Like I Care – Stephen Guppy

Posted on 14/09/2012 by admin

Like I CareISBN 9781926639536
Price: $21.95




Like I Care is set in Vancouver a year or two into the future, when everything is just like it is now, apart from the invasion of monsters from Japanese Horror movies, the frequent earthquakes, and the army of scooter-riding Yé-Yé girls taking over the streets. The characters include a couple of families who live in an upscale suburb. Arnold is a struggling real-estate agent who is going through a divorce from Katherine, who believes she is Princess Diana. Their daughter, Christiana, is an aspiring model. Lawrence, their neighbour, has retired from his civil service career and is now a consultant who specializes in writing pointless mission statements. He’s plotting an affair with a young woman who belongs to a cannibal cult led by a chef who has created the perfect Canadian cuisine—eating the corrupt. Lawrence’s blended family includes Dorothy, his wife, and her son Thomas, who has dropped out of university and discovered that his true vocation is watching daytime TV. They’re all about to be transformed through the influence of legendary New-Age financier and evangelist of globalization Mitchell Mobius. Thomas becomes his evil twin, Raoul, and joins Mobius in founding a company that markets obsolete trends. Christiana is transformed into a media icon without her knowledge or consent. Arnold also jumps on the Mitchell Mobius bandwagon and finds himself in Taiwan just in time for the invasion. Fear, uncertainty, disinformation: that’s the mantra of the 21st century, and Arnold and his friends are living it to the hilt.

Stephen GuppyPraise for Stephen Guppy’s first novel, The Fire Thief:

“…a masterful piece of storytelling, with well-drawn characters and imagined situations that seem all too real”. The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix

“Guppy sharply evokes character and milieu in dialogue and prose that are skillfully-shaped.” The Vancouver Sun

Praise for Stephen Guppy’s stories:

“Stephen Guppy’s The Work of Mercy…collects the work of a writer with an impressive and under-appreciated oeuvre.…His new collection brings together nine stories of remarkable intensity that have been previously published in journals and collections. Like Dianne Arbus’ photography, which influenced some of Guppy’s finest poems, these stories demonstrate a keen eye for the freakish and outré that always lurk at the not-so-distant margins of the everyday world”. Canadian Literature

“Stephen Guppy has a remarkable talent”. Monday Magazine

Stephen Guppy is the author of several books including The Fire Thief (novel) The Work of Mercy (stories) Understanding Heaven (poems) which was shortlisted for the BC Book Award/Dorothy Livesay Award for Poetry.

Posted in Catalogue, Fall 2012, L |

Come Late to the Love of Birds – Sandra Kasturi

Posted on 14/09/2012 by admin

Come Late to the Love of BirdsISBN 9781926639512

Price: $16.95




Sandra’s first collection, The Animal Bridegroom featured an introduction by Neil Gaiman and has sold out. This collection expands on her themes of abject romances, deformed fairytales gone and the astonishing delights of life in glorious 21st century. Her latest poetry book fuses nature’s continuous emotional offerings, our desire to understand ourselves with our passion to be free, devoid of the burden of modern thought.

Sandra KasturiSandra Kasturi is a writer, publisher, book reviewer and Bram Stoker Award-winning editor. She is the co-owner of the World Fantasy Award-nominated press, ChiZine Publications. She managed to snag an introduction from Neil Gaiman for her previous poetry collection, The Animal Bridegroom (Tightrope Books). She lives in Toronto with her husband, writer and publisher Brett Alexander Savory.

 

Praise for Come Late to the Love of Birds

“Kasturi catapults her readers into a parallel universe where dreams shape reality. Beware! She’s a powerful trickster who infuses the everyday with beauty, lust, changelings and not-so-benevolent magic.”

—Emily Pohl-Weary, author of Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl

“Sandra Kasturi’s poetry collection, Come Late to the Love of Birds, is a dazzling journey through a mind awake, an eye alive, and a voice remarkably adept. There is great music here, and magic, and many impossible things you didn’t believe before you read them.”

—Patrick O’Leary, author of The Gift and The Black Heart

“Sandra Kasturi’s poems in Come Late to the Love of Birds manage to have both the charm of a particularly beautiful and bright child, while at the same time the grinning bite of a bad seed. A sympathy for roasting birds, a send-up of mythology, the haunted dignity of a hawk—everything she writes has a touch of melancholy about it, but it’s the toy melancholy of the curious and optimistic. How I’d love to be a subject in her world. These poetic tales are funny, absurd, sad, portentous, and completely brilliant. I shall look twice when I next see a bird. I too, have come late to the love of birds—but now I adore them.”

