#67 | Fall/Winter 2015 http://ambp.ca/pbn/ FREE

EDGE Science plus: New work from Alice Major, Fiction and Fantasy Armin Wiebe and Richard inside Van Camp Publishing celebrates Prairie books for kids 15 years page 28 & young adults Family secrets, As well as drama, poetry, secret histories & non-fiction … and much more! Maureen Fergus Publications Mail Agreement Number 40023290 PAGE 25 has 3 fall titles! Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Association of Book Publishers page 46 404–100 Arthur Street, , MB R3B 1H3 Finding Home in the Promised Land Refuge A Personal History of Homelessness Mary Vingoe and Social Exile Ayinom, a former soldier from Eritrea, has Jane Harris arrived in without papers, and seeks Finding Home in the Promised Land is the fruit of refugee status. Seen through the eyes of the Jane Harris’s journey through the wilderness of couple that take him in and the lawyer who social exile after a violent crime left her injured represents him, the play lays bare some of the and tumbling down the social ladder toward shortfalls of the refugee system as it exists in homelessness—for the second time in her life— Canada today. Refuge combines verbatim text in 2013. Her Scottish great-great grandmother from CBC radio interviews with the fictional world Barbara`s portrait opens the door into pre- of the characters to create a work with uncommon Confederation Canada. Her own story lights our resonance and verisimilitude. journey through 21st Century Canada. 978-1-927922-16-3 70pp $15.95 978-1-927922-11-8 192pp $22.95 WinterWINTER2015 2015 www.jgshillingford.com REPRESENTED BY THE CANADIAN MANDA GROUP • DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS

Nicimos The Wilberforce Hotel DRAMA DRAMA The Last Rez Christmas Story Sean Dixon BY NICIMoS Curtis Peeteetuce BY It’s the 1830s. Two travelling minstrels are passing north from London, , with their song and THE LAST REZ This Christmas season, things have gone awry for dance show on the local circuit. Having fallen afoul the kohkoms of Kiwetinohk. Clare is engaged CHRISTMAS of the law and desperate for a night’s lodging, they to be married, Zula Merasty is moving off-reserve stumble into the Wilberforce Hotel, owned and STORY and Sihkos Sinclare is in jail. It all comes to fruition operated by Austin Steward, the president of this at Clare’s stagette. stalwart black settlement. 978-1-927922-18-7 60pp $15.95 Curtis Peeteetuce Sean Dixon 978-1-927922-19-4 86pp $15.95

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@SigEditions facebook.com/signatureeditions #67 FALL/WINTER TOC 2015

NON- FICTION The Idea of a 13 Human Rights Museum

25FAMILY SECRETS, 44 SECRET HISTORIES YOUNG ADULT Sons and Mothers & CHILDREN Beatrice More Moves In

OUR FEATURED PUBLISHER 16 Launch, Lead, Live: A proactive POETRY approach is imperative when 28 Living on the EDGE: 34 Autobiographical Fictions: dealing with organizational publisher celebrates 15 years Mierau’s latest collection change examines popculture and celebrity 17 Master of My Fate: Authors FICTION 35 Niche: Poet’s latest collection has examine Canada’s physician- strong ecological emphasis 4 Armin’s Shorts: Collection offers assisted death policies a brief retrospective of Armin 36 Standard Candles: Science a 18 Settler: Authors want Canadians Wiebe’s career source of metaphor in Major’s to talk about colonialism 5 Corvus: Novel explores the effects latest 19 So Far and Yet So Close: Book of climate change, war 38 Talking to the Diaspora: Maracle compares frontier ranching in uses poetry as a call to action 6 Moving Parts: Debut collection Canada and Australia examines social issues 20 The Idea of a Human Rights DRAMA 7 A Blanket of Butterflies/Night Museum: New book examines Moves: Van Camp releases graphic how the CMHR came to be 41 The Wilberforce Hotel: Play novel, short story collection shines light on a piece of little- 8 The Afterlife of Birds: Debut FAMILY SECRETS, SECRET known Canadian history novel a modern love story HISTORIES YOUNG ADULT & CHILDREN 10 The Loxleys and Confederation: 25 Sons and Mothers: Mennonite Graphic novel takes a new look at men reflect on their mothers 44 Beatrice More Moves In: Author Canadian Confederation wants kids to know perfection is 26 Friendly Fire: First time novelist by no means ideal wants people to talk about NON-FICTION domestic violence 45 Creep Con: Cosplay novel for teens shows how obsession can 13 Crash to Paywall: Journalist 30 After Light: Family history at the go too far examines business practice in core of Hunter’s latest Canada’s media 46 Good things come in… Maureen 31 calling down the sky: Poet Fergus releases three picture 14 From Treaty Peoples to Treaty documents her mother’s books Nation: Authors seek to get to the residential school experience truth behind reconciliation 32 Let Us Be True: Debut novel 15 Heart Waters: Author examines examines family dynamics 53 Bookends/About Our Contributors how humans have changed the 33 Liberty Street: Dianne Warren Bow River explores the mysteries of ordinary lives in new novel fiction He writes short SHORTS Collection offers a brief retrospective of Armin Wiebe’s career by Margaret Anne Fehr here’s an aspect of a literary homecoming in Armin TWiebe’s recent collection of short fiction, Armin’s Shorts. The stories represent an offering of Wiebe’s creations, encompassing nearly 40 years of “little fictions” strewn hither and yon in western Canadian grass roots publications, including Prairie Fire, Grain, and Rhubarb, and numerous anthologies.

The opportunity to round up these wayward Readers of Wiebe’s novels will recognize and progenies was not to be squandered, says Wiebe. become re-acquainted with Wiebe’s motley, “Gathering my short fiction into one book unvarnished cast of characters including Oata had been on my mind for some time, and and Yasch of The Salvation of Yasch Siemens being closer to 70 than to 60 gives one some and Beethoven Blatz of The Moonlight Sonata incentive to do that.” of Beethoven Blatz, the stage play produced by He explains that about half of the stories Theatre Projects Manitoba in 2011 that garnered had been published in small magazines both popular and critical acclaim. with rather specialized audiences, while the The previously written stories that made the unpublished pieces were at risk of vanishing cut met a few benchmarks. “The main selection should we stop believing in bits criterion was that the stories had not appeared and bytes. in my previous books,” Wiebe says. “The second ARMIN’S SHORTS “I felt that readers might get criterion was that I was not embarrassed by them.” Armin Wiebe some enjoyment from these The more seasoned Wiebe resisted the urge to stories if they were gathered substantially revise his earlier work, and did only $19.00 pb, 304 pages in a book,” he says. copy edits to smooth out the awkward passages. isbn: 978-0-88801-546-4 Wiebe also wrote a number “I let the stories stand as they were when I wrote of stories specifically for this them,” he says. book, and he appreciates the As for imposing themes, Wiebe clarifies, “There attractions of the short form, particularly the may well be themes running through these stories, reduced time commitment, which is “refreshing but I tend to allow them to emerge from stories rather after the eternity of struggling with a novel.” than writing stories to fit a preconceived theme.” Now into his third retirement from teaching, Wiebe is probably best known for his comic Wiebe recognizes a pattern to his productivity. “The vision. first one lasted a year and I wrote one novel. The “While I frequently see experience through second one lasted seven years and I completed two a comic lens, the comedy happens because of novels and a draft of a third. In this third retirement the honesty of the characters’ thoughts as they I’ve written a draft of a novel waiting to be rewritten, encounter the incongruities and ironies in the world a full-length stage play, a one-act stage play (both around them,” he says. produced), and some new stories for Armin’s Shorts. “At times, too, the characters are clowns with “I still enjoy the process of writing which is a pre- oversized painted smiles hiding the sad face requisite for the thrill of having written.” underneath.”

4 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 fiction ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT DREARY Novel explores the effects of climate change, war by David Jón Fuller arold Johnson’s fifth novel Corvus is set in an imagined late Htwenty-first century, in which climate change and war have dramatically changed Canada.

The idea for Corvus came when better life, such as those offered in Johnson heard David Suzuki, Al Gore, exclusive communities floating high and James Lovelock discuss climate above the ground. A third, Richard, change. Gore asserted climate change just wants to live an ethical life on the could be fixed. Lovelock said it was too margins, but finds poorer communities late; climate change is the new reality. off the grid have their own hierarchies. He advised Suzuki to move north and “I took the idea that people will move build nuclear reactors for electricity. north and increased the population of a small town in northern to a megacity, added some technology, CORVUS and simply wrote those things that are already predicted,” says Johnson. Harold Johnson “Climate change will be a new era Thistledown Press in human history,” says Johnson, who $19.95 pb, 282 pages isbn: 978-1-77187-051-1 over a lifetime of working outside, became a skilled weather forecaster but no longer trusts the signs he used one of the floating cities – leads George “Climate change is not global to. “Like the weather, we cannot to question his entire worldview. warming. It is more severe weather, accurately predict what is coming. I do The book takes its name from bigger storms, more floods, longer believe that we have to get ready for it.” the Latin word for “raven,” and droughts. Wars are predicted, and each character encounters ravens, seeing the political climate in the USA, or, perhaps even Raven, a central I imagined occurring there.” character. Some realize the old natural Johnson has served in the navy, and “Like the weather, we cycles are breaking down or changing. has worked as trapper and fisherman, cannot accurately predict Sundogs no longer give an accurate a miner, a lumberjack, a heavy indication of coming weather, nor does equipment operator and mechanic, a what is coming.” the behaviour of bees (few or which firefighter, and a tree planter. He now are left). works as a Crown prosecutor in La Lenore’s and Richard’s wartime “Raven is my friend. I have heard Ronge, the town in which Corvus is set. experiences still haunt them. George him speak and I wondered what he was But the La Ronge in Corvus is no seeks an understanding of the natural trying to say,” says Johnson. longer a small town. It is a huge city, world without knowing how – one of Raven, it seems, has much to say. transformed by the collapse of North the ways he tries is to buy an organic “Raven is a magical being that has American agriculture, refugees from recreational vehicle. His ORV is a lab- been around for a long time. I needed the south, and two intra-American grown raven construct, large enough someone to speak for nature, and wars. Two main characters, Lenore for a person to wear and pilot via Raven volunteered,” says Johnson. and George, are up-and-coming mental commands. Soaring through the “We have to be careful of him, prosecutors, aiming for a shot at a air – though not high enough to reach though; he is a trickster.”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 5 fiction The sum of its parts Debut collection examines social issues by Bev Sandell Greenberg t was stint at theatre school first sparked Lana Pesch’s interest I in writing.

“Twenty years ago, I was studying Included in the collection are stories theatre at Dawson College in Montreal dealing with social issues, such as and ended up writing plays for the stage coming out, assisted suicide, and the and radio. I even started a novel, then sensationalism of criminals by the began writing short fiction,” she says. media. Writing, says Pesch, is a way For the past seven years, Pesch to process things she finds difficult, has focused on writing short stories, absurd, unfair or sorrowful. experimenting with techniques and According to Pesch, the assisted subject matter. The nine stories in suicide story was inspired by something her debut collection, Moving Parts, she read in a newspaper. The story encompass a wide range of themes stayed with her, so she explored it and characters. Several pieces take through different angles and points of place in Toronto, Pesch’s current home, view, and “Brotherhood” is the result. and like her, two of the “Habits of Creature” came from a protagonists come from friend’s idea about a man coming out rural Saskatchewan. at Thanksgiving dinner. Based on a “Not a word is wasted true crime, “Natural Life” stuck with in a short story, but it can Pesch as well. It centres cover a lot of territory,” on a murderer and her says Pesch. “It can, and TV interviewer, who were should, be as complex and former childhood friends. MOVING PARTS provocative as a novel.” Other stories deal Lana Pesch Admittedly though, she with relationships. The Arsenal Pulp Press didn’t intentionally set out to write a titular story focuses $17.95 pb, 262 pages collection. on a date between two isbn: 978-1-55152-624-9 “It evolved over time. It took years,” lonely young people. In she says. “I was reading short stories “Chewing Slower is a and sometimes trying to imitate style Sign of Mindfulness,” and form, writing about characters and the protagonist’s lengthy “I’m curious about the choices ideas I was curious about. The penny bus trip offers her time finally dropped after a lot of writing to draw some startling a person makes and the conse- (and rewriting). At some point, the conclusions about her story tells the writer what it needs ex-husband and their quences of those choices.” to be.” marriage. The humorous much the destination. Ideally, she hopes Pesch likes to write about characters epistolary story “The Rogues and that the stories in the collection will who are in trouble, stuck, or broken. Scoundrels among Us” starts out as help readers feel more connected to the “I am attracted to them because I’m a complaint letter about a hair people in their lives, to strangers and curious about the choices a person removal product, but later discloses humanity. makes and the consequences of those many intimate details about the “A short story needs to take its choices. Also, what has happened protagonist’s life. reader on a journey with selected to create the situation in which the In Pesch’s opinion, the book is about brushstrokes,” she says. “It should also character finds him or herself?” the many journeys we’re on, not so make you wonder and question.”

6 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 fiction

MOVES LIKE A BUTTERFLY Camp Van Richard

Van Camp releases graphic novel, shortA Blanket story of Butterflies explores collection the journey of Shinobu, a mysterious stranger who visits Fort Smith, NWT, to retrieve his family’s samurai suit of armor and sword from the local museum. When he discovers that his grandfather’s sword A Blanket has been lost in a poker game to the man they call “Benny the Bank,” he sets out to retrieve it with the help of a young boy, Sonny, and his grandmother. of by Ian Goodwillie Together, they face Benny and his men, Torchy, Sfen and the giant known as Butterflies Flinch, and come to an unexpected realization.

This graphic novel, beautifully illustrated by Scott B. Henderson, explores the grace of family and of trusting the power of the spirit world. Richard Van Camp hen someone refers to the hardest working person in show business, of A Blanket Illustrated by Richard Van Camp, a proud member of the Dogrib (Tlicho) Nation from Fort Smith, Butterflies Scott B. Henderson NWT, is the author of the novel The Lesser Blessed (also a feature film), and four the mind automatically drifts to the late, greatcollections of James short stories, including Brown.Night Moves. He has published When children’s books and baby books, including Little You. He is also author of the graphic novel Three W Feathers (in English, Bush Cree, and Dene). you want to talk about the hardest working personScott in B. Henderson the has workedworld as an illustrator forof comics, writing, portraiture, and advertising art. He is author/illustrator of the sci-fi/fantasy comic, The Chronicles of Era and illustrated two comics for the Canadian Air Force’s For Valour series, the Richard Van Camp is quite possibly that man. Thisbestselling graphicfall novel series he 7 Generations, launches selected titles from the Tales his From Big Spirit series, and, most recently, the graphic novel Betty: The Helen Betty Osborne Story. fourth short story collection, Night Moves, and his latest graphic novel, A Blanket of Butterflies.

ISBN 978-1-55379-548-3 ______

And that’s on top of a host of other creative Camp eloquently summing______up______the_ _ _ 9 781553 795483 pursuits. allure of short story collections “When inspiration comes,” he says, “it’s the story and what keeps bringing him back that’s the boss. It shows me quickly what it wants to this form of storytelling. to be: a baby book, a graphic novel, a short story, a Many of the same characters novel, a children’s book.” Van Camp has explored in Featuring the art of Scott Henderson, A Blanket previous collections have of Butterflies is the story of Japanese man coming returned, and also appear in A to Fort Smith, , to collect Blanket of Butterflies. Beyond a suit of samurai armour from a museum. Once the characters, there are other there, the man finds the sword is missing and goes connection points between the on the dangerous path to retrieve it, a path that also two projects. “The samurai sword helps him discover the Dene people. that Flinch sees in Benny’s kitchen A real-life suit of armour at that very museum in the short story “Because of was the inspiration for this story. What I Did” in Night Moves is “There was a real suit of samurai armour in the same samurai sword honoured our Fort Smith museum,” says Van Camp, “and in A Blanket of Butterflies,” he seeing it for myself, I wrote the story in my head points out. standing there with my mouth wide open.” Why move from prose to a “I think short stories are perfect visual medium for this story? As the author quite accurately galaxies just like Saturday nights A BLANKET OF puts it, “Prose wouldn’t have loaded with promise.” BUTTERFLIES done this story justice.” He’s Richard Van Camp right. A Blanket of Butterflies is an engaging story But why keep coming back Illustrated by Scott B. framed by stunning visuals, both in the action to the same cast? “I’m just so Henderson scenes and in the quieter moments. interested in their lives,” Van Highwater Press-Portage “The fun is in the crafting something visually Camp says. & Main poetic and timeless in message. At the same time Van Camp genuinely cares for $18.95 pb, 48 pages who can deny the skull throttling ballet of a great his characters, and wants to give isbn: 978-1-55379-548-3 battle scene,” says Van Camp. the reader an ongoing window It makes for an excellent graphic novel, just into their lives. NIGHT MOVES like the stories collected in Night Moves take full “I’d love for readers to truly Richard Van Camp advantage of the short story form. enjoy the stories in Night Moves Enfield & Wizenty-Great “I think short stories are perfect galaxies just like and discover or rediscover how all Plains Saturday nights loaded with promise,” says Van of my books are connected.” $19.95 pb, 200 pages isbn: 978-1-927855-23-2

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 7 fiction

Words take FLIGHT Debut novel a modern love story

by Margaret Goldik lizabeth Philips has received the ESaskatchewan Book Awards’ poetry award twice, so it should come as no surprise that the prose in her first novel, The Afterlife of Birds, sings.

“Initially the transition to prose was unexpectedness of the love story blend quite a struggle, until I realized that the with the descriptions of nature to make THE AFTERLIFE novel was poetic,” says Philips. “My The Afterlife of Birds a delight to read. OF BIRDS attention to word use, and metaphor, The central character is Henry, a shy Elizabeth Philips was going to be as crucial to the success young man, living alone and working Freehand Books of the novel as it would be in a poem. at a job he dislikes. His life is enriched $21.95 pb, 314 pages This freed me to use more of the skills by his hobby of bird articulation, that isbn: 978-1-55481-265-3 I brought with me from poetry. is, putting together bird skeletons. “Through the course of writing the “I came up with Henry’s hobby pretty Henry’s life is not solitary. Brother novel, I learned to balance my love of much by instinct,” Philips explains. Dan is pursuing a new obsession, language with the practical necessity of “I didn’t actually know that people running. As he trains for a marathon, moving the characters along a journey articulated bird skeletons when I their widowed mother involves Henry from the beginning of the story to its decided that Henry loved bones and in keeping an eye on him. Henry’s conclusions.” that he reconstructed the skeletons relationship with his brother dominates of birds. Then I the novel. did some research “Henry does love Dan despite how and discovered that much he has lived in Dan’s shadow,” “Nature is more mysterious, and more this was a genuine Philips says. “Perhaps Henry was vocation for some in some sense hiding in his brother’s abiding than we sometimes give it biologists and for shadow – seeking camouflage there, so credit for.” amateurs who simply he wouldn’t be seen by others, because enjoy the challenge he was shy, and because he wasn’t sure Philips’s characters are flawlessly of ‘remaking’ a bird’s skeleton into who he was, who he wanted to be in a rendered, and the sweetness and something beautiful.” way that distinguished him from Dan.”

