Backhouse [email protected] Victoria Letters may be edited for clarity & length.

Aldridge Print & Media...43 Federation of BC Writers...34 Lowe, Darren...28 Self-Counsel Press...29 Annick Press...24 Friends of VPL...37 Mercer, George...28 SFU Writers Studio...33 Anvil Press...6 Friesens Printers...43 Mother Tongue Publishing...34 Sidney Booktown...41 Arsenal Pulp Press...20 Galiano Island Books...41 New Society Publishers...26 Sono Nis Press...8 Association of Book Publishers of BC...2 Givner, Joan...35 Nuttall-Smith, Ben...28 SubTerrain / LUSH...32 Banyen Books...41 Granville Island Publishing...15 Oolichan Books...24 Talonbooks...11 BCBookLook...7 Greystone Books...12 Orca Books...4 Thistledown Press...28, 35 BC Historical Federation...39 Harbour Publishing...44 Penguin Random House...20 Tradewind Books...35 AD Caitlin Press...16 The Heritage Group of Publishers...31 Playwrights Canada Press...33 UBC Press...30 INDEXChuckanut Conference...7 Hignell Printing...43 Printorium/Island Blue...43 Vancouver Desktop...43 Advertise & reach 100,000 Douglas & McIntyre...18 Houghton Boston...43 Quickies...42 Word on the Lake...37 readers: 604-736-4011 or Douglas College/EVENT...39 Leaf Press...37 Ronsdale Press...16 Yoka’s Coffee...39 [email protected] Ellis, David...34 Libros Libertad Publishing...15 Royal BC Museum...32

42 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 PRINTERS & SERVICES

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43 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015 44 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2015