—Susie Moloney, author of A Dry Spell and The Thirteen

Praise for The Animal Bridegroom

“The Animal Bridegroom is a wonderful showcase for Sandra Kasturi’s work—she has a lot to say and hundreds of ways to say it. Filled with poetry of sheer, spinning invention and genuine passion, none of it comfortable or conventional, this long-awaited book is a genuine pleasure to read.”

—Peter Straub, author of A Dark Matter and Mrs. God

“Sandra Kasturi’s magical poems transform the ordinary into the surreal and exotic.”

—Phyllis Gotlieb, author of Birthstones and Red Blood, Black Ink, White Paper

“The Animal Bridegroom is to be revelled in as though you were wandering in a zoo of the most outlandish creatures, stopping often to watch and wonder at their strange behaviour.”

—Adam Getty, author of Repose and Lyric and Elegy

 

Posted in C, Catalogue, Fall 2012, Poetry |

Best Canadian Essays 2012

Posted on 13/09/2012 by admin

Best Canadian Essays 2012ISBN 9781926639567
Price: $19.95




Unique and informative, these essays take a hard look at the state of Canadian literature today by exploring independent publishing, the awards culture, and the commercialization of even the most un-commercial of books. Delving into the political issues driving Canadians, including the tar sands in Alberta and the future of the railway system, this collection also discusses timely topics such as sexuality in the cyber world, the ongoing discoveries of the science world, and immigration. With contributions from Ryan Bigge, Kim Fu, George Fetherling, Alexandra Molotkow and Stephen Henighan, this volume promises to be one on the most entertaining and thought provoking edition yet.

Christopher Doda is an award-winning critic, editor, and poet. He is the author of the collections of poetry Among Ruins and Aesthetics Lesson. His poems and reviews have appeared in journals and magazines across Canada and he was an editor at Exile: The Literary Quarterly for five years. He is currently the review editor for the online journal Studio.

Ray Robertson is the author of six novels—Home Movies, Heroes, Moody Food, Gently Down the Stream, What Happened Later, and David—as well as two collections of non-fiction, Mental Hygiene: Essays on Writers and Writing and, most recently, Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live, which was short-listed for the Hillary Weston Writers Trust Prize for Non-Fiction, long-listed for the Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction, and was a Globe and Mail Best Book of 2011.

Posted in B, Catalogue, Fall 2012 |

Dirty Bird – Keir Lowther

Posted on 13/09/2012 by admin

Dirty BirdISBN 9781926639529
Price: $21.95


CBC Literary Award finalist Keir Lowther makes his debut with a novel that revolves around loved ones dead and alive, family or otherwise that haunts the modern psyche of one young boy, trapped in the grotesque world that surrounds him. Written in a creepy, deadpan, dark spiritual tone that will light a powder keg in the lukewarm waters of Canadian fiction. Dirty Bird is a family dystopia saga of anxiety and misplaced love, carved out in the spirit of spooky tradition of writers such as Tony Burgess, Joey Comeau and Lisa Foad.

“Keir Lowther’s Dirty Bird gets between your teeth. It leaves silt in your bed sheets and second-hand smoke in your hair. It’s a neo-Canadian gothic tale of dysfunction, hallucination, and denial. It will make you feel sick, weak all over, but you’ll love it. You’ll crawl around for days after finishing it, wishing for more. This book breaks into your brain – but you’ll have to read it to know what that really means.”

- Liz Worth author of Treat Me Like Dirt

“This debaucherous debut from Keir Lowther does not deal in pig-tailed orphans or raspberry cordial. Instead it delivers a darkly gothic PEI—made of grit, grime, and grotesquerie—in which the wronged dead crawl from their graves to track mud across your clean kitchen floor. Dirty Bird is a devilish, desperate plea from one very disturbed little boy who spends his summer longing for Happy Meals and coming of age among adults with human hearts and savage, animalistic appetites. This book reminds you of every bad thing you ever did and shames you for it. Dirty Bird will raze your brain and haunt your dreams and leave you begging for more.”