8 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 fiction

Saskatoon, and the Torch River and more powerful than all our attempts “Nature is more boreal forest in northern Saskatchewan. to subdue it beneath concrete and powerful than all our “I think the point of Henry’s office towers. engagement with nature in the city “I believe this is a hopeful message: attempts to subdue is that a city also lives in nature,” that nature is more mysterious, and it beneath concrete she says. “And I think nature will more abiding than we sometimes give overcome a city eventually – nature is it credit for.” and office towers.” And until a pregnant Marcie came into his life like a force field, “Henry could watch his brother acting in CHECK OUT THESE NEW FALL TITLES FROM PALIMPSEST PRESS the world, taking risks and having relationships, and live vicariously this Rumi and the Red Handbag Autobiographical Fictions way, without taking risks himself,” say Shawna Lemay Maurice Mierau the author. Named one of the Top Reads for Fall 2015 A collection of poetry exploring in Harper’s Bazaar and on mariashriver.com pop culture through the voices of Henry connects to nature as well as A journey to the Museum of Bags and Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson people. His love of birds and animals, Purses in Amsterdam, a journey to find and other pop culture icons. Rumi, the soul, and the secret hidden in a Reg $18.95 SALE $15.16 of the woods, and of the river that runs red handbag. Fresh, unique and intelligent. through the city he lives in reflects some Reg $19.95 SALE $15.95 of Philips’s own passion for wilderness. She admits some of Henry’s favourite SHOP TODAY AT PALIMPSESTPRESS.CA haunts are also hers: the riverbank in

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Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 9 fiction A GRAPHIC HISTORY Graphic novel takes a new look at Canadian Confederation

by David Jón Fuller or many Canadians, learning our history is a bit of a chore. Maybe Fbecause Canada’s story is, well, boring. Right?

Perhaps we should be looking at it such as Lillian and integrating the with fresh eyes. Loxleys into the true story of the birth Alexander Finbow is one of the of Canada through the Confederation people behind the bestselling graphic process. It was a very exciting and novel The Loxleys and the War of challenging undertaking.” 1812, and its sequel, The Loxleys and One of the challenges, he says, was THE LOXLEYS AND Confederation. Originally from Great to make the story engaging to young CONFEDERATION Britain, now a Canadian citizen, he readers, which he did by fleshing out Mark Zuehlke, with Alexander says all this was new to him. the historical characters such as John Finbow and Niigaanwewidam A. MacDonald and George Brown, “so James Sinclair that Lillian and the other Loxleys in Illustrated by Claude St. Aubin the story could interact with them as Renegade Arts Entertainment “Our riches lie in the living and breathing individuals with $19.99 hc, 104 pages way we interact, the gifts all their strengths and weaknesses and isbn: 978-0-9921508-9-1 various character traits rather than as we trade, the stories we historical cutouts.” share – nothing else.” The newest graphic novel picks Confederation, up with descendants of the Loxley confidently. “In England, they don’t talk about family, but also places Confederation B u t G e o r g e Canadian history,” he says. Growing in 1867 within the context of European Loxley, speaking to up, he learned about Napoleonic relations with Indigenous peoples. delegates who will part of the War of 1812. He was To do this, determ ine what shocked when, in Canada, he saw professor Niigaanwewidam Sinclair form the Dominion commemorations of the burning of contributed to the story and wrote the of Canada will the White House and thought it had afterword. take, points to the to be made up. The book starts with a prologue greed with which He also noticed that even Canadians showing a 1534 encounter between Cartier saw the land of “Canada” and don’t seem to be that aware of seminal Jacques Cartier and Donnacona of the contrasts it to the notion of “Kanata,” events, such as the formation of our Iroquois, including how Donnacona’s the Iroquois word meaning village country. sons were taken by Cartier to France. or community, where people work “I didn’t know much about That thread of the exploitation of together to prosper. Confederation. It turned out there was First Nations is echoed throughout the In his afterword, Sinclair says, “As a lot less information in people’s heads book. During the hubbub of political much as we can see Canada in these in Canada about that than the War of maneuvering, Lillian Loxely is struck pages I encourage you to see Kanata 1812.” by the fact Aboriginal children are too, in the moments it could have been, Mark Zuehlke was a historical being removed from their homes to the place it always has been. Our riches consultant on the earlier book, but, work on farms. “Best way to teach lie in the way we interact, the gifts we he says, “for Confederation I was the them how to become civilized,” says trade, the stories we share – nothing lead story writer – creating characters George Brown, one of the fathers of else.”

10 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 finally breaking off, she must come to up on a journey to the Museum of Bags more fiction and her old friend’s rescue in this novel that and Purses in Amsterdam, a journey to find short fiction explores the intimate power of money Rumi, the soul, and the secret hidden in a short fiction and emotional debt. red handbag. (Breakwater Books, $19.95 pb, 328 pages, (Palimpsest Press, $19.95 pb, 148 pages, Act Normal ISBN: 978-1-55081-604-7) ISBN: 978-1-926794-26-6) These 12 stories by the Governor General’s Madder Carmine Wild Rose Award–winning author present characters Tyler Enfield confronting art, sex, and other accidents In 1849, Dannon Lereau returns to his In this richly detailed historical novel set in of life in comic, insightful, dark, and Appalachian home from the Mexican War, the 1880s, a headstrong young woman, glad endearing ways. but as he flees the owner of the slave he to leave behind her stifling family (Astoria-House of Anansi, $19.95 pb, “stole,” Dannon’s mind slips into a surreal for the southern prairie and a new life with 240 pages, ISBN: 978-1-77089-970-4) mind of its own, as the mountains of his her handsome husband, must evolve from youth are transformed into the Nine Circles homesteader to businesswoman in order novels/novellas of Hell and the slave named Virgil becomes to survive. his guide. (Coteau Books, $21.95 pb, 396 pages, Badlands (Enfield & Wyzenty, $14.95 pb, 224 pages, ISBN: 978-1-55050-636-5) ISBN: 978-1-927855-30-0) This reprint of the classic novel about a Yes, and Back Again paleontologist who leads an expedition to the Mahihkan Lake Sandy Marie Bonny Alberta badlands in 1916 and his daughter R. P. MacIntyre In this suspenseful and thought-provoking who reveals the folly of his ambitions fifty After their adopted brother commits suicide, story, Tanis and Neil Cameron move to years later is illustrated with haunting black estranged siblings Denny and Dianne head ’s west side, then two of Neil’s and white photos by George Webber. north to Mahihkan Lake to spread his ashes teenage students suddenly go missing, (Rocky Mountain Books, $40.00 hc, 360 pages, and confront the ghosts of their youth. thrusting the couple into a world of deeply ISBN: 978-1-77160-063-7) (Thistledown, $19.95 pb, 152 pages, rooted class and racial divisions. ISBN: 978-1-771870-53-5) (Thistledown, $19.95 pb, 184 pages, Birdie ISBN: 978-1-771870-52-8) Tracey Lindberg Meadowlark In this darkly comic and moving debut novel, Wendi Stewart mystery, thriller, fantasy Bernice (Birdie) Meetoos, a big, beautiful, An accident on a winter lake tears a quiet Cree woman, is a traveller – not only family apart, leaving six-year-old Rebecca Another Margaret through space, but also through time – on a motherless, alone with her grieving father. Janice MacDonald quest for healing and home. Eventually she finds the support of Chuck, In this latest Randy Craig mystery, the (HarperCollins, $29.99 hc, 280 pages, whose father is abusively violent, and first novel in the series (long out-of-print) ISBN: 978-1-55468-294-2) Lissie, an Aboriginal girl being raised by is embedded in a new one, where Randy is a white mother. attending a university 20th anniversary The Brink of Freedom (NeWest, $21.95 pb, 300 pages, reunion, and revisits the events – and dangers Stella Leventoyannis Harvey ISBN: 978-1-926455-38-9) – of her graduate studies there. The human cost of war is explored in this (Ravenstone, $16.95 pb, 362 pages, novel about the refugee camps in Greece, The Road to Atlantis ISBN: 978-0-88801-551-8) which brings together a young Asian refugee, Leo Brent Robillard the well-meaning Canadian aid worker A moment of distraction on a beach changes The Case of the Vanishing Prairie accused of kidnapping him, and the rookie lives forever in this intimate, resonant John Parr police officer trying to get to the bottom of portrait of a family blown apart, exploring In this comic take on the classic Sherlock the mystery. how individuals cope with tragedy and the Holmes detective stories, Watson strikes out (Signature, $22.95 pb, 272 pages, way grief sifts through generations. on his own, seeking a quiet life in the Old ISBN: 978-1-927426-77-7) (Turnstone Press, $19.00 pb, 200 pages, West. He ends up employed as a personal vet ISBN: 978-0-88801-555-6) to a rancher/rustler, and takes up detective Ledger of the Open Hand work trying to solve various mysteries: who Leslie Vyrenhoek Rumi and the Red Handbag robbed the bank, who is causing cowboys to Cautious, conservative Meriel-Claire makes Shawna Lemay disappear, and what is biting the locals in an improbable friendship with her new This fresh, intelligent novel tells of two the neck? college roommate, capricious Daneen, but women, Shaya and Ingrid-Simone, working in (Davus Publishing, $12.00 pb, 112 pages, after years of allegiance and heartbreak and a second-hand clothing shop, who end ISBN: 978-0-915317-49-3)

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Executor series, Detective Emily Starr and her partner unusual suspects, and the solution to Louise Carson Iain Webster investigate the murder of a the crime takes a strange path through a When an elderly writer dies of apparent beloved actor – immersing themselves in the community association meeting, prison, and suicide, her former student and lover agrees world of theatre people and props (including the world of child beauty pageants. to publish her poetry, but is drawn into the the ubiquitous rubber chicken). (Signature, $16.95 pb, 272 pages, legacy of her social activism on behalf of (Art Bookbindery, $18.95 pb, 246 pages, ISBN: 978-1-927426-79-1) dissidents in China, at great ISBN: 978-0-9919403-2-5) risk to him and his newly adopted daughter. Tarstopping (Signature, $16.95 pb, 192 pages, Missing Children Christine Rehder Horne ISBN: 978-1-927426-68-5) Gerald Lynch After radical environmentalists break into The disappearance of Dr. Lorne Thorpe’s the house of a prominent oil executive and Ice 10-year-old daughter is the beginning of the hold him and his family hostage, the stage Karen Bate disintegration of his work, his family, and his is set for a popular movement to coalesce In this first of four in a seasonal mystery mind. Detective Kevin Beldon investigates around the incident. (NeWest, $19.95 pb, 280 pages, ISBN: 978-1-926455-47-1)

Congratulations Too Far Gone David Alexander Chadwick Ginther In this final installment of the Thunder Robertson Road trilogy, Ted Callan, war herald of The Evolution of Alice chosen for the Nine Worlds, must build a cage from On The Same Page: Manitoba Reads Surtur’s bones, unearth the Bright Sword, and vanquish the fire giant once and for all. And all of this in , without the help of Loki or the Norns, who stayed behind to An Imprint of Portage & Main Press watch over Winnipeg. www.highwaterpress.com • 1-800-667-9673 (Ravenstone, $16.95 pb, 496 pages, ISBN: 978-0-88801-541-9)

While the Music Lasts John Brooke The latest Aliette Nouvelle mystery finds the Inspector investigating threats made against one of France’s most popular stars, released from prison for the murder of his film star girlfriend, by townspeople who will neither forgive nor forget. (Signature, $18.95 pb, 256 pages, ISBN: 978-1-927426-71-5)

Name:______Company:______Want to receive PbN to your mailbox? Address:______City:______Send this coupon along with a cheque for $12.75 made out to the Association Province: ______Postal Code:______of Manitoba Book Publishers to Email Address:______404-100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg, MB R3B 1H3 Phone Number:______

12 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 non-fiction FREE PRESS? Journalist examines business practice in Canada’s media by Margaret Anne Fehr teeped in the daily brew of Canadian newsrooms for over 30 Syears, Brian Gorman has authored Crash to Paywall: Canadian Newspapers and the Great Disruption, a book that encapsulates his eye-witness viewpoint on events leading to the current state of Canadian media. Gorman says that his publisher way, and I don’t see many signs that it’s suggested From Crash to Paywall as the going to get any better. Perhaps that’s book’s title, but he edited out the “from.” why, in the space a year, we’re seeing “I like the violent and ambiguous what, in Canadian terms, amounts sound of it without the first to a flood of books about media and preposition,” he says. “The title relates power, such as David Taras’s Digital to the financial crash of 2007–08 and Mosaic and Mark Bourrie’s Kill the institution of metered paywalls the Messengers.” at most North American news organizations in 2010–12.” Gorman’s perspective is that of an “In Canada, media ordinary working journalist. “I have criticism is seen almost been a copy editor, reporter, feature writer, critic (movies and TV), and as an act of treachery.” a couple of times a middle manager,” he says. In addition to academics and “I’m not a big-name political pundit, journalists, Gorman expects his book CRASH TO PAYWALL: nor am I a media executive, privy to will be of interest to the same people Canadian Newspapers and the the backroom planning of the top who watched The Daily Show for the Great Disruption management. I’m not famous. I have criticism of the Fox News Network and Brian Gorman no axes to grind, tubs to thump, or CNN, “that is to say, anyone interested McGill-Queen’s University Press agendas to forward. I approached this in the public conversation about the $32.95 pb, 304 pages project as a curious reporter, simply public conversation.” isbn: 978-0-7735-4592-2 trying to find the story.” Conducting research for the book Crash to Paywall attempts to pull was not difficult for the long-time back the curtain on the state of the free journalist. people I knew and respected and who press in a democratic society. “In “I had worked for The Toronto Star represented a range of interesting Canada, media criticism is seen almost and Sun Media, so I was acquainted viewpoints.” as an act of treachery,” says Gorman, with people like John Honderich, While there were no jaw-dropping an assistant professor of communication Wayne Parrish, Paul Godfrey, and surprises that emerged during the studies at MacEwan University. Les Pyette. Two of the journalists research process, Gorman reveals, “With the slow starvation of the interviewed were old friends. A few “I was constantly unnerved by the CBC, the sorry financial state of our were referred by other interviewees, abundance of evidence that there was national print and online media, and and a lot of the blind quotes were the an almost willful, self-destructive drive a government that was allergic to result of casual conversations with on the part of the media companies inspection and criticism, the public journalists. Many of the academics – themselves. As David Taras said to me, discourse in this country is in a bad particularly those at Carleton – were ‘This wasn’t murder; it was suicide.’”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 13 non-fiction MORE THAN WORDS

Authors seek to get to the truth behind reconciliation

by Paula E. Kirman elationships between Canada’s First Nations and newcomers have Rbeen a contentious part of the country’s history. Debates rage on between those who support Aboriginal land rights and sovereignty and those who want an end to “special” Aboriginal, despite court cases upholding Aboriginal land title rights.

In their book From Treaty Peoples hopeful that things can get better,” he to Treaty Nation: A Road Map for says. “It took 20 years for two main All Canadians, Greg Poelzer and reasons: Aboriginal realities changed Ken Coates examine approaches dramatically, and we were extremely that have both failed and succeeded eager to develop our ideas in full and in reconciling conflicting interests. not race to print with quick thoughts.” However, they focus on the success Coates says that many of the changes stories and try to steer the conversation in Aboriginal communities and policies in the direction of moving forward on have been for the better, especially common ground. more recently, and he hopes the books reflects this reality to readers. “We want them to leave with a “We need action, FROM TREATY PEOPLES sense of real possibilities,” he says. not talk.” TO TREATY NATION: “Aboriginal policy and Indigenous A Road Map for All Canadians peoples have experienced positive reconciliation between Indigenous and Greg Poelzer and Ken S. Coates changes in recent years, but we non-Indigenous peoples, organizations, UBC Press know things can get much better. and governments,” says Coates. $34.95 hc, 366 pages We want people motivated to “We do not need to contemplate the with appendices, references, index support changes, optimistic future and imagine what might happen isbn: 978-0-7748-3087-4 about the prospects for real but, instead, can discuss what has improvements, and determined to already occurred and what is already The book was the result of build real reconciliation.” in process. Significant strides have the authors’ long-standing Coates emphasizes now is the time to been taken – there are real reasons to work and interest in move beyond talking about problems be optimistic.” Aboriginal issues, and was towards finding a solution. And optimism is the bottom line. two decades in the making. “We wrote this book to focus on “We want our leaders to know “Greg and I have shared a practical and applied solutions. We that the greatest reason for optimism professional and personal need, as a country and for and with is the strength and commitment of Ken Coates interest in Aboriginal affairs Aboriginal people, to move beyond Aboriginal leaders. These individuals our entire adult lives,” says problem identification and blame – men and women in the hundreds – Coates, who has authored to problem solving and partnership are devoted to their communities and and edited more than a dozen building. We need action, not talk.” cultures and are working extremely books on Aboriginal issues. Coates and Poelzer (who has also hard to create the conditions for “We are amazed by written extensively on Aboriginal success,” Coates says. Indigenous resilience, issues) discovered evidence of existing “These people are remarkable in Greg Poelzer troubled by poverty and steps toward reconciliation. “The their dedication to bringing about real marginalization, frustrated by the investigation of current conditions and sustained change in Indigenous absence of good policy options, and revealed many different examples of communities and across the country.”

14 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 non-fiction A damming look Author examines how humans have changed the Bow River by Paula E. Kirman lberta’s Bow River is a source not just of water, but of beauty and Ahistory. However, the river’s annual flows have decreased by more than a tenth, due to dam construction and water management decisions that have ignored the health of the land.

Award-winning author Kevin Van Tighem foothills forests, and hidden green HEART WATERS: explores the history and ecology of the Bow places where our water originates. Sources of the Bow River River headwaters through stories, and highlights I’m hoping that readers will know Kevin Van Tighem the importance of the need to heal the damaged our headwaters better and realize Photographs by Brian Van landscape in his latest book, Heart Waters: Sources more fully that these should, in Tighem of the Bow River. fact, be our heart waters,” Van Rocky Mountain Books “I’ve been involved with Tighem says. $40.00 hc, 256 pages this project since I was old Heart Waters is illustrated with with full colour photos enough to go camping and photos by Brian Van Tighem, a throughout fishing with my dad – I just professional wedding photographer isbn: 978-1-77160-139-9 didn’t realize it back then,” he and Kevin Van Tighem’s youngest says. “The book is my attempt son. “He does a lot of nature and travel photography, to give something back to and it seemed like a perfect fit to collaborate,” landscapes and streams that Kevin says. have made my life worth “He and I discussed the kinds of photographic Brian Van Tighem living by telling their stories images that might work best, and then he went and trying to motivate people out backpacking, hiking, and exploring on his to care for them better than own to create those images. It was fascinating to we have to date.” see what he produced, because he was forming his Van Tighem spent about own relationships with places I knew before he was two years conducting born. I learned as much from his imagery as he interviews with ranchers, did from my writing. It was hugely satisfying to foresters, fishery biologists, collaborate with my son on a project like this.” hydrologists, and others, as Over all, Heart well as doing library and Waters is a beautiful Kevin Van Tighem archive research in Calgary and well-researched “The book is my attempt and Edmonton. way to show the The book is for anyone who relies for water on importance of the to give something back to the streams that drain from the Eastern Slopes of Bow River watershed landscapes and streams the Rocky Mountains, which would be most people and the need for it to in the Canadian Prairies. It will be of particular be restored. that have made my life interest to anglers, hunters, hikers, and others “We are in a water who know the foothills and mountains of western crisis,” says Van worth living…” Alberta and/or would like to know them better. Tighem. “The only sustainable way to improve “It’s for people who care about land, water, and our water supply is to restore the ability of those the future, and who take pleasure in the beauty and headwater landscapes to store and retain water so complexity of nature,” he says. that springs and creeks continue to flow with cool, Van Tighem hopes readers will come away from clean water when we need it. Heart Waters with a “deeper understanding and “We need to invest in restoring that landscape. concern for the little creeks, mountain valleys, That’s where our water future lies.”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 15 non-fiction SECRETS TO SUCCESS A proactive approach is imperative when dealing with organizational change by Liz Katynski any leaders and managers still see change as a barrier, but Mwhen they realize change is inevitable and integrate it into their professional process, they create a more successful organization.