– Matthew J. Trafford, author of The Divinity Gene

Keir LowtherKeir Lowther lives in Prince Edward Island with his wife, daughter and dog. His great grandfather was Lucy Maud Montgomery’s first cousin.

Posted in Catalogue, D, Fall 2012 |

Best Canadian Poetry 2012

Posted on 12/09/2012 by admin

Best Canadian PoetryISBN 9781926639550
Price: $19.95




Continuing in a long-established tradition of poetry excellence, this collection of 50 poems is culled from Canadian literary magazines and journals. The handpicked selection includes the best, and most current, representations of the vibrant Canadian poetry scene. This distinguished volume offers both a convenient introduction to contemporary poets in Canada and a collectible yearbook for seasoned poetry readers, distilled by the esteemed editorial tastes of a new guest editor and an accomplished poetry editor.

Molly PeacockMolly Peacock, a poet and a creative nonfiction writer, is the author of The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72 (2010) and six books of poetry, including The Second Blush (2008) and Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems (2002). Among her other works are a memoir called Paradise, Piece By Piece (1998) and How To Read A Poem and Start A Poetry Circle (1999). She is the editor of a collection of creative non-fiction, The Private I: Privacy in a Public World (2001) and the co-editor of Poetry in Motion: One Hundred Poems from the Subways and Buses (1996).

Carmine StarninoCarmine Starnino  has published four critically acclaimed volumes of poetry, including This Way Out (2009), which was nominated for the Governor General’s Award.  His other books include A Lover’s Quarrel (2004), a collection of reviews and essays, and The New Canon: An Anthology of Canadian Poetry (2005), which he edited. His most recent book is Lazy Bastardism: Essays and Reviews on Contemporary Poetry (2012). Starnino lives in Montreal, where he is poetry editor for Vehicule Press and a senior editor for Reader’s Digest Canada.

Visit the Best Canadian Poetry microsite.

 

“Bravo: a Canadian first. Tightrope Books releases its first annual roundup of poetry from Canadian journals, revealing what poets are up to in their proverbial basements, garrets and broom closets from coast to coast to coast. Buy it, or borrow it, but do read it.” – Arc Poetry Annual, Paul Tyler

“The collection is a unique glimpse at a diversity of poets, from Ottawa’s David O’Meara to Margaret Atwood to the revered P.K. Page.”—Cormac Rae, Ottawa Xpress

 

Posted in B, Catalogue, Fall 2012, Poetry |

Tel-Talk – Paola Poletto, Liis Toliao and Yvonne Koscielak

Posted on 27/06/2012 by admin

ISBN 978-1-926639-49-9
Price: $19.95





The Tel-talk project brings together artists of varying backgrounds, from across the country, to perform in and or animate a telephone booth in response to themes surrounding public spaces, and the disappearance of traditional phone booths. Artists and writers were
invited to contribute a site-specific installation, artwork, or short work of fiction, which references a unique telephone booth location. The installations began in September 2011 and continue through to July
2012. Over the last nine months, each installation was announced and documented on the Tel-talk blog (http://tel-talk.blogspot.ca/).

The Tel-talk project culminates in an exhibition of various works and photo documentations at the Telephone Booth Gallery in Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood along with a book launch which outlines contributions to the project in (phone) book form under the Tightrope Books imprint. The project continues online with an open invitation to artists and writers to make their own art interventions.

Selected artists and writers (Tel-talkers) include: Barry Callaghan, Dyan Marie, Julie Voyce, Lizz Aston, Jessica Westhead, Otino Corsano, Tim Laurin, Sheila Butler, Steven Tippin, Stuart Keeler, Tara Cooper, Terry O’Neill and many more. Full list of participants and online: http://tel-talk.blogspot.ca/

About the Editors

Paola Poletto is an artist, writer and arts administrator. She is co-editor of Boredom Fighters! (Tightrope Books, 2008), Ourtopias: Cities and the Role of Design (Riverside Architectural Press, 2008); and co-founder/editor of Kiss Machine (2000-5), which included a girls and guns issue with traveling exhibition to artist run centres in Eastern Europe. In 2009, Paola was guest curator of fashion no-no (Queens Quay Gallery, Harbourfront Centre). She has also held curatorial and programming positions at Toronto’s Italian Cultural Institute (1993-98), Design Exchange (2000-2008) and the City of Mississauga’s Culture Division (2008-).

Liis Toliao burned a Barbie doll in her first short film, which she presented as part of a larger performance piece at the age of 16.  She has since been many things including, but not limited to: l’m editor, construction worker, administrator, fashion merchandiser, photographer, Sunday driver, graphic designer, fairweather optimist and occasional daydreamer.  Tel-talk represents her first foray into curation and programming. When speaking about Tel-talk she says: “I’m interested in finding the awe and wonder in simple moments and common-place objects.  Through this project, I hope people re-discover the telephone booth. They’re beautiful spaces.

Yvonne Koscielak is an art advisor, cultural worker and creative producer. She received her Master’s in Art Business from the Sotheby’s Institute – New York, and her HBA from the University of Toronto, and has held curatorial and consulting positions throughout New York and Toronto where her brief included acquisition and de-accession of many notable corporate and private art collections. Yvonne specializes in Modern and Contemporary art and can regularly be found spending the a”ernoon at a local art gallery or cashing in her travel points to avoid missing the latest art fair or museum exhibition.

 

Posted in Catalogue, Spring 2012, T |

Mount Royal – Basil Papademos

Posted on 27/06/2012 by admin

ISBN13: 9781926639437
ISBN10: 192663943x
Price: $21.95

William S. Burroughs described earlier writing by Basil Papademos as “morally dangerous.” Mount Royal is a wildly entertaining roller-coaster ride, which combines ferociously clever slapstick, frenetic satire, and scorching love scenes to expose a turbulent 1980s Montreal. Mount Royal follows petty thief, drug dealer, and ladies’ man, Johnny Carp, as he explores his sexuality and unearths political cover-ups. The book examines issues of sexual power and individual identity, and the effect of history on us all. Concluding with the 1989 Montreal Massacre, the novel is, at its core, a bittersweet romance–a love letter to a time and a place.

About the Author

Basil Papademos is the author of the novel The Hook of It Is (Emergency Press). A former resident of both Toronto and Montreal, he currently lives in Bangkok.

 

Visit Basil’s blog here

Posted in Catalogue, M, Spring 2012 |

When All My Disappointments Came at Once – Todd Swift

Posted on 27/06/2012 by admin

ISBN-10: 1926639456
ISBN-13: 978-1926639451
Price: $16.95





Todd Swift’s eighth poetry collection, When All My Disappointments Came At Once, charts his moving journey back from despair after a series of serious mid-life setbacks, guided by a love of lyrical poetry and its fertile traditions. This groundbreaking book is a Life Studies for our times. It confirms the human heart’s wonderful resilience, and Swift as a poet of the first rank, in terms of style, bravery and integrity of vision. Above all else it is filled with flamboyant poems of great depth and beauty.

About the Author

Dr Todd Swift is Lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing, at Kingston University, London.  He is Director and Editor of new small press Eyewear Publishing.  Published by the age of 18 in The Fiddlehead, Swift is the prolific author of eight collections of poetry and many more pamphlets. He is editor or co-editor of a dozen anthologies, most recently Lung Jazz: Young British Poets for Oxfam, with a preamble from David Lehman.  His poems have appeared in numerous international publications, such as Poetry (Chicago), Poetry Review (London), and The Globe and Mail (Toronto).  He has been Oxfam’s poet-in-residence, based in Marylebone, since 2004.  His widely-read blog, Eyewear, has been archived by The British Library.  His PhD is from the University of East Anglia, and is concerned with poetic style and the British poets of the 1940s.  Swift, in his 20s, had a colourful series of freelance jobs, working for Penthouse magazine, and as story-editor on the cult anime show, Sailor Moon, as well as running Canada’s infamous poetry cabaret series, Vox Hunt, which The Globe and Mailcalled “virtually unique in North America”.  It was during that time, in the 90s, before his move to Budapest, that he was in the band Swifty Lazarus with Tom Walsh, which mixed spoken word and soundscapes in a new way.  Swift lived in Budapest then Paris, in his 30s, before settling in London in 2003. His key themes are sex, violence, religion, love, travel, and style, and he loves 80s music, 50s eyewear, 60s TV, 70s politics, and 40s cinema.