LAUNCH, “Change is part of the natural “We need to LEAD, LIVE: flow,” says Dr. Dawn-Marie realize people The Executive’s Turner, author of Launch, Lead, will experience Guide To Preventing Live: The executive’s guide discomfort and Resistance & Succeeding to preventing resistance & ask questions. With Organizational succeeding with organizational If they are not ready, we need to get them ready. change. “It is not going to go It’s not resistance. They simply can’t see themselves Change away. I encourage leaders to make adopting the change. So we go back and work with Dr. Dawn-Marie Turner change part of the way they lead them to raise their perceived ability.” Your Nickel’s Worth and manage, to consider how they Leaders must listen actively to understand the Publishing are doing it and how they can do barriers, or what is preventing people from moving $24.95 hc, 184 pages it differently.” forward with the change. “They must understand with figures, tables, Through her company, Turner why and allow them to have time to engage with the endnotes isbn: 978-1-927756-47-8 Change Management, Turner has change and get comfortable with it,” says Turner. been helping leaders navigate the Turner’s process is based on research, and part complexities of organizational of a shift in thinking that started back in the change for a decade. Prior to that, she encouraged mid-1970s. behavioural change in the health care field. She has Whether a company is implementing new a doctorate in applied management and decision software or an individual is trying to lose weight science from Walden University, a master of or quit smoking, in general, she says, all change is education from the University of Manitoba, and has uncomfortable. developed her own proprietary change “As people, we are well equipped for transition methodology – DEAM©. change. We don’t necessarily resist change. “Organizations change to grow. My We resist being changed, people changing goal is to create healthier, stronger us. Generally, when we are ready for organizations because of change, not in change, we move forward with it.” spite of it. It’s about building readiness, In the book, as in her consulting, not managing resistance.” Turner explains how to implement change When change is implemented, people effectively. Once leaders understand the can choose to do one of three things: normal, predictable pattern people move engage, leave, or try to maintain the through when confronted with change, status quo. The third option, also known as and prepare their employees for it, the anxiety of resistance, should not be assumed. Turner’s change is reduced and people are more likely to go approach is proactive, creating a plan for success along with it, understand it, and support it. and engagement rather than a plan that assumes “Over and over, we see how this approach helps people will resist the change. organizations succeed,” Turner says. Everyone goes through predictable steps when “Creating a shared understanding moves an dealing with change, she says. organization forward.”

16 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 non-fiction Freedom of choice? Authors examine Canada’s physician-assisted death policies by Paula E. Kirman he right to choose the time and circumstances of one’s death, Tespecially in the cases of people who are terminally ill or have suffered catastrophic injuries, has been a hotly debated topic for a long time. Linda McIntosh examines the question of whether or not Canadians should adopt physician-assisted death in Master of My Fate.

McIntosh, a former Manitoba cabinet institutionalized and his determination minister who now lives in Ignace, to have a meaningful, productive life, Ontario, explores this contentious topic it was impossible not to be inspired by through her documentation of the life his courage.” MASTER OF MY FATE of Steven Fletcher, who was paralyzed The “with Steven Fletcher” addition Linda McIntosh from the neck down in 1996 after a car to the byline came about as a result with Steven Fletcher collision with a moose. Until the most of McIntosh and Fletcher’s close Heartland Associates recent federal election, Fletcher was friendship. “During the writing of $19.95 pb, 168 pages an MP with the Conservative Party. Master of My Fate, Steven and I with b/w photos throughout He introduced a private member’s bill communicated frequently,” she says, isbn: 978-1-896150-83-3 in March of 2014 to make physician- “sharing thoughts and perspectives on assisted death legal under Canadian law. various aspects of the book. In a very real sense he was ‘with’ me the suffering of others, the need to throughout the creative continue investigating this issue in process.” detail, a willingness to discuss it with “The irony of In addition to her others, and to come to some personal this world is that discussions with Fletcher, conclusions about it.” McIntosh received help Master of My Fate is an examination sometimes people from Fletcher’s parents, of an important moral and ethical who want to live, who provided boxes of question that has grown more complex in print text and photographs, the modern world. Technologies can now die, and some- as well as from many extend life far beyond its natural span. times people who people who shared their “The irony of this world is that stories of the anguish and sometimes people who want to live, die, want to die, live.” grief they experienced and sometimes people who want to die, while watching loved ones live. What is our right as individuals This is not the first time McIntosh endure painful deaths. to have control of our lives, including has written about Fletcher. Her McIntosh also went to experts in the ultimate in self-determination?” previous book, What Do You Do If bioethics, and the book presents the says McIntosh. You Don’t Die? discussed Fletcher’s opposing perspectives of Margaret “Whatever our opinions may be, long battle after his accident. Somerville, who is against physician- the debate that Steven has stimulated “I first met Steven about two years assisted death, and Arthur Schafer, is one that we need to have. With after his catastrophic accident,” says who says that making it legal is scientific advancement and the ability McIntosh. “We became close friends preferable to the underground way the to sustain life in ways not dreamed and confidants. As I watched him practice exists now. of in days gone by, it is right to pause struggle to get back into the world McIntosh says she hopes readers and consider the meaning of life – and and witnessed his refusal to be will gain “a deeper compassion for its ending.”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 17 non-fiction FEELING UNSETTLED SETTLER: Authors want Canadians to talk about colonialism Identity and Colonialism in 21st Century Canada by Paula E. Kirman Emma Battell Lowman and Adam J. Barker anada has a Settler problem. But what exactly does the term “Settler” Fernwood Publishing $18.95 pb, 160 pages Cmean? Settler: Identity and Colonialism in 21st Century Canada by Emma isbn: 978-1-55266-778-1 Battell Lowman and Adam J. Barker explains what it means to be a Settler and to be entangled in the colonialism that continues to dominate political, economic, and cultural life in Canada. The book also argues that acceptance of the There are parts of the book that may provoke Settler identity is the first step toward decolonizing strong emotional reactions, but, Lowman says, relationships between Settler Canadians and “the take-home message is that each of us has Indigenous peoples, something the power to do something necessary for a better future. positive and to bring about Settler was born over a decade truly just and mutually ago when Barker joined the MA beneficial relationships program in Indigenous governance between Indigenous and at the University of Victoria in non-Indigenous people 2004. Most of his classmates were in Canada.” Indigenous. The first positive step “They really held me to account, for Settlers is to recognize and forced me to re-examine a lot of how colonialism works. my own fundamental assumptions “The goal of a settler and beliefs. This wasn’t an easy colonial society is to process,” he says. become ‘naturalized’ on That same year, Barker and the land, to claim a Lowman heard Paulette Regan, a kind of ‘nativeness’ that lead researcher for the Truth and allows us to forget that we Reconciliation Commission who ever belonged anywhere was then a PhD student, refer to else, and that our claims herself as a “settler,” and it immediately resonated to belonging here exist with them. at the expense of Indigenous belonging,” says Barker. Lowman says they decided to write something “But in the practical sense, almost everyone who that would “share and clarify how we have come to is a Settler Canadian is also a settler colonizer use this term, a way which differs from some other because the invasive systems that we have built popular usages and which we came to believe could are so vast and powerful, the stories so enduring be useful to much wider discussions and efforts.” and foundational to our cultural practices, that The issues of settler colonialism and Indigenous we cannot simply opt out of them – we remain resistance apply to all. “We firmly believe that these complicit in settler colonialism as a fundamental are important issues that affect the lives of every part of how we think about ourselves and our person in Canada, every single day, whether they communities.” know and are aware, or whether they remain in the The authors hope Settler provides tools that dark,” notes Barker. can be used in conversations and that those “The conversation about these topics, and conversations will generate important and positive about what we need to do to confront settler change in Canada. colonialism and transform our Settler society, has “We look forward to listening to what people to happen primarily outside of the academy – in have to say, whether they agree with us or not. our workplaces, our communities, and around our And we will be available for those conversations,” kitchen tables – to make real positive change.” says Lowman.

18 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 non-fiction Close encounters Book compares frontier ranching in Canada and Australia by Paula E. Kirman estern Canada and Northern Australia may be thousands Wof miles apart, but historically these areas have had some astounding similarities with regard to cattle ranching. Warren M. Elofson compares these two frontier cattle ranching societies in great detail in his latest book, So Far and Yet So Close: Frontier Cattle Ranching in Western Prairie Canada and the Northern Territory of Australia.

“My interest in cattle ranching The book stresses the crucial role derives first from my own days as a family (and women in particular) SO FAR AND YET farmer and rancher in Alberta,” says ultimately played in helping a fledgling SO CLOSE: Elofson. industry gain a foothold. And it gives Frontier Cattle Ranching “I have spent a considerable part due credit to Aboriginal people in the in Western Prairie Canada of my adult life in agriculture and I Northern Territory who laboured on and the Northern Territory felt that my inside knowledge of the the early cattle stations, learned the business would bring new insights to cowboy trade, and did so much to of Australia the subject.” make the open range industry work. Warren M. Elofson In So Far and Yet So Close, Elofson University of Calgary Press facilitates a direct comparison with $34.95 pb, 330 pages what was going on at virtually the with illustrations, appendices, select bibliography, notes, index same time in the Australian outback “The first agriculturalists isbn: 978-1-55238-794-8 and the Canadian West. The book in these two geographi- examines grazing techniques and problems, marketing challenges, and cally disparate commu- University of Calgary, did extensive attempts the ranchers in both places nities struggled with the archival research to complete made to diversify into sub-industries. this study. The book’s title, So Far and Yet ecology and climate…” “In both countries, the primary So Close, “refers to the reality that sources are rich and rewarding.” despite the fact these two frontiers “In both cases,” Elofson says, Elofson has previously published were a world apart and had to deal ranchers “instigated the Texas system three books and numerous articles on with very different climate, terrain, for grazing cattle, which required the frontier cattle ranching societies and vegetation, their early history was an open range approach dependent on the northern Great Plains of North astoundingly similar largely because on the trade of the cowboy, and in America in the late nineteenth and their frontier conditions were so much which single young men dominated early twentieth centuries. the same,” he says. numerically, law and order was poorly So Far and Yet So Close, the first ever “The first agriculturalists in enforced, rustlers abounded, racial historical comparison of the frontier these two geographically disparate conflict was part of life, and women, cattle ranching societies in western communities struggled with the despite their relatively small numbers, Canada and northern Australia, ecology and climate, four-legged proved instrumental as they routinely represents the culmination of his work predators, such as wolves in Canada crossed gender boundaries to handle all on this subject. and alligators down under, and they the tasks on the ranch or cattle station “All readers will witness the power battled diseases in their herds – above that men were performing.” of the environment as it molded the all, the mange here and Redwater or Elofson, a professor and former ranching industry and the society that Texas Tick fever down there.” head of the history department at the spawned it on both ends of the earth.”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 19 non-fiction ArtiFACTS New book examines how the CMHR came to be by Liz Katynski hile most museums focus on the past, the Canadian WMuseum for Human Rights (CMHR), in Winnipeg, Manitoba, aims to change the future.

The Idea of a Human Rights Research in 2011–2012. Because of Museum, edited by Karen Busby, this, the book focuses more on the idea Adam Muller, and Andrew Woolford, and potential of the CMHR than on its examines the formation of the CMHR existing exhibits and programs. (the building and the concept), “There are a lot of great papers,” “Any tool promoting compares it to other international says Busby. “We compiled them to institutions, and encourages people to engage Manitobans in a discussion human rights is a think about its content and message. about the museum and what it is all great thing unless about, including decisions around exhibits and content, and how to it is just government THE IDEA OF A HUMAN incorporate Indigenous content.” propaganda.” RIGHTS MUSEUM Many people visit the CMHR, Edited by Karen Busby, Adam Muller, and and the book offers all of them a Adam Woolford better understanding of what went University of Manitoba Press into creating their experience. $27.95 pb, 384 pages “Winnipeggers are proud and with illustrations, bibliography excited about the museum, but isbn: 978-0-88755-782-8 they have lots of questions,” says Busby. “From the building’s design “I’ve always been a big fan of the to how much space is devoted to one idea of a human rights museum,” atrocity compared to another, questions says Karen Busby, a law professor of budget, politics, and more, the book and director of the Centre for Human uses public information to provide Adam Muller, Andrew Woolford, Karen Rights Research at the University of readers with a better understanding.” Busby Manitoba. Recently, Busby took a group of her were immediately moved by it and “Any tool promoting human rights is law students through the museum, and connected it to the plight of Syrian a great thing unless it is just government realized many of them did not know refugees today.” propaganda. I look at the museum as many of the stories told there. Such museum experiences bring up a supporter. It is a fantastic thing. I “For example, my generation knows questions of human rights, encourage think it is important to understand it the October Crisis was a massive abuse discussion, and may also inspire action and how it can do a better job rather of human rights in Canada, with an and change. than criticize it.” over-response by the state. For them, “We want people to think about The book is the first one published it’s history. But what is amazing is what human rights are, talk about about the CMHR, and it was written how they connect history to issues of them. We hope visiting the museum before the museum opened in 2014. today,” she says. will inspire people to go away and Most of the essays compiled here began “We watched a fantastic film about find out more about what surprises as papers presented during a seminar anti-Semitism in Canada during or inspires them during their visit,” series called Critical Conversations on World War II, when Jews were denied says Busby. the Idea of a Human Rights Museum entry into Canada because none was “People can learn more and take held by the Centre for Human Rights considered too many. My students action.”

20 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 African War. With photographs, maps, before being granted asylum in Canada. more non-fiction bibliography, index. (Fernwood, $20.95 pb, 224 pages, biography, letters, (University of Alberta, $34.95 pb, 264 pages, ISBN: 978-1-552667-01-9) ISBN: 978-1-77212-046-2) & memoir Finding Home in the Promised Land: A A Canterbury Pilgrimage/An Italian Personal History of Homelessness and Apostate Englishman: Grey Owl the Pilgrimage Social Exile Writer and the Myths Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Joseph Pennell Jane Harris Albert Braz Edited and with an introduction by When Jane Harris tumbles down the social This first comprehensive study of Grey Owl’s Dave Buchanan ladder after a violent crime, she recognizes that cultural and political image in light of his own This new edition of two out-of-print and trauma and poverty are inextricably linked, writings argues that people were troubled by highly entertaining travel memoirs from the and asks why Canadians accept institutions not only his deception about his identity, but 1880s about the advent of leisure touring, such as food banks that dole out small acts of also that he had forsaken European culture. by cycling pioneers, writers, and illustrators charity and merely fund the poverty industry. (University of Manitoba Press, $27.95 pb, Elizabeth and Joseph Pennell, provides (J. Gordon Shillingford, $24.95 pb, 268 pages, 224 pages, ISBN: 978-0-88755-778-1) the cultural contexts surrounding these ISBN: 978-1-927922-11-8) adventures. Illustrated. A Canadian Girl in South Africa: A From the Barren Lands: The Fur Trade, First Teacher’s Experiences in the South (University of Alberta Press, $29.95 pb, Nations, and a Life in Northern Canada African War, 1899–1902 232 pages, ISBN: 978-1-77212-042-4) Leonard G. Flett E. Maud Graham This story of the development of northern Edited by Michael Dawson, Catherine Gidney, Exiled for Love: The Journey of an Iranian Queer Activist Canada, as experienced by Leonard Flett, Cree and Susanne M. Klausen Arsham Parsi and Marc Colbourne status member of the Big Trout Lake Ontario This is an annotated reprint of the memoir This is the deeply personal, inspiring story First Nation, as well as his father, grandfather, by highly educated, hard-working, and of Arsham Parsi, who used the Internet to and great-grandfather, includes the dying opinionated E. Maud Graham, one of speak out about the human rights abuses days of the fur trade and the rise of a new the teachers chosen from all over the against LGBT people in his native Iran. After retail business tailored to First Nations. Commonwealth to teach thousands of Boer discovering that an order had been issued for (Great Plains, $29.95 pb, 320 pages, women, children, and non-combatants in his arrest and , Parsi fled to Turkey ISBN: 978-1-927855-33-1) concentration camps at the end of the South continued on page 22

Don’t Lick the Flagpole Celebrate the Cowboy David Banman Does life often seem to be little more than a series NON-FICTION SO FAR AND YET SO CLOSE: of disappointments and 978-1-927756-46-1 Frontier Cattle Ranching in frustrations? In the dark 176 pages • TP Western Prairie Canada and the depths of night, do you allow 6 x 9 • $19.95 yourself to ask, Why am I Northern Territory of Australia here? Be forever transformed as you learn to express the WARREN ELOFSON wonders and glories of God’s kingdom by simply being who God created you to be! 332 pp, illustrations | paperback, e-book, $34.95 978-1-55238-794-8 sc, 978-1-55238-797-9 epub, Honouring the Buffalo: 978-1-55238-798-6 mobi A Plains Cree Legend A comparative history of frontier cattle Ray Lavalee, Judith Silverthorne ranching in two societies on opposite ends of the globe. & Mike Keepness Also by Warren Elofson, Somebody Else’s Through the Money: The Walrond Ranch Story, 1883-1907. CHILDREN’S Creator, the NON-FICTION buffalo gave 978-1-927756-33-1 THE COWBOY LEGEND: themselves 48 pages • TP Owen Wister’s Virginian and as a gift for 11 x 8.5 • $14.95 the Canadian–American Ranching the survival of the Plains Cree people. Buffalo are Frontier honoured to this day, a reminder of life JOHN JENNINGS lived in harmony with nature.

448 pp, illustrations | paperback, e-book $39.95 Time After Time Colouring Book 978-1-55238-528-9 sc, 978-1-55238-752-8 epub, 978-1-55238-753-5 mobi Gaye Smith A study of the cowboy frontier is melded Make time for yourself. COIL-BOUND with an intriguing account of Wister’s Take time from the endless 978-1-927756-49-2 creation of the cowboy mystique. list of things to do and give 24 pages • TP your world some colour! 9 x 12 • $19.95 PH: 306-564-4957 FAX: 306-569-7467 press.ucalgary.ca [email protected] www.ynwp.ca

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 21 continued from page 21

June Mickle: One Woman’s Life in More Indian Ernie: Insights from entertaining edition of Wallace’s letters home the Foothills and Mountains of the Streets to England provides rare documentation of Western Canada Ernie Louttit the earliest days of settlement in the West Kathy Calvert This second memoir from retired Saskatoon with its valuable portrayal of everyday life. Born in 1920, June Mickle grew up in the police sergeant Ernie Louttit acknowledges ( Press, $29.95 pb, 350 foothills of the Rocky Mountains, becoming the struggles of those forced to live in high- pages, with b/w photos, a determined woman capable of meeting crime areas and highlights changes needed ISBN: 978-0-88977-408-7) the challenges of being an artist, guide, in policing. businesswoman, wife, parent, and a (Purich, $25.00 pb, 240 pages, with b/w photos Pauline Boutal: An Artist’s Destiny, legendary figure in the development of throughout, ISBN: 978-1-895830-82-8) 1894–1992 backcountry adventure. Louise Duguay (Rocky Mountain Books, $25.00 pb, 352 pages, Number Two: More Short Tales from a At a time when few women in Western ISBN: 978-1-77160-148-1) Very Tall Man Canada worked as artists, Boutal produced Jay Onrait portraits, landscapes, still lifes, illustrations, Letters to Brian: A Year of Living and From the author of the bestselling Anchorboy theatre sets, and costume design, and was Remembrance comes another rollicking collection of eventually inducted into the Order of Canada. Martha Brooks embarrassing stories by one of Canada’s best This translation of the award-winning study In these daily love letters to her husband, known sportscasters. is presented in full-colour. Brian, over the year following his death (HarperCollins, $19.99 pb, 256 pages, (University of Manitoba Press, $49.95 hc, from brain cancer, award-winning author ISBN: 978-1-4434-3494-2) 272 pages, ISBN: 978-0-88755-794-1) and jazz singer Brooks leads us on a journey through grief that is both deeply personal and On the Frontier: Letters from the Prairie Bohemian: Frank Gay’s Life in Music undeniably universal. Canadian West in the 1880s Trevor W. Harrison (Turnstone, $21.00 pb, 232 pages, William Wallace The life of the private, charming, and often ISBN: 978-0-888015-21-1) Edited by Ken S. Coates and Bill Morrison troubled luthier and composer Frank Gay, First published as My Dear Maggie, this who made guitars for Hank Snow and

22 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 Johnny Cash and became well-known essays giving the city a distinct horticultural character. in the Edmonton music scene, is told in With photographs, bibliography, notes, index. this biography by the son of friends. With Bindy’s Moon (University of Alberta, $34.95 pb, 344 pages, photographs, bibliography, notes, appendix. Lloyd Ratzlaff ISBN: 978-1-77212-048-6) (University of Alberta, $24.95 pb, 168 pages, In this genre-crossing autobiography set ISBN: 978-1-77212-047-9) in the Canadian Prairie, a former minister A Year of Days attempts to come to terms with his Myrl Coulter In these 15 personal narrative essays that Rogues and Rebels: Unforgettable spirituality, with meditations on philosophy, Characters from Canada’s West move through the holidays, vacations, mortality, and the natural world. Brian Brennan special occasions, and ordinary days of a (Thistledown, $18.95 pb, 128 pages, This book introduces readers to dozens of year, Coulter meditates on absence as she ISBN: 978-1-77187-054-2) larger-than-life Westerners who dared to be reaches for her mother who has succumbed different, from Nellie McClung and Tommy Casting Quiet Waters: Reflections on Life to a rare form of dementia. Douglas to Claire Hedwig Chell, co-inventor and Fishing (University of Alberta, $24.95 pb, 208 pages, of the Bloody Caesar. Edited by Jake MacDonald ISBN: 978-1-77212-045-5) (University of Regina Press, $19.95 pb, Contributors such as David Carpenter, 256 pages, ISBN: 978-0-88977-398-1) Annie Proulx, Charles Wilkins, and of course non-fiction MacDonald, explore the age-old subject of Seeking Our Eden: The Dreams and fishing – the adventure, the contemplation, Apartheid in Palestine: Hard Laws and Migrations of Sarah Jamison Craig the quests, and the connections. Harder Experiences Joanne Findon (Greystone Books, $19.95 pb, 232 pages, Edited by Ghada Ageel Quoting extensively from Craig’s ISBN: 978-1-77164-024-4) This collection of essays that humanize unpublished diaries and memoir, Findon the historic processes of occupation, puts Craig’s voice in context as she tells From the Elephant’s Back: Collected displacement, and apartheid is intended for of how Craig escapes a hard rural life to Essays and Travel Writing historians, students of colonialism and Israel- pursue, if not always realize, her dreams of Lawrence Durrell Palestine studies, and anyone interested in writing, founding a utopian colony based Edited by James Gifford nuanced debate. With photographs, maps, on alternative medicine and women’s dress This collection of 38 previously unpublished bibliography, notes, and appendix. reform, and championing women’s rights. or out-of-print essays by the noted novelist, (University of Alberta Press, $59.95 pb, (McGill-Queen’s University, $34.95 hc, anti-authoritarian modernist, and author of 304 pages, ISBN: 978-1-77212-082-0) 240 pages, ISBN: 978-0-7735-4480-2) the Alexandria Quartet, promises to open new approaches to interpreting his more The Battle of Alberta: The Historic Tending the Tree of Life: My Memoir famous works. With bibliography and notes. Rivalry between the Irwin Kahan and the (University of Alberta, $39.95 pb, 300 pages, This is the memoir of a Jewish farm boy Mark Spector ISBN: 978-1-77212-051-6) from Saskatchewan, a Second World War This up-close look at the rivalry between the Flames and the Oilers is told from the veteran, who ended up participating in LSD Why Grow Here: Essays on Edmonton’s experiments and other cutting-edge research, Growing History perspective of those that were there, and pays and becoming a compassionate and fierce Kathryn Chase Merrett tribute to Alberta’s hockey heyday. With a champion of people with schizophrenia. This collection of essays depicts the foreword by Theoren Fleury. (Wild Sage Press, $25.00 pb, 112 pages, development of Edmonton’s social, cultural, (McClelland & Stewart, $32.95 hc, 304 pages, ISBN: 978-0-9881229-8-7) and physical landscape as it has been shaped ISBN: 978-0-77107-806-4) by champions of both nature and the garden, W. A. Mackintosh: The Life of a Canadian continued on page 24 Economist Hugh Grant Settler: Identity and Colonialism This is the first biography of the influential st Canadian economist and policy advisor in 21 Century Canada whose commitment to public service Emma Battell Lowman contributed to Canada’s adoption of & Adam J. Barker Keynesian economic policy after the Second 9781552667781 $18.95 World War. With diagrams and tables. (McGill-Queen’s University Press, $49.95 hc, Poor Housing: A Silent Crisis 560 pages, ISBN: 978-0-77354-638-7) Josh Brandon & Jim Silver, eds. 9781552667910 $23.95

fernwoodpublishing.ca

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 23 continued from page 23

Canadian Pacific: The Golden Age of Travel Decolonizing Employment: Aboriginal Inclusion in Canada’s Barry Lane Labour Market This is a sumptuously illustrated history of a company, from the Shauna MacKinnon transcontinental railway, to the landmark hotels, to the shipping line, This examination of the Aboriginal labour market outlines the deeply whose story is inextricably linked with the history of Canada itself. damaging, intergenerational effects of colonial policies and neoliberal (Gooselane, $45.00 hc, 200 pages, policies and demonstrates that a fundamental shift is required in order ISBN: 978-0-86492-878-8) to ensure labour market access for one of Canada’s fastest-growing populations. The Complete Prebiotic & Probiotic Health Guide: A Diet Plan for (University of Manitoba Press, $27.95 pb, Balancing Your Gut Flora 192 pages, ISBN: 978-0-88755-781-1) Dr. Maitreyi Raman, Angela Sirounis, and Jennifer Shrubsole This guide to the healthy bacteria that play a major role in disease Disarming Intervention: A Critical History of Non-Lethality prevention and treatment is written by a gastroenterologist and Seantel Anaïs physician nutritionist, and clinical dietitians. Includes recipes to ease This study of the non-lethal weapons, from rubber bullets to the transition to a healthy diet. electroshock, that are widely used by police and military forces to (Robert Rose, $24.95 pb, 288 pages, subdue individuals and control crowds, traces the social, historical, and ISBN: 978-0-7788-0517-5) legal legitimization of non-lethality. (UBC Press, $32.95 pb, 180 pages, ISBN: 978-0-7748-2854-3) The Cowboy Legend: Owen Wister’s Virginian and the Canadian- American Frontier Dramatic Play in the Early Years John Jennings Elizabeth Coffman Wister’s publication of The Virginian in 1902 transformed the image of This practical book offers ways to use play to investigate stories, big the cowboy, and Jennings details the evidence that Everett Johnson, a ideas, and events, exploring dramatic play as a natural response Virginian who had settled in to learning and incorporating elements of voice, characterization, the Calgary area, was the prime inspiration movement, stillness, concentration, and listening. for the character. With photos, notes, bibliography, index. (Pembroke, $24.95 pb, 96 pages, ISBN: 978-1-55138-307-1) (University of Calgary Press, $34.95 pb, 320 pages, ISBN: 978-1-55238-528-9) Fire Canoe: Prairie Steamboat Days Revisited Ted Barris Historian Barris brings together first-hand accounts of the steamboat packet owners, captains, stevedores, engineers, firemen, immigrants, soldiers, and carpetbaggers who travelled the inland waterways of the West between 1859 and the turn of the twentieth century, showing how pivotal steamboats were to realizing the expansion of Canada from coast to coast. BOOKS (Dundurn, $33.99 hc, 376 pages, ISBN: 978-1-4597-3208-7) For the exploring spirit “Just marvelous!” In Search of –Terry McLeod, CBC From Treaties to Reserves: The Federal Government and Native Canada’s Weekend Morning Host Peoples in Territorial Alberta, 1870–1905 Ancient Heartland D. J. Hall Barbara Huck & This re-examination of the complex interaction between the Federal Doug Whiteway Government and Native Peoples reveals that divergent understandings National In Search of In the news of treaties contributed to mistrust on both sides, but also that there was BESTSELLER Ancient more initial positive cooperation between government and First Nations British Columbia Master of people than is commonly acknowledged. With photos and maps. Barbara Huck My Fate with Heidi Henderson (McGill-Queen’s University Press, $34.95 pb, & Philip Torrens Linda McIntosh with Steven Fletcher 512 pages, ISBN: 978-0-77354-595-3) National In Search of BESTSELLER Gendered Militarism in Canada: Learning Conformity and Ancient Alberta On Sober Barbara Huck & Second Resistance Doug Whiteway Edited by Nancy Taber with Amanda Dow Thought New ed. Spr’16 Barbara Bond This collection of essays examines and critiques how learning, militarism, and gender intersect, and how ingrained societal ideas A trio of route-oriented guides on of militarism and gender influence lifelong learning patterns and geology, paleontology & archaeology Current issues: Senate reform, physician-assisted death practices of Canadians. (University of Alberta Press, $34.95 pb, 272 pages, ISBN: 978-1-77212-084-4) HEARTLAND ASSOCIATES heartlandbooks.ca continued on page 51

24 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 family secrets, secret histories Mama’s boys Mennonite men reflect on their mothers by Liz Katynski mother’s influence on her son stays with him his A entire life. In Sons and Mothers: Stories from times past, is illustrated but Mennonite Men, 12 men from ages 32 never labelled. to 70 open their hearts and share their Michael Goertzen explores “There is an honest beauty to memories of their moms. the effects of his mother’s “These are important stories (and cancer. Lloyd Ratzlaff relates it. I respect the honesty.” poems) with many themes and an the anguish of his mother’s underlying love and respect that is quite sudden illness. Lukas Thiessen tells lovely,” says Mary Ann Loewen, the of his mother’s support and openness editor. “I believe strongly in stories. with him no matter what, even when Sharing first-person stories helps us he chose to become an atheist. all to understand each other, get along, “The stories create a very moving and love more easily.” adult sons’ connection to make Loewen explains further: “Any you reflect on your own life,” says time you read a story about someone Loewen. “You feel the impact the else, you learn, you have those aha mothers had on their sons. Despite the moments where you realize that challenges and troubles of life, all of person experienced something you these relationships at their core were have too. You better understand solid. There was a love that was not to yourself and your relationships, you be denied.” better understand others, and you feel Loewen wrote her English literature less alone.” thesis on her own 80-something-year- In these stories, the old mother. During mothers’ personalities the interview process, shine through. For SONS AND “She told me things example, Byron MOTHERS: she never did before. Rempel shares how I learned how things his mother always had Stories from happened. She finally to have her hair done, Mennonite Men shared and lightened kids now, but later, it would be okay even when dying in the Edited by Mary Ann her load. She was okay with me.” hospital. “He doesn’t Loewen with it.” Having a conversation with a mince words,” says University of Regina Press Loewen says she was younger mom is different today, Loewen. “He just says $21.95 pb, 158 pages closer to her mom in Loewen says. “There is a permission to that’s who she is. He isbn: 978-0-88977-403-2 her 50s than when she have all these discussions about things doesn’t judge. There was younger, but she we never used to talk about. There is is an honest beauty to it. I respect strives to be open with her own adult an increased openness.” the honesty.” children. Everyone has a story, something to Some of the mothers are still living. “The act of interviewing and writing say, maintains Loewen. They should Others have died, some more recently things down and thinking about it say it, if they want to. than others. Some of the sons are helped me to understand my own “Pretty stories aren’t going to help bereaved and some have increased mother as a human being, and let go us. It’s important to be honest, to say perspective due to the passing of time. of some things. It was hugely helpful. what is worth saying, with love and Depression, an unspoken trouble in I’m not ready to do that with my own respect.”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 25 family secrets, secret histories Prairie Delights from Behind closed doors First time novelist wants people to talk about domestic violence by Yvonne Dick riendly Fire, the debut novel by Saskatchewan writer Lisa F Guenther, deals with a commonly known yet often hidden problem – domestic violence – during a hot Saskatchewan summer when Darby Swanks discovers the body of her beloved Aunt Bea in a local lake.

The police find Bea’s of her mother, a complicated love life, car on the side of the plans for the future, and a brushfire road, packed with that threatens her neighbours and the belongings and money, diner where she works. as though she is leaving And that’s just in the present – town for good. Not only through the murder investigation, she Tending the Tree of Life Dorothy McMoogle Goldeye and Funnyfin We’re Already Home has she been strangled, is drawn into the past, with hints that a memoir with Kumquat and Bugle a chuckle-filled chapter book a two-act play but one of Aunt Bea’s her aunt had long been in danger. “When it’s someone written by Irwin Kahan a story in rhyme written by Fannie Kahan written by Terry Jordan, fingers has been cut off – Guenther explores the implications of 9780988122987 written by Bruce Rice illustrated by Sharon Kahan Lorna Tureski, Arnie Hayashi along with her wedding such a tragedy on various relationships, you love, in your family, 112 pages, 6 x 9, softcover, $25 illustrated by Wendy Winter 9780988122949 9780988122970 9780988122956 64 pages, 8 x 8, paperback 96 pages, 6 x 9, paperback, $18 ring. Suddenly Darby especially those within families, and How did a Jewish farm boy you can hardly believe 32 pages, 8 x 8, hardcover colour illustrations, $25 and her family all play looks at how people can turn a blind from Saskatchewan end up Add a dash of Islam, a pinch b&w illustrations, $25 a role in the homicide eye to the dark side of others. they would be capable participating in LSD Goldeye and Funnyfin of Christianity, a splash of investigation and become, to a degree, “When it’s someone you love, in your of that.” experiments and other Dorothy wants to play the sharpen their problem- Indigenous mischief, and voyeurs into the intimate and private family, you can hardly believe they cutting-edge psychiatric bugle till she’s green and solving skills on a string what do you get? life of Bea and her husband, Will. What would be capable of that,” she says. Guenther says, “I’ve read that most research? hang kumquat colours on of surprises such as the “A powerful, wonderfully every bush and tree. swordfish who can only happens in the privacy of intimate Guenther wrote this book with the first-time novelists base their characters “Reflections from a remarkable constructed play, both hilarious say mphmmm. relationships is always a mystery, but help of a distance education program a bit on themselves. Parts of Darby are man who, many might argue, “Holy Kumquat, but this book is and moving. [The play] reaches this one appears to be deadly. in creative writing offered by Humber based on me, but some characters are experienced some of the more fun: the rhymes and rhythms of “These tales of fishy friendship, past itself to connect far into College. She works best with deadlines, very different from me.” challenging moments in Bruce Rice perfectly matched with a school of undersea our larger society.” she says, so it helped to be accountable One part of Darby is her musical Saskatchewan’s history.” with the art of Wendy Winter.” characters, will be sure to hook John Lent, author FRIENDLY FIRE for writing a certain amount in set time abilities, which Guenther doesn’t share. Erika Dyck, Professor, History of Robert Currie, Saskatchewan young readers.” “A sweet, straightforward play Lisa Guenther frames. She learned that revising is not Through her songwriting and creative Medicine, University of Saskatchewan Poet Laureate 2007-2010 Warren James, Regina Public Library NeWest just checking for spelling and flow and tendencies, Darby was able to connect that any church, school or “An account that is difficult to “Will not only help young readers “An opportunity for parents and community could stage as a $19.95 pb, 154 pages grammar in a work, but that it can be on a deep level with her aunt, who put down once one begins.” learn to deal with some more children to explore emotions and jumping off point for discussions isbn: 978-1-926455-41-9 a process of re-imagining the story and was an artist. Guenther’s husband is a Janice Rosen, Archives Director, complex sounds, but will make it see conflict resolution at its best.” about faith, culture and re-creating it. musician, and while writing the novel, Canadian Jewish Congress a joy for their grown-ups to read Roseanne Copithorn, community.” The plot was loosely inspired by a Some of this revising was spurred on she found it interesting to talk about it CC National Archives to them.” Parent Educator Kelley Jo Burke, playwright story Guenther heard about a near- by her local weather. “We were snowed with him, and they noticed similarities Jessica Bickford, SPG Book Review drowning incident nearby. “I could feel in with one of those really late March in the creative process, whether that a sense of that tragedy, what it might blizzards and I didn’t have anything else process is music or writing or art. be like,” she says. to do except revise my book, and it sort of “We both believe,” she says, “that To place an order or learn more about Wild Sage Press In addition to the murder of her aunt, kicked off a creative spurt,” during which you put a bit of your personality into visit: www.wildsagepress.biz • email: [email protected] • or phone: 306-565-0080 Darby is dealing with the recent death she added depth to Darby’s character. your art.” Also available from: Red Tuque Books www.redtuquebooks.ca more family secrets, secret histories on page 30 McNally Robinson Booksellers www.mcnallyrobinson.com and other select retailers 26 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 Publishing made possible with the support of Creative Saskatchewan Prairie Delights from