Posted in Catalogue, Poetry, Spring 2012, W |

Commander Zero – David Neil Lee

Posted on 27/06/2012 by admin

ISBN-10: 1926639472
ISBN-13: 978-1926639475
Price: $19.95

Found unconscious on a remote road in the coastal rain forest, Joseph Windebank is badly injured, water-soaked, and near death. After being nursed back to health in a rural community of fishers and loggers, Joey is a changed man. His memory is gone, his wife has disappeared, and, in piecing together the mystery, Joey comes to imagine his world as a shadowy and frightening place where vampires haunt the deep woods and the dead trade their lives on the land for an eerie afterlife in the dark waters of the coastal inlets. Teased, tolerated, and nicknamed “Zero,” he packs prawns at the local fish plant, making a new life for himself. But he hides a growing fear that a huge, dark, and hungry secret is rising from the depths of his past—a secret that
he is better off not knowing.

About the Author

Before David Neil Lee became known as a writer, including two books on jazz, he was a founding member of Toronto’s improvised music community, playing double bass and cello with international jazz artists, dancers, actors and poets. He is also the author of the best-selling Chainsaws: A History. Commander Zero is his latest book.

 

Posted in C, Catalogue, Spring 2012 |

Here We Are Among the Living – Samantha Bernstein

Posted on 27/06/2012 by admin

ISBN-10: 1926639448
ISBN-13: 978-1926639444
Price: $21.95

Tumbling into adulthood as the world falls into post 9–11 madness, Samantha Bernstein vividly depicts a generation raised in the ruins of Baby Boomer idealism. The daughter of a hippie mom ground down by life in a relentless film industry, and an absent, famous poet father, Samantha enters her twenties outraged by the legacies of her predecessors. In emails chronicling five years, she writes toward a vision that reconciles history with the possibility of an ethical and hopeful future. Creating collectives that are at once joyous and politically engaged, the characters in this memoir accept loss, acknowledge fear, and fight cynicism. Exultant and poignant, caustic and tender, Here We Are Among the Living invites readers to look carefully at the world – to believe the choices we make matter, and that to love is the most important choice of all.

Book Buzz

Super! We are so pleased to announce Samantha Bernstein’s debut Here We Are Among The Living has Been long-listed for the B.C. non-fiction award! Be sure to get your copy today. The National Post was impressed with the debut, and had this to say.

“In the book, written in five years’ worth of emails to her nearest and dearest, Bernstein details her life as a young woman falling in love and deciding what to do with the boundless energy of her youth. She also happens to be the youngest daughter of a Canadian literary luminary, the poet Irving Layton, and though he had next to no part in raising her, the psychic weight of his absence in her life and presence in the literary canon leaves a deep impression on Bernstein’s spirit. By virtue of both her youth and her DNA, Bernstein embodies a curiosity and lust for life. And she is, of course, a writer. By the terms she has explicitly set for the work, Bernstein’s memoir is a success.“

About the Author

Samantha Bernstein’s poetry and prose has appeared in various publications, including Exile Literary Quarterly, The Fiddlehead and the anthology TOK 3: Writing the New Toronto.  Samantha is a doctoral student at York University; her dissertation explores relationships between ethics and aesthetics.  Sam and her husband play in Samba Elegua, a community drum orchestra that on any given day you might see dancing down a Toronto street.

 

Posted in Catalogue, H, Spring 2012 |

Fatty Goes to China – Royston Tester

Posted on 26/06/2012 by admin

ISBN-10: 1926639480
ISBN-13: 978-1926639482
Price: $21.95

Written in original, humorous, and innovative ways, these 11 richly
varied stories expose the risks in finding shelter in unaccommodating
places. Exploring the precarious lives of an accident-prone Chinese
construction worker with a dark secret, a fatally ill Canadian artist
who remains in Beijing after the 2008 Olympics, a grieving barber who
makes a gruesome discovery about his Czech lover, and a couple who
make a shocking, last-minute decision about their adoptive child,
these unforgettable narratives—both dark and emotional—travel from
China to Canada and Europe to convey vivid descriptions and a
nostalgic appeal.