Tending the Tree of Life Dorothy McMoogle Goldeye and Funnyfin We’re Already Home a memoir with Kumquat and Bugle a chuckle-filled chapter book a two-act play written by Irwin Kahan a story in rhyme written by Fannie Kahan written by Terry Jordan, 9780988122987 written by Bruce Rice illustrated by Sharon Kahan Lorna Tureski, Arnie Hayashi 112 pages, 6 x 9, softcover, $25 illustrated by Wendy Winter 9780988122949 9780988122970 9780988122956 64 pages, 8 x 8, paperback 96 pages, 6 x 9, paperback, $18 How did a Jewish farm boy 32 pages, 8 x 8, hardcover colour illustrations, $25 from Saskatchewan end up Add a dash of Islam, a pinch b&w illustrations, $25 participating in LSD Goldeye and Funnyfin of Christianity, a splash of experiments and other Dorothy wants to play the sharpen their problem- Indigenous mischief, and cutting-edge psychiatric bugle till she’s green and solving skills on a string what do you get? research? hang kumquat colours on of surprises such as the “A powerful, wonderfully every bush and tree. swordfish who can only “Reflections from a remarkable constructed play, both hilarious say mphmmm. man who, many might argue, “Holy Kumquat, but this book is and moving. [The play] reaches experienced some of the more fun: the rhymes and rhythms of “These tales of fishy friendship, past itself to connect far into challenging moments in Bruce Rice perfectly matched with a school of undersea our larger society.” Saskatchewan’s history.” with the art of Wendy Winter.” characters, will be sure to hook John Lent, author Erika Dyck, Professor, History of Robert Currie, Saskatchewan young readers.” “A sweet, straightforward play Medicine, University of Saskatchewan Poet Laureate 2007-2010 Warren James, Regina Public Library that any church, school or “An account that is difficult to “Will not only help young readers “An opportunity for parents and community could stage as a put down once one begins.” learn to deal with some more children to explore emotions and jumping off point for discussions Janice Rosen, Archives Director, complex sounds, but will make it see conflict resolution at its best.” about faith, culture and Canadian Jewish Congress a joy for their grown-ups to read Roseanne Copithorn, community.” CC National Archives to them.” Parent Educator Kelley Jo Burke, playwright Jessica Bickford, SPG Book Review

To place an order or learn more about Wild Sage Press visit: www.wildsagepress.biz • email: [email protected] • or phone: 306-565-0080 Also available from: Red Tuque Books www.redtuquebooks.ca McNally Robinson Booksellers www.mcnallyrobinson.com and other select retailers Publishing made possible with the support of Creative Saskatchewan publisher feature | edge publishing

LIVING on the Alberta publisher celebrates 15 years

by Quentin Mills-Fenn

Photo courtesy the Calgary Herald

hen you think about it, the vessel and hoping, for a crop of stories and storytellers to containing the words of an author magically appear, magically forging themselves into “W shape for public presentation, and then figuring out a is but the tip of a proverbial iceberg.” way to expose their talents to the world,” Hades says. “I guess being a publisher means that I am a “Publishing has been a part of my life for, well, talent scout, an agriculturist, a thinker, a dreamer, forever,” Brian Hades explains. But the head of a planner, a motivator, an accomplice, a bum, a Calgary’s EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy hack, and a futurist all rolled into one.” Publishing came to the field by an unusual route. Hades was off to a great start with his first book, “I grew up in a magic family and magic (as a The Black Chalice, by Marie Jakober, the award- performing art) was my business for a long time,” he winning fantasy and historical fiction writer. Still says. His father involved young Brian in his show as a little subterfuge was required. a child “box jumper,” and he also had a professional “After many attempts, false starts, errors in stage show from the age of seven, with bookings for judgment, sessions of self-loathing, some ego pay, until he was 14. bashing, and ultimately a tremendous amount of “Performing magic on a stage is essentially a stand- love and encouragement from my wife,” says Hades, and-deliver form of storytelling,” says Hades. And “I ‘accidentally’ met Marie Jakober at a Calgary magic acts need to be written down for copyright convention of science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts.” protection, which There she told him that she had a duology that is getting close to was looking for a home. “I guess being a publisher being published. “Somehow I talked her into making it a stand- means that I am a talent scout, Hades’s past alone,” he says, “and my business partner at the time, involvements in Lynn Jennyc, and I began a journey that, after 15 an agriculturist, a thinker, a theatre and the years, has produced hundreds of speculative fiction dreamer, a planner, a motivator, arts, including books, published countless writers, started multiple an accomplice, a bum, a hack, performing in a imprints, won some awards, and encouraged others ’70s rock and roll to become published.” and a futurist all rolled into one.” band, meant that Now, a decade and a half later, EDGE is he was always surrounded by young talented people, publishing 21 new works in print as well as in digital actors, musicians, artists, writers, and he always format with their new eBook imprint EDGE-Lite. found ways to include them in some sort of “show.” Fall highlights of the new imprint include Bad City “Some of those early projects are not so different by Matt Mayr, and The Triforium: The Haunting from what I now do – which is to cull the wheat from of Westminster Abbey by Mark Patton. the chaff, mine for gold by shifting tons of the dirt “We shied away from digital books for quite a and mud, planting seeds in the spring, and waiting, while,” he admits, “but ultimately we developed a

28 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 nEvermore: Tales of Murder, Mystery and destruction of his people by the pale men more from EDGE the Macabre from the sea and to become known as the Red Edited by Nancy Kilpatrick and Caro Soles Bad City Wraith. This collection of 22 neo-gothic stories inspired Matt Mayr (EDGE-Lite, $5.99 e-book, by the imagination of Edgar Allan Poe lives up Simon Gray, a talented ISBN: 978-1-77053-095-9) to Poe’s brilliance and innovation. Contributors young thief, would like to include such greats as Kelley Armstrong, Barbara The Rosetta Man escape the violent post- Fradkin, Tanith Lee, and . Claire McCague apocalyptic South Town (EDGE, $5.99 e-book, ISBN: 978-1-77053-086-7; Estlin Hume, a man exiled and broke due to his with the woman he loves, $15.95 pb, 288 pages, ISBN: 978-1-777053-085-0) squirrel-attracting talent, is adopted by aliens but he is handed a new job to work as their translator in this light-hearted, for the powerful Eli Baxter, Professor Challenger: New Worlds, Lost accessible sci-fi novel. which makes leaving Places (EDGE-Lite, $5.99 e-book, difficult. Edited by J. R. Campbell ISBN: 978-1-77053-094-2) (EDGE-Lite, $5.99 e-book, ISBN: 978-1-77053-093-5) and Charles Prepolec Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Stranger King Bedlam Lost Professor George Edward Nadia Hutton Jack Castle Challenger returns in 10 Lena Greenwood leads her company into the Deputy Hank McCarthy and ballet dancer all-new fantasy tales of Canadian Rockies when her city is invaded by Emma Hudson arrive in HavenPort, Alaska, scientific adventure and a hostile alien race, and eventually they cross where they begin to see there is more to this wonder. Endorsed by the paths with the alien priest Thegn, who is there sleepy little town than they expected. estate of Sir Arthur Conan to study the human species. (EDGE-Lite, $5.99 e-book, ISBN: 978-1-77053-105-5; Doyle. (EDGE-Lite, $5.99 e-book, ISBN: TBA; print print available January 2016) (EDGE, $5.99 e-book, ISBN: 978-77053-053-9; release TBA) $15.95 pb, 272 pages, ISBN: 978-1-77053-052-2) Europa Journal The Triforium: The Haunting of Jack Castle Railroad Rising: The Blackpowder Westminster Abbey In 2168, Commander Mac O’Bryant and her Rebellion Mark Patton team of astronauts discover a mysterious five- J. P. Wagner Newly graduated architect sided pyramid on the ocean floor of Jupiter’s Steam engines, railway lines, gunpowder Wallace Butterfield is moon, Europa, where they find the body of a magic, and the advent of flight merge this hired by the Westminster missing World War II pilot. fantasy adventure with steampunk, as Carrtog Abbey Foundation, and (EDGE-Lite, $5.99 e-book, ISBN: 978-1-77053-091-1; hires himself out as a mercenary and gets he’s so eager to add a major $19.95 pb, 280 pages, ISBN: 978-77053-104-8) caught up in an uprising against the King. architectural project to his (EDGE-Lite, $5.99 e-book, CV that he overlooks the Milky Way Repo ISBN: 978-1-77053-098-0) fact that the chairman of Michael Prelee the Foundation can only Nathan Teller owns and operates a starship The Red Wraith meet with him in the repo company, and when he and his agents get Nick Wisseman middle of the night in the involved in a ransom delivery for a starship Naysin, a child of the Lepane nation in Early dark attic of the Abbey. crew being held hostage, they find themselves America, manifests powers of a dual deity (EDGE-Lite, $5.99 e-book, up against a cult and the mob. forever torn in two by light and darkness. He ISBN: 978-1-77053-097-3) (EDGE-Lite, $5.99 e-book, ISBN: 978-1-77053-092-8) is exiled from his clan, only to survive the

business model that we believe in. We always had 5-, 10-, and 15-year goals. “I’m thankful every day to be doing have this motto: you can’t have a dream I’m so proud of all of the folks who have something I love with so many talented without a plan. And that’s driving us to helped make EDGE what it is today. people,” he says. take on new challenges.” When you think about it, the vessel And yes, his last name is actually EDGE is also the current publisher containing the words of an author is Hades. of the Tesseracts series of Canadian but the tip of a proverbial iceberg.” “It has stood the test of time, and short stories. The forthcoming volume Hades appreciates all the editors, been a suitable if not a somewhat is titled Superhero Universe (Tesseracts artists, designers, publicity people, web controversial part of my life during my 19) and is edited by Claude Lalumière designers, distributors, wholesalers, various stints as a magician, musician, and Mark Shainblum, and volume 20 book retailers, online resellers, theatrical producer, publisher, and is already in the works. It’ll be released supporters, and most importantly, husband,” he says. in the spring of 2017. readers who support each of EDGE’s “Okay, maybe my wife has to bear “I started EDGE with a very long books and eBooks. the brunt of it more than I. Love you, future view,” Hades says. “We’ve dear.”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 29 family secrets, secret histories Shedding light Family history at the core of Hunter’s latest by Yvonne Dick atherine Hunter has a penchant for family history. She Cremembers listening to family stories her mom, aunts, and cousins would tell of past lives. Although her new book, After Light, is a work of fiction, some of the characters and situations were inspired by people she knew or had heard of in her family history.

For example, the early would they have landed on? life of the grandmother, What boats were they in, what Deirdre, is based on did they wear, where did they Hunter’s great-aunt’s story set off from?” she says. of a poor childhood and “There were some arranged marriage to a newspaper articles kicking widower with children. around the house and stuck “I always remember my in the back of photo albums aunt telling that story and it that I had access to. I went just caught my imagination, to Ireland to the little town being in that situation,” she where my grandmother had AFTER LIGHT says. “Suddenly going from being a grown up.” Catherine Hunter teenager, which was a pretty carefree Hunter, the author of Signature Editions life then, to running a farm and taking multiple works of poetry $23.95 pb, 448 pages care of someone else’s kids.” and mystery fiction and a isbn: 978-1-927426-73-9 And Deirdre’s son Frank has a professor at the University similar life to Hunter’s father. of Winnipeg, says writing Rosheen (Róisín) around the turn of “In World War II, my dad was After Light took a number of years. the twenty-first century and the story blinded and for a while needed to The book came to her intermittently Von uncovers about her grandmother learn how to navigate through Deirdre, who left Ireland for Boston this new world he was now in. He and the hope of a better life. was American and had come to The contemporary storyline is Canada to fight for the Canadian “It’s a story I’ve always filled out with flashbacks to Von’s army, so after the war the best help wanted to tell, all my life.” and Rosheen’s childhoods and and health care available to him further back to the Second World were here. So he not only lost his War and their father’s experiences. vision but he also lost his country,” – there were blocks of time when the The result is a powerful family saga, says Hunter. words flowed, and times when she was delving into ideas of survival and While creating this fictional portrait so busy she didn’t work on it at all. resilience. of four generations, Hunter coupled “It was a huge project that really “It’s a story I’ve always wanted to stories heard with considerable took up a lot of space in my head,” tell, all my life,” says Hunter, “and research. she says. kind of explore the way that trauma “They were at Dieppe, well, when After Light has a dual narrative – the gets passed on from one generation to were they at Dieppe? What beach story of Von (Siobhán) and her sister the next.”

30 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 family secrets, secret histories TRUTH BE TOLD Poet documents her mother’s residential school experience by Quentin Mills-Fenn osanna Deerchild wrote about her childhood in her first book, this is Ra small northern town, which won the 2008 Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry. Her latest collection, calling down the sky, shifts the focus to her mother’s experiences in the residential school system. It’s a moving, lyrical document of suffering, survival, aftermath, and love.

Deerchild and her mother began the process would pause and then… she of creating the book after the Truth and would share a memory. They Reconciliation Commission hosted a national were stark and honest and gathering in Winnipeg in June 2010. The TRC she never cried. But I did. travelled the country hearing survivor stories to put Many times.” on the public record following the Prime Minister’s Deerchild filled out her apology for the Indian Residential School era. mother’s memories with research from the public record and interviews with “I told her, ‘I will listen. I will tell other people. She found your story and no one will tell out when her mother’s first CALLING DOWN school burned down and why THE SKY there are no records of her you to be silent ever again.’ Rosanna Deerchild there, and she discovered the BookLand Press “My mother had no interest in going to the name of the nuns who ran the $16.95 pb, 84 pages gathering or sharing her story with anyone,” says schools and even the name of isbn: 978-1-77231-005-4 Deerchild. “She believed in forgive and forget. But the woman who cut her hair. her story had already been etched on her skin, her “When you see the name of body, her spirit, and upon our family. All that was the person who violated your mother, something left was the telling. After some convincing she went breaks inside of you,” she says. “It is not something with me to the gathering and after hearing many that can be silenced again.” experiences, decided she was ready.” And her mother went over every poem, But, Deerchild says, when she approached one of correcting, suggesting. the sharing circles, she learned that so many had “She told me the same stories over and over until come to tell their stories, there was no room for her I got it right,” Deeerchild says. “There is not a word mother, and she should come back another time. that does not have my mother’s breath on it.” “I told them that my mother had been waiting 50 Deerchild is forthright in what she wants readers years to tell her story and she would not wait one to take from the book. more day,” she says. “I would like people to take away the truth. To “I told her, ‘I will listen. I will tell your story and stop seeing Indigenous People as cattle deserving no one will tell you to be silent ever again.’” of slaughter,” she says. “I want them to see their The book came about after numerous own children, their own reflection. I want them to conversations, many of which had nothing to with be enraged by the forced weight upon generations the schools. of Canadians. “But sometimes,” Deerchild says, “when we sat “What happened in those institutions was a with each other and she had told me of her day she genocide. That cannot be denied any longer.”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 31 family secrets, secret histories Strings…of Pearl Debut novel examines family dynamics by Bev Sandell Greenberg riters get their inspiration in a variety of places. Erna Buffie’s Wcame from a want ad in the classified section of a newspaper: “For sale. Two mother-of-the-bride dresses. Size 12.”

“Suddenly, there was this character But Pearl embodies her past and Pearl, in all her glory: loud, blunt, unwittingly passes it on to her children grieving, and pissed off, at the world in how she raises them; they are a in general and her daughters in product of her mothering. Only as particular,” says Buffie. middle-aged adults do they discover “So I started thinking… how did clues about their mother’s past and Pearl become this woman who would begin to question her. sell her mother-of-the-bride dresses? Throughout the novel the chapters What was her secret past? And how hopscotch back and forth through did it shape her children?” time. “I wanted to write about women Buffie’s short story about Pearl won who had lived through the Great the Writers’ Federation Depression, the Second World War and fiction contest, but the character who, like Pearl, may also have grown continued to haunt her. up with a father horribly damaged by “Pearl kept knocking the First World War,” says Buffie. on my brain, saying, “Many of these women were intensely ‘There’s more to this. private and taciturn. As Pearl would There’s more to this,’” say, they just ‘got on with it,’ but many declares Buffie. never came to terms with the past.” LET US BE TRUE And thus, her debut Ever the storyteller, Buffie’s Erna Buffie novel, Let Us Be True, background in making documentary Coteau Books came to be. films serves her well as a novelist. “The $19.95 pb, 240 pages Set in Winnipeg job, either as a writer or filmmaker, is isbn: 978-1-55050-635-8 between the 1940s and to tell the story as vividly, compellingly, 2000, the novel involves Pearl Calder, and truly as possible. Working in a an economic disaster; it was also a her husband, and their two daughters. cutting room teaches you what you tangible, physical catastrophe because absolutely need to say, of the drought. Even at the best of what you can leave out, times the prairies can be a cruel and and how fast you can make forbidding landscape.” “Even at the best of times the the cuts, whether between That said, she hopes that her novel prairies can be a cruel and for- places, characters, or time isn’t an exclusively “Prairie” story in frames, and still keep your terms of its themes and characters. bidding landscape.” reader/viewer with you.” Buffie once read that only through As well, filmmaking taught a deep knowledge of the particular Pearl has many secrets: her sister’s Buffie about the value and economy can one write stories that are truly abandonment, her mother’s premature of language. universal. death, her father’s emotional wounds As for the Prairie setting, Buffie “I think that’s true,” she adds. “At from one war, as well as her lost insists that it is essential to the novel. least I hope so. I’ll let readers be the brother and boyfriend in another war. “The Great Depression wasn’t just judge of that!”

32 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 family secrets, secret histories Chasing liberty Dianne Warren explores the mysteries of ordinary lives in new novel by Margaret Goldik ianne Warren’s debut novel, Cool Water, was launched Dto critical acclaim, winning the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. And in Liberty Street she has given us another exceptional tale with characters who will live on after the book is finished.