About the Author

In 2012, Royston Tester became Associate Editor for Hong Kong-based Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. He organized the launch of Cha in mainland China on 31st August 2009 in Beijing. Prior to his appointment, he was a frequent contributor to the journal. His first collection of short fiction, Summat Else (Porcupine’s Quill) is set in England, Spain, and Canada. It explores the coming-of-age of Enoch Jones. Tester’s work has appeared in Asian, Canadian and U.S. journals and anthologies. Two stories, “Seriously” and “Face” were shortlisted for the 2006 CBC Literary Awards. Tester has been jury member for the Commonwealth Fiction Prize, and first reader for the Writers’ Union of Canada “Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers.” In Canada, he has taught ESL at McMaster University, and fiction-writing at the Humber School for Writers, Toronto. In China, he has been a frequent writer-in-residence at the Red Gate Gallery, Beijing.

Posted in Catalogue, F, Spring 2012 |

In Fine Form

Posted on 27/10/2011 by admin

ISBN-10: 1-55192-777-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-551927-77-0
Price: $29.95
Pub Date: March 2005

Now being distributed by Tightrope Books

With this groundbreaking anthology, poets and teachers Kate Braid and Sandy Shreve set out to explore Canadian form poetry. The result is a thrilling collection of 175 poems, over 140 poets from the 18th century to the present day, and 20 distinct poetic forms (sonnets and ghazals, triolets and ballads, epigrams, pallindromes, blues and more) that will appeal to every poetry-lover as well as teachers and students of poetry.

Poets include Bliss Carman, Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, Dennis Lee, George Elliott Clarke, Alden Nowlan, Gwendolyn MacEwan, Molly Peacock, Lorna Crozier, Anne Simpson, Emile Nelligan, Adam Sol, Barbara Nickel, Christian Bok and over 100 more. “No verse is free for the poet who wants to do a good job.” -T. S. Eliot

 

About The Editors

Kate Braid (Vancouver) is the author of three acclaimed books of poetry. Her books have won the Pat Lowther and VanCity Book Prizes and been shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Prize. She teaches at Malaspina University-College.

Sandy Shreve (Vancouver) is also the author of three books of poetry. She has received the Earle Birney Prize for Poetry and been shortlisted for the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award and a National Magazine Award for Poetry. She founded Poetry in Transit in BC.

Posted in Anthologies, Anthology, Catalogue, I, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , |

The Best Canadian Essays 2011

Posted on 25/10/2011 by admin

ISBN-10: 1-926639-42-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-926639-42-0
Price: $19.95
Pub Date: Fall 2011


The third in a series that launched to excitement and acclaim in 2009, The Best Canadian Essays 2011 covers an impressive variety of topics. New series editor, Christopher Doda, and guest editor, Ibi Kaslik, infuse the series with a breath of fresh air—selecting insightful and provocative essays from Canadian magazines that range from personal insights on post-partum depression, a pro-smoking diatribe, and an appreciation of the great opera singer Maria Callas to pieces on “wage slavery”, the plight of zoo elephants, Canada’s ongoing war in Afghanistan and much more. The Best Canadian Essays 2011 exemplifies the outstanding quality and stunning diversity of Canadian nonfiction writing today.

About the Guest Editor

Ibi Kaslik is an internationally published novelist, freelance writer, and teachers. Her most recent novel, The Angel Riots, is a rock’n'roll comic-tragedy and was nominated for Ontario’s Trillium award in 2009. Her first novel, Skinny, was a New York Times Bestseller and has been published in numerous countries. A native of Toronto, Ibi teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies and works as an art educator for youth.

About the Series Editor

Christopher Doda is an award-winning critic, editor, and poet. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Among Ruins (2001) and Aesthetics Lesson (2007). His poems and reviews have appeared in journals and magazines across Canada and he was an editor at Exile: The Literary Quarterly for five years. He is currently the review editor for the online journal Studio.

Posted in Anthologies, B, Catalogue, Fall 2011, Non-fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2011

Posted on 14/09/2011 by admin

ISBN-10: 1-926639-41-3
ISBN-13: 978-1-26639-41-3
Price: $19.95
Pub Date: Fall 2011


The outstanding success of The Best Canadian Poetry in English series continues in 2011 with guest editor Priscila Uppal.

The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2011 proudly continues a series that kicked off with a bang in 2008 and thrives under the stewardship of esteemed editor Molly Peacock and a different acclaimed poet guest editor each year.

This year Priscila Uppal chose the fifty best Canadian poems published in Canadian online and print literary journals in 2010. With this anthology, readers– often baffled by the proliferating poems and poets– are able to tap into the remarkable and vibrant Canadian poetry scene.

About the Guest Editor

Priscila Uppal is a poet, novelist, and York University professor. Her publications include Ontological Necessities (shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize), Traumatology, Successful Tragedies (Bloodaxe books, UK), Winter Sport: Poems (written as Canadian Athletes Now poet-in-residence for the Olympic and Paralympic Games) the novels The Divine Economy of Salvation and To Whom It May Concern, and the study We Are What We Mourn: The Contemporary English-Canadian Elegy. Time Out London recently dubbed her “Canada’s coolest poet.” Visit priscilauppal.ca

About the Series Editor

Molly Peacock is the author of six volumes of poetry, including The Second Blush; a memoir, Paradise, Piece by Piece; and a one-woman show in poems, “The Shimmering Verge.” She is a contributing editor of the Literary Review of Canada and a faculty mentor at the Spalding MFA Program. Her latest work of nonfiction is The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delaney Begins Her Life’s Work at 72, which was nominated for BC’s National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

Praise for The Best Canadian Poetry series

“Some of us can only afford a half a dozen or so subscriptions to literary magazines, so the publication of The Best Canadian Poetry in English, now in its third year, is a welcome event.”
- Maxianne Berger, Rover Arts

“This would be an excellent book for the academic and the casual poetry fan who wants to dust off the rust in their CanLit poetry ligaments.”
- Michael Peckham, Broken Pencil

“The collection is a unique glimpse at a diversity of poets, from Ottawa’s David O’Meara to Margaret Atwood to the reverend P.K Page.”
- Cormac Rae, Ottawa Xpress

Posted in Anthologies, B, Catalogue, Fall 2011, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Onion Man – Kathryn Mockler

Posted on 14/09/2011 by admin

ISBN-10: 1-926639-39-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-926639-39-0
Price: $15.95
Pub Date: November 2011

This sparse and powerful poetic debut, weaves a tale of heartache, dissolution, and coming of age.

Onion Man is an intense and masterly sculpted series of linked poems set in London, Ontario, in the late 1980s– a time in Canada when the recession lay like a lead weight on the shoulders of young people, leaving the future bleak.

The poems are told from the point of view of an eighteen-year-old girl working for the summer at a corn canning factory, and they follow her relationship with her factory job, her boyfriend, her alcoholic mother, her terminally ill grandfather, and the man who every night “peels an onion and eats it as if it were an apple.”

The Onion Man doesn’t speak English and is tormented by the other workers. After his son dies, he commits suicide at the factory, and the girl finds his body. This traumatic event causes her to rethink the direction of her life.

About the Author

Kathryn Mockler is the author of the poetry books Onion Man (Tightrope Books, 2011) and The Saddest Place on Earth (forthcoming in December 2012 with DC Books). She received her MFA from the University of British Columbia and her BA in Honors English and Creative Writing. Her writing has appeared in Descant, Joyland, The Capilano Review, The Antigonish Review, The Puritan, La Petite Zine, Geist, and This Magazine. Her films have been broadcast on TMN, Movieola, and Bravo and have screened at numerous festivals. Currently, she teaches creative writing at Western University and is the co-founder of the online journal The Rusty Toque.

Praise for Onion Man

“Mockler can’t hide anything in lines this clean and spare. Onion Man delivers a bold, candid voice. It’s a book of brave choices. We have a winner in Kathryn Mockler.
– Michael V. Smith

“With Onion Man, Mockler does for the Pillsbury factory was Dante did for hell. But Mockler is funnier. Nearly every piece on this epic, romantic novel-in-verse cracked me up and, like the best comedians, Mockler breaks your heart while she makes you laugh. Her deadpan wit is dead-on and her understated insight is fathoms deep. You’ve never read a book of poetry like this.”
– Sharon McCartney

Posted in Catalogue, Fall 2011, O, Poetry | Tagged , , |

How to Get a Girl Pregnant – Karleen Pendleton Jiménez

Posted on 14/09/2011 by admin

ISBN-10: 1-926639-40-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-926639-40-6
Price: $19.95
Pub Date: Fall 2011


How to Get a Girl Pregnant is a frank and funny memoir about a dyke trying to get pregnant.