Frances Moon, a middle-aged Nations man, Silas Chance, who LIBERTY STREET microbiologist in a western city, dies at the side of the highway the Dianne Warren has an enviable life, but as one same night that Dooley Sullivan HarperCollins of the characters in this densely crashes his truck into a bridge. $32.99 hc, 384 pages populated story remarks, “We Dooley Sullivan is a troubled isbn: 978-1-55468-560-8 are all such mysteries to one youth who is kind to prickly, another.” She and her longtime impetuous, socially diffident partner, Ian, are on vacation in Frances. She dreams of Dooley, “The place where Ireland when the funeral of a and “when she’s old enough this novel is set is young woman surprises Frances to have a boyfriend, she wants boreal forest, of which into blurting out something him to be Dooley Sullivan.” But there is plenty in about her past, without realizing Dooley’s path leads to alcoholism Saskatchewan,” says she was speaking aloud. and exile. Warren. “People just Frances can either say more Upon her return as an adult, don’t see it because or less, and she chooses to say Frances realizes there are “no they pass through less. But that couple of sentences, locked doors in Elliot.” When she Saskatchewan on awakening memories tamped arrives there, she finds a second the No. 1 highway, which is in down for decades, sends her occupant on Liberty Street – a farming and ranching country. back to Elliot, Saskatchewan, to hippie living in a trailer. She meets So I still see Liberty Street as her mother’s rental property on her neighbour and then realizes a very Saskatchewan novel, but Liberty Street. that she is not the only person it’s a part of the province that Liberty Street – the title has with onerous memories of Elliot. is further north and not as many layers – is a failed sub- familiar to most people. It’s division. Frances’s uncle had distinct culturally.” built a house there, but died “There are many acts And perhaps kindness is after the house was completed. part of that culture. “I didn’t It remained the only house on of kindness through- think about kindness while I Liberty Street, and was willed out the lives of the two was writing, but when I look at to the Moons (a “backup plan” it now, there are many acts of Alice Moon called it, for the main characters.” kindness throughout the lives of time when her husband’s the two main characters (Frances failing eyesight would force the In Cool Water t h e and Dooley),” Warren says. family to move from the farm Saskatchewan landscape was “It’s perhaps toward the end of into town). almost another character. But the novel that they, and Frances The stories of the various the connection to the landscape in particular, recognize the renters are woven into Frances’s is perhaps not as strong in importance of kindness, and it story, including one of a First Liberty Street. becomes cathartic.”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 33 poetry FAN LETTERS Mierau’s latest collection examines pop culture and celebrity by Quentin Mills-Fenn hings are rarely straightforward in the writing of Maurice TMierau. Ideas bristle against each other in provocative ways, and you’ll come across the most unexpected people. With his latest poetry collection, he examines popular culture, and ideas of who speaks on behalf of an era. The reader’s questions might start with the title. What exactly are Autobiographical Fictions?

“It has long “There’s less of a shift than might fascinated me be immediately apparent,” he says. player Stephon Marbury that poetry is “Fear Not is crammed with references (currently with the Beijing Ducks of classified as non- to the King James Bible, but also to pop the Chinese Basketball Association). fiction in the Dewey decimal system,” culture: Mel Gibson, Tony Soprano, “Celebrities, even minor ones Mierau explains, “and on an instinctive Britney Spears and Alan Turing (both like Marbury, are great sources of level, many of us consider poetry to be of whom also appear in this new book), accidental poetry,” Mierau says. true in a way that fiction is not.” Diana Krall, Janice Dickinson. “They are not respected, as poets “Autobiographical Fictions features sometimes are, for their linguistic a bunch of poems about writers, too, craftsmanship. Instead they speak the AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL including John Berryman, Emily language of society’s unconscious.” FICTIONS Dickinson, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Mierau delights in surprising readers, Maurice Mierau and Ayn Rand (who should not repeatedly coming up with striking Palimpsest Press be described as a writer). Another juxtapositions. Many of the poems are $18.95 pb, 72 pages continuity between the two books is dedicated to notable individuals, and isbn: 978-1-926794-28-0 my interest in religious figures: here sometime dedicatees make unusual instead of Jesus, you get Joseph Smith, neighbours: Robert Dziekanski next While writing the book that became Ted Haggard, a Mennonite martyr, to Posh Spice, Allen Ginsberg next to Autobiographical Fictions, Miereau and so on.” Britney Spears. But Mierau has more wrote a memoir, Detachment. than mere playfulness in mind. The memoir, says Mierau, “used “By making these juxtapositions, a lot of fictional techniques to tell “Celebrities, even minor I’m interested in violating notions of painful and personal truths about my decorum and logic that stop poets own family life. So my autobiographical ones… are great sources from inhabiting our cultural moment, fictions intermix autobiography, fiction, of accidental poetry.” where Google levels all discourse to a and celebrity biography in a much looser search result,” he says. way than I could in the memoir, and one This interest in public figures, with “A poet should be engaged that I hope entertains readers.” varying degrees of literary and cultural with contemporary language, as Mierau’s previous poetry collection, respectability, is announced on the Wordsworth argued, and also the Fear Not, drew from the Bible, but opening pages of the book, which language of poetic tradition. That’s he points out that it shares a lot of feature epigraphs from Celine Dion why Ovid belongs in the same poem territory with his latest book. (with a great, bizarre quotation) and with Posh Spice.”

34 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 poetry Finding her niche Poet’s latest collection has strong ecological emphasis by Ariel Gordon asma Kavanagh’s second collection could be defined as eco- Bpoetry, that is, poetry with a strong ecological emphasis.

While Niche includes elegies for lost “Although Niche emerges from a flora and fauna and for the ways that specific location, and a preoccupation humans interact with them, in these with extinction, it ended up reaching poems Kavanagh was reaching for across time and place to ask that something other than anger or despair. ancient question, ‘Why are we here?’” “I want people to know that although says Kavanagh. some of the poems may seem dire, Though she moved to the Prairies Niche is meant to be an inspiring text, from Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, landscape of fault lines, a landscape a tool or a talisman for re-visioning a Kavanagh has also lived in Cape that is slowly sinking into the ocean, more optimistic and grounded view of Breton, on Vancouver Island, and in and fairly rapidly being eroded by climate change and mass extinction, the Arabian Gulf. the ocean at the same time, the deep and of the role humans play (or could “Moving every few years, I always stillness of the land here is both be playing) on Earth,” says Kavanagh. seem to be writing about the place comforting and unsettling.” While the poems in the Manitoba- I lived last, and by the time I have When not touring Niche or based writer’s first gotten to know the new producing artist’s books under book, Distillõ, engaged landscape, I’m writing her imprint, Rabbit Square Books, the natural world NICHE and remembering it Kavanagh is already at work on her and explored our from somewhere else,” next project. Basma Kavanagh relationship to it, in she says. “To call that “Although I am writing Frontenac House Niche Kavanagh almost a method would be a some miscellaneous $15.95 pb, 120 pages inverts the equation. stretch, but it’s a pattern poems, I am mostly isbn: 978-1-927823-30-9 “Distillõ was about that seems to work, concentrating on writing re-learning how to regardless.” a book-length poem about be in the world in my family history, the a new place, both influences of Arabic geographically, and “I was attempting to write language and poetic figuratively, after the traditions in ‘the West,’ death of my father,” something that revealed what and women’s lives, in the says Kavanagh, who is has been lost (culturally, classical Arabic quatrain also a visual artist and form – the ruba’i,” says letterpress printer. linguistically, ecologically)… Kavanagh. “With Niche, I “So I am reading a lot of Arabic was attempting to by looking at what isn’t there.” poets (classical and contemporary) in write something that translation, including the fascinating revealed what has been lost (culturally, Kavanagh notes that there are several Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian linguistically, ecologically) in Nova things about the Prairies that she didn’t Odes, translated by Michael Sells. I Scotia by looking at what isn’t there.” anticipate. am also spending a great deal of time Kavanagh focused on extinction “The tectonic solidity of the squinting at my small but excellent generally and, specifically, worked with prairies was a surprise,” Kavanagh Arabic-English dictionary (the Hans the endangered species list for Nova says. “Maybe it shouldn’t have been, Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Scotia, called the Red List. but having spent most of my life in a Arabic).”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 35 poetry The centre of the universe Science a source of metaphor in Major’s latest by Steve Locke n her latest poetry collection, Standard candles, Alice Major continues Ito draw from science as a source of metaphor to ground the big ideas floating around the universe. Like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson, who bring scientific concepts to a public consciousness in their documentary television shows, Major takes up the poet’s essential challenge to make grand concepts accessible and relatable to the reader. The result is a collection of thoughtfully crafted suites that feel mythological or biblical in scale, yet as familiar and common as our offices or kitchens.

To help transition readers into STANDARD a more complex universe, Major CANDLES the planets. In “Three-body includes a series of Alice Major problem,” the geometry in the notes explaining the University of Alberta Press orbit of celestial bodies figures theories behind her $19.95 pb, 176 pages into the delicate balance of an work. As a whole, isbn: 978-1-77212-091-2 intimate relationship and how the the collection might addition of one more body – be it be ahead of its time, though as the child or lover – affects their pull toward each other. public consciousness continues to In “Heavy elements,” romantic relationships are expand to include more lofty ideas, examined via the formation of planets, from the Standard Candles may not be so far casual, dizzying couplings that compress lighter ahead that it’s out of reach. elements, to those that become more dense, and “Poets always have the challenge of capable of bearing substantial gravity. incorporating less familiar material Other suites, like the titular “Standard candles,” into their work in a meaningful way,” the linked sonnets in “Let us compare cosmologies,” says Major. “At the same time, many and the final suite, “Underworlds,” similarly draw of these ideas become more and more on the language and ideas of science and mythology common as time goes by, so hopefully, future to add meaning to human experiences of loss and readers don’t need the notes. In my first book that creation, in poems where “Although our shoulders came out in 1991, I had a poem about black holes touch, we each inhabit / a different rainbow, whose and I used a note because at that time it was still a wavelengths travel / unique and separate radii to fairly unfamiliar idea in our eyes.” popular culture. Now I Space cadets: be warned. In reading Standard “Poets always have the wouldn’t have to.” Candles, there is the potential for a most palpable Major’s skill as experience of having one’s mind blown. Readers challenge of incorporating a poet and cosmic will certainly find themselves putting the book less familiar material herald reveals itself down to stare out the window at the night sky and particularly in the feel a sense of loneliness wrapped in communion. into their work in a suite “Ordinary Call it the human condition. meaningful way.” Matter.” There, the “We can’t help but be, each of us, the centre of scope of science and our own world,” says Major. “But there’s no border myth pare down to tender moments between to consciousness and sometimes we try to think small creatures who share the same stardust as right out to the very edge.”

36 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 Love Is Not Anonymous Questions for Wolf more poetry Jan Wood Shannon Quinn Changelings Wood explores the expectations and Quinn’s poems contemplate lost innocence Cassy Welburn heartaches often projected onto women’s and life along society’s margins, from In these insightful poems, the magical lives and their spiritual journeys, and adolescent girls getting a taste of adulthood combines with the natural, the mythical examines the pain and injustice to which to sex workers who must hold their own on with the literary, to portray moments when women are subjected in the realms of love dark streets. children, men, and women are on the verge of and faith. (Thistledown, $12.95 pb, 64 pages, transformation. (Thistledown, $12.95 pb, 64 pages, ISBN: 978-1-771870-58-0) (Frontenac House, $15.95 pb, 88 pages, ISBN: 978-1-771870-56-6) A Revision of Forward ISBN: 978-1-927823-33-0) Mayor Snow Wendy McGrath Clockwork: Poems and Essays Nick Thran The title sequence of not-quite-mirror poems, Zaid Shlah Thran explores the question of groundedness the product of a decade-long collaboration From the perspective of an exile, Shlah – literal, literary, familial – in these poems with printmaker Walter Jule, highlights explores the role of the poet/critic and what evoking both corrupt and oppressive political McGrath’s inventive, formal powers, and the one might do to get back to seeing oneself and atmospheres and domestic life. whole collection demonstrates her sensitivity the world with new eyes. (Nightwood Editions, $18.95 pb, 72 pages, to the details of working-class life. (Frontenac House, $15.95 pb, 114 pages, ISBN: 978-0-88971-314-7) (NeWest, $17.95 pb, 72 pages, ISBN: 978-1-927823-39-2) ISBN: 978-1-926455-37-2) page as bone – ink as blood Exile on a Grid Road Jónína Kirton Two Minds Shelley Banks In her debut collection, Kirton ventures Harold Rhenisch This celebration and exploration of the human into the in-between space of her Métis and Masterfully using the Persian poetic form of experience, from youth to adulthood and European inheritances, telling the hidden the ghazal, Rhenisch presents at least two illness to health, reveals the wonders to be truths of her life and history. minds about history, society, philosophy, art, found among the seemingly mundane details (Talonbooks, $16.95 pb, 80 pages, the sea, the earth, and the sky in these fresh of the day. ISBN: 978-0-88922-923-5) and joyful poems. (Thistledown, $12.95 pb, 64 pages, (Frontenac House, $15.95 pb, 108 pages, ISBN: 978-1-771870-57-3) ISBN: 978-1-927823-36-1)

WARM UP YOUR WINTER No Reservations? with novels hot off the Turnstone Press Rugged detective Steve Ascot has seen plenty in his job, but it’s what he can’t see that haunts him. Wily partner Penny wants to write about the ghosts that fascinate her, but there’s more than she knows beneath the surface. They’re drawn to a venerable Winnipeg hotel in hope of cracking one of the city’s oldest paranormal secrets, but Steve and Penny will soon find trouble much closer to home.

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Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 37 poetry

Poeticmovements Maracle uses poetry as a call to action

by Ariel Gordon to:loh writer Lee Maracle has been a Spart of Canada’s writing and publishing community for four decades. Like other Indigenous artists, including Maria Campbell, Basil H. Johnston, and Rita Joe, Maracle’s work has melded art and activism.

Maracle, who is based in Maracle’s latest book, Talking to the Diaspora, TALKING TO THE Toronto, is a prolific writer. is only her second collection of poetry, after 2000’s DIASPORA She has published multiple Bent Box. But that doesn’t mean that Maracle Lee Maracle short story collections doesn’t value the form. ARP Books and novels, and has edited “Poetry is the language and dreams of the spirit,” $16.95 pb, 128 pages anthologies. says Maracle. “Fiction is a story, and non-fiction is isbn: 978-1-894037-65-5 “I am proud of my work,” about your worldview. There is nothing finer than says Maracle, who received expressing your spirit.” the Queen Elizabeth II The impetus for Talking to the Diaspora comes Diamond Jubilee Medal for her work from the title poem’s epigraph: “On Turtle Island promoting writing among Aboriginal youth, anyone who is not Indigenous is part of some among other honours. Diaspora.” Maracle explains that she sees the book “I read [my books] again every now and then to see if I am still satisfied with them and for the most part I am. There are always things you would change in hindsight, but I “I think that what is important am still proud of all my work to date.” is that Canada will not say yes.”

38 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 poetry

Indigenous Men and Masculinities: Legacies, Identities, Regenerations “The law says they have to consult with us, but so far they have not done so, and we are Paper: 978-0-88755-790-3 E-pub: 978-0-88755-477-3 still colonized.” as being addressed to settlers, as opposed to the diaspora of We’re Going to Run This Indigenous people in North America. “I want settlers to understand the content of this book,” City: Winnipeg’s Political says Maracle. “Every part of it is connected to my way of Left After the General Strike seeing the world, this place, what it deserves, and how we should take care of it.” It was no accident that Maracle, a long-time activist, elected to publish Talking to the Diaspora with Winnipeg- Paper: 978-0-88755-784-2 based ARP Books. E-Pub: 978-0-88755-473-5 “I saw a book written by a friend of mine, Leanne Simpson,” says Maracle. “It was published by ARP and it was beautiful. The words were beautiful, but the design This Benevolent was too, and it made a difference in how I read the work.” : The poems in Talking to the Diaspora touch on a Experiment Indigenous wide range of subjects: 9-11, the 1971 murder of Helen Boarding Schools, Genocide, Betty Osborne, the 1989 Montreal Massacre, and the and Redress in Canada and 25th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death. There the United States are also poems on grass dancing, on Toronto’s wolves and rivers, and mediations on what it means to be an Indigenous woman and Elder. Paper: 978-0-88755-786-6 Taken together, the poems are both history lessons and calls to action. Maracle’s short poem “Oka,” for instance, about the Holocaust Survivors in 1990 Oka Crisis, includes the lines: “On June 23rd Elijah Canada: Exclusion, Inclusion, whispered no / killing the accord, and for 18 days / we rejoiced / Until the guns went off at Oka, / we thought we Transformation, 1947-1955 really could / just say no.” “I think that what is important is that Canada will not Paper: 978-0-88755-776-7 say yes,” says Maracle. “The law says they have to consult E-Pub: 978-0-88755-494-0 with us, but so far they have not done so, and we are still colonized.”

uofmpress.ca

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 39 Bringing Métis Children’s Literature to Life is a guidebook for teachers to support the children’s literature published by the Gabriel Dumont Institute. The guidebook supports teaching about the Métis and utilizes strategies that foster and promote literacy development (listening, speaking, reading, Taanishi Books – Emergent Reader Series writing, viewing, and representing). Available in Michif/English! The stories used in this guidebook This leveled reader set contains 27 books under 9 different themes, are written and illustrated by all relating to Métis culture written in Michif and English. Métis authors and illustrators. Each story brings traditional and The Michif/English versions are accompanied by Michif Audio CDs. contemporary Métis culture to life. They honour the past and present. Levelling and lesson plans included in the books apply only to the English text. Métis children often see themselves in these publications. Non-Métis students will see and connect with the universal themes and relate Michif translations and narrations by Norman Fleury them to their own lives while learning about Métis culture. Most Various Pricing Available. Complete 27-Book Set: $175 importantly, this resource is about engaging readers in the history and 9-Book Theme Sets (1 Book per Theme, chosen from one of the three options below): traditions of Métis culture through literature. $63.00 (A-C 8-page Stories, D-G 12-page Stories, F-I 16-page Stories) Download this free resource at: English editions available from pearsoncanadaschool.com! http://www.metismuseum.ca/resource.php/13827

facebook.com/gabrieldumontinstitute Gabriel Dumont Institute Download a catalogue or order online! 2–604 22nd Street West, Saskatoon, SK, S7M 5W1 @gdins_org www.shopmetis.ca (T) 306.934.4941 / (F) 306.244.0252 pinterest.com/gabrieldumontin www.gdins.org / www.metismuseum.ca drama HAUNTING MEMORIES Play shines light on a piece of little-known Canadian history DRAMA by Kyla Neufeld ome stories need time to sit and stew before they’re ready to be BY Stold well. For Sean Dixon, his newest play, The Wilberforce Hotel, needed 10 years.

“Lately I’ve discovered it’s better to In the play, Steward is about to leave sit with an idea. The trick is to avoid the Wilberforce Colony to return to his sitting forever,” says Dixon. “I’d say I family in Rochester, New York, when benefited from a 10-year break between two minstrels, Henry Hill and Robert first draft and second. I thought I’d Cole, arrive at his hotel, on the run forgotten all the source material, but from the law. Steward houses them for when I returned to it, I found I had the the night and finds himself haunted by facility to use it in more relevant ways his former slave master, Captain Helm, than when I had first read it.” and his enemy Israel Lewis, as Hill The Wilberforce Hotel tells the and Cole transform into apparitions Sean Dixon story of Austin Steward, who was of them. Steward’s own story is told the president of the little-known through his interactions with these Wilberforce Colony from 1831 to 1837. apparitions; we learn how Steward THE WILBERFORCE HOTEL The history of the Wilberforce escaped from slavery, how he came to Sean Dixon Colony is interesting, albeit somewhat Wilberforce, and how Lewis scammed Scirocco Drama tragic. It was established in 1829, just the colony out of its money. $15.95 pb, 86 pages north of what is present-day London, Dixon portrays Steward as a tired isbn: 978-1-927922-19-4 Ontario, by free African-American and broken man who has realized citizens, and was named after William that the good he’s tried to work in the “Musing on his failure Wilberforce, the British abolitionist. colony has come to nothing. to collaborate with Israel However, due to internal disputes and “He wasn’t a hero. He didn’t change Lewis, Austin has to find little funding, the colony only survived the world. His struggles were likely something in there that he for just under 20 years; by 1850 most very common for African-Americans of can take away to the next of the families had left and the colony his time, working to make a better life part of his life. What he effectively dissolved. for himself in a landscape of enormous finds… is a connection with historic shifts,” says Dixon. Lewis’s spirit in challenging “I chose to write about the status quo.” “His struggles were likely very a man at a turning point The Wilberforce Hotel in his life, who had always premiered in July 2015 at common for African-Americans used a careful and affable the Blyth Festival in Blyth, of his time.” manner to extricate himself Ontario, to great success. from all the troubles he had “I believe it was The Wilberforce Hotel is adapted encountered until he met the foil who their biggest seller of the season. from Steward’s 1857 autobiography, would almost destroy him.” The audience was hungry to Twenty-two Years a Slave and Forty But Steward faces his ghosts and learn something about this little Years a Freeman. comes away with new resolve. known history.”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 41 more drama Refuge The Secret Annex Mary Vingoe Alix Sobler The Bricklin: An Automotive A former soldier from Eritrea arrives in Speculative history, this play posits Fantasy Canada without papers in this timely what would happen if Anne Frank Paul Ledoux and Allen Cole play, which is presented by the couple survived the war and moved to New This ’70s-inspired musical is about big who takes him in and the lawyer who York City. When the publisher of dreams, risk takers, and a sexy sports represents him, and which lays bare her memoir demands rewrites, she car that takes audiences on a wild the shortcomings of the Canadian wonders, Why did she survive, if not to ride through politics, business, refugee system. tell her story? controversy, and one of Canada’s (Scirocco Drama, $15.95 pb, 96 pages, (Scirocco Drama, $15.95 pb, 106 pages, most colourful stories. ISBN: 978-1-927922-16-3) ISBN: 978-1-927922-10-1) (Scirocco Drama, $15.95 pb, 96 pages, ISBN: 978-1-927922-14-9) A Round for Fifty Years: A History Sharon Pollock: First Woman of of Regina’s Globe Theatre Canadian Theatre Happy Place Gerald Hill Edited by Donna Coates Pamela Mala Sinha This history of Regina’s Globe Theatre, Pollock, as playwright, actor, director, This play explores the lives of seven the only professional theatre-in-the- teacher, mentor, administrator, and female residents of an in-patient care round in Canada, marks its fiftieth critic, has played an integral role in facility, a microcosm for the world anniversary, and is illustrated Canada’s national theatre tradition. outside its walls, who teach one another with historical and contemporary This collection comprises new and how to live with what happened to photographs, from its early days as a original assessments of her work and them as no else can. touring company devoted to young contributions to theatre. (Scirocco Drama, $15.95 pb, 96 pages, audiences, to the present. (University of Calgary Press, $34.95 pb, ISBN: 978-1-927922-13-2) (Coteau, $34.95 pb, 240 pages, 320 pages, ISBN: 978-1-55238-789-4) ISBN: 978-1-55050-638-9)

Reading, naturally.

Donovan Bergman [email protected] 204.319.8114 Printing great Canadian books. books.friesens.com St. Anne’s Reel Twelve Hours terrible crime, and the cruel and biased Gil Garratt Dave Carley punishment that results. Fiddler Daniel must confront his father, A man convicted of rape and murder (Scirocco Drama, $15.95 pb, 96 pages, also a fiddler of some renown, when he faces his last hours on death row in ISBN: 978-1-927922-15-6) returns from Nashville to the family this play that goes into the hearts and farm for his mother’s funeral in this minds of ordinary people affected by a moving drama about a prodigal son and his cantankerous father. (Scirocco Drama, $15.95 pb, 60 pages, ISBN: 978-1-927922-12-5) Which would you rather take to bed? Stag and Doe/Bed and Breakfast Mark Crawford When it comes to books, In these two comedies, a couple throws a party to pay for their wedding in we swing both ways. a distinctly Canadian prenuptial tradition, and a male couple inherit a Books. E-pub. Branding. relishbranding.ca historic house and discover what it’s like to be “out” in a small town as they finally find a place to call home. (Scirocco Drama, $18.95 pb, 144 pages, ISBN: 978-1-927922-17-0)

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 43 young adult & children PERFECTLY IMPERFECT Author wants kids to know perfection is by no means ideal by Linda Alberta henever things look too good to be true, it’s probably time to Wthrow the proverbial wrench into the machine. That wrench could be a person, a situation, an idea, or it could be a character in a new book by Edmonton author Alison Hughes.

The award-winning author’s sixth “We have moved quite a lot. We’ve children’s book is Beatrice More Moves moved to England, Australia, London, In. There are big ideas in this small Calgary, and Edmonton,” says Hughes. book that percolate into a smart and “I am not a huge fan of moving. I don’t funny read. like living out of boxes. And the idea of The story begins on moving day with Beatrice being a neat freak – well, my the More family. Daughter Beatrice daughter happens to be very, very tidy.” is mortified by the chaos and tries Hughes says she took a “long and to contain it with lists, orders, and twisted road” to become a writer. activity, while younger The author studied English literature daughter Sophie is a catalyst at the University of Alberta and then for further mess – a happy completed a master’s degree in law. wrench for any machine. But that calling contained a decisive After Beatrice invites new drawback. friends to visit her home, “It didn’t allow for child raising,” she insists that everything she explains. “And I needed something be unpacked and organized flexible so I could drive kids – in three hours. to school and still run a “I wanted to show household. I needed something how perfectionism is I could do during the day “I wanted to show how unattainable in life and how within a certain small set of perfectionism is unattainable our society is so focused hours. So writing chose me. on that. Even children But I enjoy the creative freedom in life and how our society is are affected. Our homes have to be and the creative challenge. so focused on that.” perfect. Our bodies have to be perfect. I love meeting children and Celebrities have to look the same as presenting to schools and libraries.” hundreds of books out of the library. they did 30 years ago.” But this is One challenge for most writers Books were very important to me,” where Sophie comes in,” says Hughes. is finding a publisher. However, she says. “They were harbingers of “Sophie tempers perfectionism.” Hughes says she was adventure, escape, and Moving is on par with getting fortunate because information. Then as a married and other big life events, and after submitting her BEATRICE parent, I read books to Hughes says she chose this setting current book to only MORE my kids and that was part because it was a stressor that allowed two publishers, it was MOVES IN of their growing up and core character traits to surface. She accepted. our bonding. adds that while “character” is the Even as a child, Alison Hughes “There is nothing like Orca Book Publishers bedrock of any story, situations have Hughes loved books. laughing together cuddled $6.95 pb, 76 pages to be interesting and sometimes moving “As a child, I would up.” isbn: 978-1-45980-761-7 takes “interesting” to another level. take what seemed like

44 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 young adult & children Not all fun and games Cosplay novel for teens shows how obsession can go too far by Amanda Sanders algary author Kim Firmston is an avid cosplayer (costumed Crole-player), and when she was approached to write a book for teenagers, she felt that could accurately reflect the culture and atmosphere of cosplay and fan conventions.

plan on going to Otafest, a yearly Firmston wants CREEP CON anime convention. her readers to Mariam, cosplaying as Haruhi know that being Kim Firmston from Ouran High School Host targeted “doesn’t Lorimer $14.95 pb, 152 pages Club, ends up going without Tya, mean they are isbn: 978-1-4594-0977-4 and finds herself joining a cosplay powerless. They group portraying the rest of the can be their own Host Club. One of them, Rick, superhero and Firmston loves cosplay because takes his character too seriously a superhero to of the great community that and begins to treat Mariam their friends who may have gone surrounds it – a community as if she were really Haruhi, through it.” She also wanted to of people sharing common manipulating and controlling show that finding someone who interests, helping each other with her to the point where she can’t respects you is much better than costumes, or getting someone enjoy the convention. At the end someone who is flashy and only safely home after conventions. of convention dance, Mariam tends to their own needs. “In cosplay anyone can be finds Rick trying to force himself anything and it’s okay to try new on her. things,” she says. Firmston says this is not based “They are dressing as their In Creep Con, Mariam and on a true Otafest incident, but her mother move from Fort she wanted to show the uglier favourite character to McMurray to Calgary. The side of fan conventions. When reader meets Mariam on her people put themselves out there in celebrate the creation, first day at a new school and of the world (in or out of costume), not to get grabbed.” course, she’s lost! Enter Tya, an some “creeps” do not see anything outgoing Jamaican-Canadian wrong with encroaching on Firmston has advice for fan who is also new. The two become personal boundaries by touching, convention attendees. quick friends and learn that they groping, or manhandling – but “The most important thing have many things in common, all of those without consent are to remember is you’re going most importantly – a love for sexual assault. somewhere you can be the best Dr. Who. Mariam’s love for “Kids need to learn that it’s not version of yourself. A magical superhero comic books overlaps okay to act like that and that if it place where the characters you with Tya’s obsession with anime. happens to them, that they aren’t love are real and where you can Big cities like Calgary have to blame – no matter what they let your fan flag fly. Nobody wants big conventions, and while are wearing,” she says. “They the weekend to end and everyone is Mariam cannot afford the are dressing as their favourite a little sad when it does,” she says. tickets for Calgary Comic and character to celebrate the “So join the community and Entertainment Expo, she and Tya creation, not to get grabbed.” have fun.”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 45 young adult & children GOOD THINGS COME IN… Maureen Fergus releases three picture books

by Paula E. Kirman innipeg author Maureen Fergus is having a busy year, with Wthree picture books published this fall. And What If I Won’t features Benny, who gets into a game with his mother of one-upping each other in what becomes a fantastic adventure – and a lesson about consequences – laced with love and humour. InvisiBill deals with the middle child (named Bill) who feels ignored by the rest of his family and becomes invisible. Buddy and Earl is a playful story about the shenanigans between two family pets – a dog named Buddy and a hedgehog named Earl.

Fergus gets inspiration in daily life. Still, she does receive rejections. “Buddy and Earl was inspired by my “Sometimes it’s because a particular family pets Buddy and Earl, a dog and a manuscript isn’t the right fit for a hedgehog,” she says. “I got the idea for particular publisher; other times, the A Dog Day for Susan (to be released in manuscript may be good but just not the spring of 2016) from a friend who quite good enough,” she says. “In those told a true story of acquaintances who cases, I’m okay getting rejected because “Laughing is good for brought their dog for the weekend and I only want my very best manuscripts expected my friend to cook scrambled to make it into the hands of my readers, us and having great eggs and sausages for the dog.” anyway.” reading experiences When inspiration strikes, Fergus Fergus’s three current picture books starts writing. “If there’s magic in each have different illustrators, and helps kids develop the idea, a picture book manuscript is very different artistic motifs. She does into lifelong readers.” born!” she exclaims. not work directly with the artists. Known more as a novelist, Fergus has, in addition to the three new picture books out this year, four being AND WHAT IF BUDDY AND INVISIBILL published next year, as well as projects I WON’T? EARL Maureen Fergus lined up for 2017 and 2018. Maureen Fergus Maureen Fergus Illustrated by Dušan “It wasn’t until a couple of years Illustrated by Qin Leng Pictures by Carey Petricˇic´ ago that I decided to really focus on Owlkids Books Sookocheff Tundra Books picture books,” she says. “Over the $17.95 hc, 32 pages Groundwood Books– $19.99 hc, 40 pages course of about a year I wrote a bunch isbn: 978-1-77147-065-0 House of Anansi isbn: 978-1-77049-613-2 of manuscripts hoping to get at least $16.95 hc, 32 pages one placed; I ended up placing seven.” isbn: 978-1-55498-712-2

46 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 young adult & children

When inspiration strikes, Fergus starts writing.

Instead, the editor for each book selects the illustrator What Fergus’s picture books have in common is humour. believed to be the best fit for the project. “Laughing is good for us and having great reading “Because I am a very visual writer, I always include many experiences helps kids develop into lifelong readers. If kids footnotes describing what I ‘saw’ happening at different also learn a little something from my books, that’s a bonus,” points in the story, but the illustrator is free to take my she says. suggestions – or not – as he or she sees fit,” Fergus explains. “The thing I like most about writing for kids is that the She’s comfortable with this process. “I strongly believe things that make me laugh seem to make them laugh, too. that the illustrator should have complete creative freedom It’s nice to know that there are so many kindred spirits when it comes to their part of the process,” she says, “and I out there!” have always been thrilled with the final product.”

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 47 Truth, Healing, and Reconciliation

The Full Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Paperback and eBook editions in English and French

Canada’s Residential Schools The History, Part 1, Origins to 1939. Volume I

Canada’s Residential Schools The History, Part 2, 1939 to 2000. Volume I

Canada’s Residential Schools The Inuit and Northern Experience. Volume 2

Canada’s Residential Schools The Métis Experience. Volume 3

Canada’s Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials. Volume 4

Canada’s Residential Schools The Legacy. Volume 5

Canada’s Residential Schools Reconciliation. Volume 6

Honorer la vérité, réconcilier pour l’avenir : Sommaire du rapport final de la Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada

McGI L L -QUE E N’S U N I V E R S I TY PR E S S mqup.ca Follow us on Facebook.com/McGillQueens and Twitter.com/Scholarmqup Head Hunter family in a fire, but her time is running out, more young adult Eric Howling unless she learns the importance of trust and and kids books This action-filled football story explores the teamwork. Part of the new Retribution series dangers of concussions in contact sports and by three Prairie writers. picture books the lasting damage they can cause, as Colt, (Orca, $9.95 pb, 168 pages, the captain of the Westside Warriors, has ISBN: 978-1-4598-0726-6) The Children of Lir to deal with the increasingly erratic Alexandra Soranescu behaviour of the team’s coach, who happens Crack Coach This retelling of the classic Irish myth about to be his father. Steven Sandor King Lir and his four sons and daughters who (Lorimer, $9.95 pb, 128 pages, In a fictional story based on recent headlines, were changed into magical swans by their ISBN: 978-1-4594-0967-5) Maurice and Vijay are thrilled to be the only evil stepmother Aoife inspires the values of Grade 9 students to make the junior football patience, forgiveness, and solidarity. The Lake in the Clouds, The Shards of team, but their new coach is also (XLibris, $29.99 pb, 30 pages, Excalibur, Book 3 the town’s mayor, a divisive figure who ISBN: 978-1-5035-7147-1) Edward Willett attracts controversy, including allegations Ariane, descendant of the Lady of the Lake, of drug abuse. Finding Winnie: The True Story of the must use her powers to avoid Rex Major (a.k.a. World’s Most Famous Bear (Lorimer, $14.95 pb, 160 pages, Merlin) in this modern take on the Arthurian Lindsay Mattick, illustrated by Sophie Blackall ISBN: 978-1-4594-0980-4) legends. In this true story of WWI veterinarian (Coteau, $14.95 pb, 218 pages, Exposed Captain Harry Colebourn, who rescued a ISBN: 978-1-55050-616-7) Judith Graves bear cub in Ontario and named the bear Raven is a young, whip-smart car thief who after Winnipeg, Winnie travels across the Red Stone thinks she owes her current boss everything, ocean to an army base in England, and Gabriele Goldstone but she learns to see him for what he really eventually the London Zoo, where he meets Inspired by a true story, this novel tells of is. Part of the new Retribution series by three the real-life Christopher Robin. Written by Katya, who is taken to a forced labour camp Prairie writers. Colebourn’s great-granddaughter. With with her mother and younger siblings after (Orca, $9.95 pb, 144 pages, photographs and ephemera from the her father is arrested by Stalin’s secret police. ISBN: 978-1-4598-0722-8) Colebourn family archives. (Rebelight, $10.99 pb, 168 pages, (HarperCollins, $19.99 hc, 56 pages, ISBN: 978-0-9939390-8-2) The Journal ISBN: 978-1-4434-2918-4) Lois Donovan Through Flood and Fire, A Second Barr A mysterious letter convinces Kami’s mother The Twelve Days of Christmas in Canada Colony Adventure to uproot them and move to Edmonton. Ellen Warwick, illustrated by Kim Smith Anne Patton Lonely and upset, Kami discovers a family In this charming epistolary picture book, Based on a true story, this sequel to Full Steam journal with newspaper clippings that sends Juliette writes home about her visit with to Canada follows Dorothy Bolton, a recent her hurtling back in time to 1929, where she her cousin Theo and the very special gifts immigrant from England with her family, as encounters some notable historical figures as he gives her for each of the twelve days of she discovers the true strength of community well as racial prejudice. Christmas, starting with a loon in a maple as a settler on the plains. (Ronsdale Press, $11.95 pb, 204 pages, tree, as they travel across Canada. (Coteau, $9.95 pb, 216 pages, ISBN: 978-1-55380-350-8) (Sterling Children’s Books, $12.95 hc, 32 pages, ISBN: 978-1-55050-640-2) ISBN: 978-1-4549-1431-0) Lady Oak Abroad, The Audrey O’Krane Wonder Horse Chronicles, Book 1 for young readers Anita Daher Glenda Goertzen Sera finds fitting into a new school in a new Audrey’s personal life, and the entire planet Cave beneath the Sea, The Shards of city challenging, but dreams come true with Earth, seem damaged beyond all hope, so she Excalibur, Book 4 a gift from her parents: a beautiful American escapes through a magic porthole, only to Edward Willett Paint horse with a big personality. discover that the universe is also something The latest in the Shards of Excalibur series (Rebelight, $10.99 pb, 96 pages, of a mess. And her magic powers only make sees Ariane and Wally race to find Ariane’s ISBN: 978-0-9939390-6-8) her a target for the bad guys. mother and the fourth shard of Excalibur (Hazeldell Productions, $15.95 pb, 264 pages, before the ancient sorcerer Merlin can gain ISBN: 978-0-9879232-2-6) the upper hand. young adult (Coteau, $14.95 pb, 216 pages, Burned ISBN: 978-1-55050-639-6) Natasha Deen Josie has spent two years living on the streets trying to bring down the cop who killed her

continued on page 50

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 49 continued from page 49 Nowhere Wild Sleight of Hand Urban Tribes: Native Americans in Joe Beernink Natasha Deen the City In this dark, riveting survival story set One stupid mistake and Javvan’s life has Edited by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth against the rugged backcountry of northern never been the same. Unable to get a job, and Leatherdale Manitoba, two teenagers are forced to draw in danger of violating his parole, he thinks The stories, poems, and art in this follow- on resources they never imagined they had, he’s a getting a second chance, but his new up to Dreaming in Indian chronicle how in order to save themselves, and each other. boss gives him an impossible choice: steal urban Aboriginal youth connect to their (HarperCollins, $19.99 hc, 304 pages, again or go back to jail. cultures, break down stereotypes, and use ISBN: 978-1-44342-243-7) (Orca, $9.95 pb, 144 pages, their Indigenous world views to make a ISBN: 978-1-4598-1120-1) better future for all. Included are pieces The Occasional Diamond Thief about the Perception photography project J. A. McLachlan 250 Hours by Winnipeg’s K. C. Adams and the voice of On his deathbed, Kia’s father discloses a Colleen Nelson musician iskwé speaking up for Canada’s secret to her: his possession of a magnificent This is the story of two unlikely cohorts – the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. diamond from the distant colonized planet of son of a residential school survivor, and an With full colour images throughout. Malem. Kia must use her skills in languages, ambitious young woman from a conservative (Annick, $14.95 pb, 136 pages, and lock-picking, to unravel the secret of the town who is obligated to look after her ailing ISBN: 978-1-55451-750-3) mysterious gem. grandmother – who discover that the secrets (EDGE, $14.95 pb, 304 pages, that keep their communities apart might Whistle ISBN: 978-1-77053-075-1) very well bring them together. Richard Van Camp (Coteau, $12.95 pb, 160 pages, This epistolary story for reluctant readers Queen of the Godforsaken ISBN: 978-1-55050-641-9) brilliantly portrays the restorative justice Mix Hart process from the viewpoint of Darcy, in a When Lydia’s family moves from urban Unleashed youth detention facility, as he writes letters to Vancouver to an isolated farmhouse in Sigmund Brouwer Brody, the boy he bullied for years. Saskatchewan, she is appalled at her parents, On the run from his father’s abuse, and trying (Pearson, $9.95 pb, 32 pages, the locals, and the godforsaken land that to protect his brother, Jace discovers there are ISBN: 978-0-13-385531-9) forces her to leave childhood behind. different kinds of vengeance and learns he is (Thistledown, $14.95 pb, 288 pages, not alone and there are people he can trust. graphic novels ISBN: 978-1-771870-63-4) Part of the new Retribution series by three Prairie writers. Betty: The Helen Betty Osborne Story Size of a Fist (Orca, $9.95 pb, 168 pages, David Alexander Robertson, illustrated by Tara Gereaux ISBN: 978-1-4598-0730-3) Scott B. Henderson In this novella for teens, a young woman In this telling, the story of Helen Betty must decide if she should fulfill her wish to The Unquiet Osborne, who was brutally murdered in move to the city, or stay in her small working Mikaela Everett The Pas in 1971, is put into the context of the class town and help a boy for whom she feels In this futuristic and literary novel, Lira has issue of Canada’s Missing and Murdered responsible. been trained since childhood to kill and Indigenous Women, which is at the forefront (Thistledown, $12.95 pb, 64 pages, replace an alternate version of herself on a of our country’s consciousness today. ISBN: 978-1-771870-59-7) parallel Earth at age 14, and she is beginning (Highwater Press, $16.00 pb, 32 pages, to question this plan and wonder about ISBN: 978-1-55379-544-5) which version deserves to live. (Greenwillow-HarperCollins, $21.99 hc, The Blue Raven 464 pages, ISBN: 978-0-06-238127-9) Richard Van Camp, illustrated by Steven Keewatin Sanderson Benji, who is dealing with the loss of his It is about time Canadians began to live as treaty father, befriends Trevor, an older boy who peoples, to coexist in friendship, to work to find never really connected with his community the best solutions for the country as a whole, or Aboriginal heritage, as they try to find and to build relationships that will endure and Benji’s stolen bike. allow all parties to flourish culturally, socially, (Pearson, $9.95 pb, 32 pages, economically, and politically. ISBN: 978-0-13-385527-2)

978-7748-3087-4 336 pages hardcover www.ubcpress.ca thought that counts

50 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 continued from page 24

Giving Us a Sporting Chance: The Story of The Land We Are: Artists and Writers intensive archival study. With illustrations, Sask Sport Unsettle the Politics of Reconciliation notes, bibliography, and index. Lynn Gidluck Edited by Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill and (University of Calgary Press, $34.95 pb, This history of amateur sport in Saskatchewan Sophie McCall 400 pages, ISBN: 978-1-55238-804-4) explores how early sport leaders assumed This collection of writing and art that control of lottery fundraising, a unique interrogates the current era of reconciliation Road to Recovery: Following Your Motor arrangement that contributed to today’s and Indigenous-settler relations is the result Vehicle Accident world-class amateur athletic system. of a four-year collaboration between artists Lawrence Matrick (Coteau, $24.95 pb, 288 pages, and scholars. With colour illustrations. This self-help guide written by a psychiatrist ISBN: 978-1-55050-637-2) (ARP, $24.95 pb, 256 pages, helps victims cope with the stress of medical ISBN: 978-1-894037-63-1) and legal processes that can occur after an Holocaust Survivors in Canada: Exclusion, accident, as well as the personal effects, Inclusion, Transformation, 1947–1955 Magazines, Travel, and Middlebrow including anxiety and sleep disorders, that Adara Goldberg Culture: Canadian Periodicals in English trauma can inflict on accident victims. This examination of the immigration, and French, 1925–1960 (Granville Island Publishing, $16.95 pb, resettlement, and integration experience Faye Hammill and Michelle Smith 154 pages, ISBN: 978-1-926991-42-9) from the perspective of Holocaust survivors This new cross-cultural approach to and those charged with helping them is also periodical studies examines mainstream Sustainability Planning and an exploration of the relationships between magazines like Chatelaine and La Revue Collaboration in Rural Canada: Taking survivors, Jewish social service organizations, Moderne in relation to an emerging the Next Steps and local Jewish communities. transatlantic middlebrow culture, and looks Edited by Lars K. Hallström, Mary A. Beckie, Glen (University of Manitoba Press, $24.95 pb, at how they forged a connection between T. Hvenegaard, and Karsten Mündel 296 pages, ISBN: 978-0-88755-776-7) upward and geographic mobility. With In step with rural development initiatives across photographs, bibliography, notes, and index. Canada, these case studies examine the shift Implied Consent and Sexual Assault: (University of Alberta Press, $49.95 pb, toward sustainability-based planning as a key Intimate Relationships, Autonomy, and Voice 256 pages, ISBN: 978-1-77212-083-7) element of community development, as they Michael Plaxton explore the growth of partnerships between Drawing upon a range of contemporary Making a Scene: Lesbians and Community communities and post-secondary institutions. criminal law theorists and feminist scholars, across Canada, 1964–84 (University of Alberta Press, $49.95 pb, this study challenges widespread beliefs about Liz Millward 408 pages, ISBN: 978-1-77212-040-0) sexual consent and reconsiders the nature of Enriched by interviews, this account of the mutuality in a world dominated by gender youthful and ambitious lesbian movement This Benevolent Experiment: Indigenous norms, the proper scope of criminal law, and that arose in Canada in the 1960s shows how Boarding Schools, Genocide, and Redress in the United States and Canada the true meaning of sexual autonomy. women who had been pathologized and Andrew Woolford (McGill-Queen’s University Press, $37.95 pb, erased called attention to themselves and Woolford analyzes policy around the “Indian 288 pages, ISBN: 978-0-77354-620-2) created places to come together and forge their own culture. problem” in Canada and the US at the end of Indigenous Men and Masculinities: (UBC Press, $85.00 hc, 168 pages, the nineteenth century, and the “solution” of Legacies, Identities, Regenerations ISBN: 978-0-7748-3066-9) Indigenous boarding schools, comparing how Edited by Kim Anderson and Robert they were implemented in Manitoba and New Alexander Innes Memory Serves Mexico, and how different historical, political, Building on Indigenous knowledge systems Lee Maracle and structural influences led to very different and feminism, as well as queer theory, This first collection of oratories by one responses to the harms caused by these schools. this collection of essays by scholars from of Canada’s most important Indigenous (University of Manitoba Press, $27.95 pb, Canada, the US, and New Zealand opens writers is a series of lectures that hold the 448 pages, ISBN: 978-0-88755-786-6) pathways for the nascent study of Indigenous features and style of oratory intrinsic to masculinities. the Salish people, through which Maracle Those Who Belong: Identity, Family, Blood, and Citizenship among the White Earth (University of Manitoba Press, $27.95 pb, shares knowledge about history, memory, Anishinaabeg 304 pages, ISBN: 978-0-88755-790-3) philosophy, law, feminism, and colonialism. Jill Doerfler (NeWest, $24.95 pb, 260 pages, Doerfler explores how White Earth Indigenous Nationhood: Empowering ISBN: 978-1-926455-44-0) Grassroots Citizens Anishinaabeg understood identity and blood quantum, how this understanding was Pamela Palmater Mining and Communities in Northern This is an accessible, critical collection of blog Canada: History, Politics, and Memory employed by the US government, and how posts that analyze legislation, Aboriginal Edited by Arn Keeling and John Sandios contemporary efforts led to the rejection of rights, and Canadian and First Nations political This collection of essays examines historical blood quantum as a criterion for citizenship and social issues, by Indigenous activist, and contemporary social, economic, and and replaced it with lineal descent. lawyer, and academic Pamela Palmater. environmental impacts of mining on (University of Manitoba Press, $29.95 pb, (Fernwood, $19.95 pb, 232 pages, Aboriginal communities in northern Canada, 214 pages, ISBN: 978-0-88755-796-5) ISBN: 978-1-55266-795-8) combining oral history research with continued on page 52 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 51 continued from page 51

Transnational Radicals: Italian Anarchists in Canada and the U.S., Unsustainable Oil: Facts, Counterfacts and Fictions 1915–1940 Jon Gordon Travis Tomchuk This groundbreaking examination of the relationship between Based on Italian government security files and anarchist newspapers, culture and energy extraction offers readers the chance to consider this history of a little-studied political movement shows how Italian literature’s potential in confronting the hegemony of the oil and gas anarchists established strength through transnationalism against industry – for students of cultural studies, literature, eco-criticism, a backdrop of class war and repression. With bibliography, index, energy humanities, and Indigenous studies. With photographs, maps, illustrations. bibliography, notes, and index. (University of Manitoba, $27.95 pb, 280 pages, ISBN: 978-0-88755-773-6) (University of Alberta Press, $45.00 pb, 288 pages, ISBN: 978-1-77212-036-3)

The United Nations in the 21st Century: Grappling with the Weaving a Malawi Sunrise: A Woman, a School, and a People world’s most challenging issues: Militarism, the environment, Roberta Laurie human rights, inequality Laurie tells the inspiring story of Memory Chazeza, a Malawian woman Douglas Roche who struggled to get an education and then build a school for girls, This brief, well-informed account of the United Nations today focuses combining personal narratives with scholarly analyses of social and on the most challenging issues: the use of military force in conflicts, the economic development issues. With photographs, map, index, and notes. challenges of climate change, human rights, and disparities between (University of Alberta Press, $39.95 pb, 432 pages, ISBN: 978-1-77212-086-8) rich and poor. (Lorimer, $14.95 pb, 96 pages, ISBN: 978-1-4594-0949-1) We’re Going to Run This City: Winnipeg’s Political Left after the General Strike University Leadership and Public Policy in the Twenty-First Stefan Epp-Koop Century: A President’s Perspective This study looks at the grassroots, municipal level of the dynamic Peter MacKinnon political movement that came out of the largest labour protest in Drawing on more than a decade of service at the helm of a major Canadian history and the ramifications for Winnipeg in the 1920s up Canadian research university, MacKinnon offers an insider’s to the 1930s, when the city was governed by a mayor who had served perspective on the challenges faced by Canadian universities today, jail time for role in the strike. including funding, governance, and fostering innovation. (University of Manitoba Press, $24.95 pb, 216 pages, (University of Toronto, $24.95 pb, 200 pages, ISBN: 978-1-4426-1611-0) ISBN: 978-0-88755-784-2)

Within and Without the Nation: Canadian History as Transnational History Edited by Karen Dubinsky, Adele Perry, and Henry Yu This collection of essays explores Canada’s past through transnational scholarship, connecting Canada with Latin America, the Caribbean, and the wider Pacific world, and examining themes including the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and the impact of global migration. With illustrations, maps. (University of Toronto, 384 pages, $75.00 hc, ISBN: 978-1-4426-4677-3; $34.95 pb, ISBN: 978-1-4426-1463-5)

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52 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 about our contributors credits Linda Alberta is an Alberta Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer. Carlene Rummery executive editor freelance writer and transcriptionist. Bev Sandell Greenberg is a editor Marjorie Poor She enjoys playing guitar at the Winnipeg writer and editor. ambp executive director Michelle Peters Common Grounds Café in Sherwood Liz Katynski is a writer and copy editor Bruce Symaka Park, and currently, she is in the communications consultant. Visit her graphic design Relish New Brand midst of moving. Experience Inc. website at LizWords.com. is a central Alberta The views expressed in Prairie books NOW Yvonne Dick writes, edits, magazine writer with more than two Paula E. Kirman do not necessarily reflect the views of the takes photographs, and plays music. decades of experience who enjoys Association of Manitoba Book Publishers, She lives in Edmonton where she the Executive Editor, or the Editor of Prairie reading anything she can get her edits an inner city community books NOW. hands on. Prairie books NOW is made possible with newspaper, is an organizer in the the financial support of The Canada Council Margaret Anne Fehr is a freelance activist movement, rides her bicycle, for the Arts, the Department of Canadian writer and editor who resides in juggles, and sometimes drinks too Heritage, the Manitoba Arts Council, Milton, Ontario. much coffee. Her website is . and Consumer Protection, and the Winnipeg David Jón Fuller Arts Council. writer and editor. His short fiction Steve Locke is a Winnipeg writer, Advertising rates are available upon has appeared in Long Hidden: poet, and spoken word performer. request; phone (204) 947-2762. Discounts Speculative Fiction from the Margins reads and are available for contract advertisers. We of History; Accessing the Future; and Quentin Mills-Fenn writes, mainly about books, in welcome all letters to the editor and other Tesseracts 18: with Gods. submissions on matters of interest to Winnipeg. readers of Prairie books NOW. We reserve He works as a copy editor for the is a poet, writer, and the right to select and edit submissions. Winnipeg Free Press. Kyla Neufeld editor living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Prairie books NOW is published by the is a Montreal Margaret Goldik She is the Managing Editor of Geez Association of Manitoba Book Publishers. editor and writer, and is the Executive It is published two times per year for magazine. Secretary of the Quebec Library distribution free of charge in selected is a Library Canadian locations. Bulk rates to Association. Amanda Sanders Assistant I at the Thompson Public institutions are available upon request. is a freelance ISSN 1201-5962. Ian Goodwillie Library in Thompson, Manitoba, writer based out of Saskatoon who Subscriptions are available for $12.75 where she does programming and contributes regularly to The Feedback per year. Send cheques payable to the ordering for Children and Teens. Society and The Winnipeg Review. Association of Manitoba Book Publishers. It’s also where she fills her to-be-read He blogs, writes screenplays and Printed in Manitoba, Canada by The list with an insurmountable number Prolific Group. short fiction, and has a day job in of books. Prairie books NOW 100 Arthur Street, Suite radio advertising (meaning he spends 404, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada r3b 1h3 a lot of time in front of a computer). • tel (204) 947-2762 • fax (204) 956-4689 • e-mail [email protected] • http://ambp.ca/pbn/ bookends Prairie books NOW values your feedback. Please we inadvertently left out the name of the book’s send your comments to [email protected] . publisher in the ordering information. Our apologies to J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing. On the cover Our cover illustration comes courtesy of the Wondering how to order? Glenbow Archives (NA-237-20). The image of While we wish we could pass on your orders “Tom Graham on horse,” photographed by S.A. to bookstores or wholesalers in your region, Smyth, is featured in the book So Far and Yet it is best for you to direct order any or all of So Close (University of Calgary Press), which is the books in Prairie books NOW through the showcased in this issue. trade bookstore or wholesaler you normally deal with. The information provided at the Mistakes happen… end of every article is there to make ordering In our coverage of Roland Vandal’s Off the from a bookstore or wholesaler as easy Ropes in our Spring 2015 issue (#66, page 27), as possible.

Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015 53 U Write • U Publish When it’s so quiet… We made love in the dirt and the shade of the old oak trees like we usually did. We make your books the best And after, as we put our clothes back on, I wondered where Becky and I were headed. She had told me she was going 100+ years experience back to school and was thinking of moving Eco Friendly, FSC Certified to Winnipeg. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I had a steady job at the factory, I’d been production & materials there for a few years, and I didn’t know what else I could do. I kept thinking about HOW THE Your print connection it, about Becky and me, and I wondered for short or medium runs what else we could be. Offset or digital – full colour or b/w …From What Happened on the Bloodvein, the stunning debut from Matthew Tétrault

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QUESTIONS FOR SIZE OF A FIST CORVUS MAHIHKAN LAKE YES, AND BACK QUEEN OF THE WOLF BY TARA GEREAUX BY HAROLD JOHNSON BY R.P. MACINTYRE AGAIN GODFORSAKEN WAS DONE BY SHANNON QUINN $12.95 / YA novella $19.95 / novel $19.95 / novel BY SANDY MARIE BONNY BY MIX HART $12.95 / poetry ISBN 978-1-77187-059-7 ISBN 978-1-77187-051-1 ISBN 978-1-77187-053-5 $19.95 / novel $15.95 / YA ISBN 978-1-77187-058-0 ISBN 978-1-77187-052-8 ISBN 978-1-77187-063-4 “Johnson’s vision of a “R.P. MacIntyre has joined resource-and-security-dom- Martha Brooks and Budge “Haunting like a ghost story, “Mix Hart is a stunning Rogues and Rebels: Unforgettable Characters from Canada’s West inated future is well-con- Wilson in making short edifying like historical fiction, new voice in young adult ceived and well-executed.” stories for adolescents a puzzling like a murder fiction, with memorable – The Star Phoenix, for The hallmark of fine Canadian mystery, touching like a love characters and a fine by Brian Brennan Cast Stone (2011) literature.” story, but unfettered by the balance of wry humour and — Quill & Quire, for Revved conventions of any of these complex themes for mature (2002) genres, Bonny’s world, her audiences.” people, her ghosts, are – Beverley Brenna Discover dozens of larger-than-life characters who made the West what utterly and fallibly real.” – David Carpenter it is today. Rogues and Rebels chronicles the mavericks, iconoclasts, and adventurers who threw away the rulebook, thumbed their noses at convention, and let their detractors howl. They never retracted, TITLES AVAILABLE NOW Represented by Ampersand Inc EXILE ON A GRID LOVE IS NOT never explained, never apologized, and they got things done. www.thistledownpress.com Distributed by University of Toronto Press ROAD ANONYMOUS BY SHELLEY BANKS BY JAN WOOD $12.95 / poetry $12.95 / poetry ISBN 978-1-77187-057-3 ISBN 978-1-77187-056-6

54 Prairie books Now | fall/winter 2015

PBN ROgues and Rebels ad.indd 1 2015-07-22 1:22 PM HOW THE WEST WAS DONE

Rogues and Rebels: Unforgettable Characters from Canada’s West by Brian Brennan

Discover dozens of larger-than-life characters who made the West what it is today. Rogues and Rebels chronicles the mavericks, iconoclasts, and adventurers who threw away the rulebook, thumbed their noses at convention, and let their detractors howl. They never retracted, never explained, never apologized, and they got things done.

PBN ROgues and Rebels ad.indd 1 2015-07-22 1:22 PM light up your winter nights

Madder Carmine Night Moves Tyler Enfield Richard Van Camp 978-1-927855-30-0 978-1-927855-23-2

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