Karleen Pendleton Jiménez has known that she was gay since she was three years old and wanted to have a baby for almost as long. But how is a butch Chicana lesbian supposed to get sperm? Picking up men at nightclubs and restaurants? Asking queer male friends for a donation? Using sperm banks dominated by blue-eyed and blond-haired donors?

This candid and humorous memoir follows Karleen’s challenges, adventures, successes, failures, humiliations, and triumphs while attempting to fulfill her dream of giving birth to a child. It is a confession of desire, humility, and the search for perfection.

About the Author

Karleen Pendleton Jiménez is the screenwriter of the award-winner film Tomboy, and the author for the children’s book Are You a Boy or a Girl?, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. She is a professor of education at Trent University. Raised in LA, having lived in Berkeley and San Diego, she now makes her home in Toronto.

Posted in Catalogue, Fall 2011, H, Non-fiction | Tagged , , |

Prick: Confessions of a Tattoo Artist – Ashley Little

Posted on 14/09/2011 by admin

ISBN-10: 1-926639-38-3
ISBN-13: 978-1-926639-38-3
Price: $19.95
Pub Date: Fall 2011

 

In this crackling debut, Ashley Little creates a new anti-hero — one whose audacity is matched by his vulnerability.

PRICK is narrate by twenty-one year old Anthony “Ant” Young: an artist, an asshole, and an anti-hero. After fleeing a violent home life in Calgary, Ant moves to Victoria, BC, where he earns his tattooing apprenticeship under Hank the Tank, a founding member of the powerful Lucifer’s Choice motorcycle gang. Under Hank’s guidance, Ant learns the craft and business of tattoo, but he is also exposed to a vicious and frightening criminal underworld.

Written in intense, rapid-fire bursts, PRICK explores themes of addiction, desire, and remorse. As Ant’s life stumbles out of control, he struggles to hold on to the one thing he really cares about.

Ashley Little follows in the footsteps of Bret Easton Ellis and Heather O’Neill in this unforgettable, disturbing and darkly funny tale.

Book Buzz

Wicked! Ashley Little’s Prick was shortlisted for the 2012 ReLit Award for best novel. TheToronto Review of Books also noticed Prick`s stature as an important indie read.

“Prick is a screeching hell ride down damnation alley…Like a car wreck to the morbidly inquisitive, or a brilliant dragon tattoo on alabaster flesh, Prick is a beautifully disturbing tale revealing the morally mangled soul of a young man.” For even more praise, visit Ashley`s website. Be sure to order your copy today! We are so pleased for the nomination. The ReLit Awards were established in 2000 to recognize the best of the country’s independent presses.

About the Author

Ashley Little received a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria. She won the 2008 Okanagan Short Story Contest. Her work has appeared in Broken Pencil, The Danforth Review, Room and the anthology Writing Without Direction: Ten and a Half Stories by Canadian Authors Under Thirty (Clark-Nova, 2010). She lives in Ucluelet, BC.

Praise for Prick: Confessions of a Tattoo Artist

“Fearless, the straight stuff! An arresting look at the world of tattoo; graphic as a freshly embroidered skull on virgin skin. Via the morally ambiguous point of view of an eager young apprentice, PRICK is an entree to a world not often seen and even less understoof. With wistful shades of Willie Vlautin and al the grit of Charles Bukowski, Ashley Little lushly demonstrates that hers in an important new voice in unflinchingly real storytelling.”  – Dennis E. Bolen, author of Kaspoit!


Posted in Catalogue, Fall 2011, Fiction, P | Tagged , , , |

Sunday, the locusts | Jim Johnstone

Posted on 14/03/2011 by admin

Sunday, the locusts, by Jim JohnstoneISBN-10: 1-926639-36-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-926639-36-9
Price: $18.95
Pub Date: Spring 2011

Award-winning poet Jim Johnstone unites science, poetry, and art in an innovative and intellectual examination of the symbolism associated with locusts.

A long poem that probes love and loss in fragments of verse and hybrid-media collage, Sunday, the locusts is a post-apocalyptic tour-de-force.

Drawing on a variety of disciplines including developmental biology, geology and philosophy, Jim Johnstone and Julienne Lottering blur linguistic boundaries to create a unique collaborative text.

Hymn, map, portent—Sunday, the locusts warns against inevitable extinction while also revelling in the vivacity of personhood.

About the Author

Jim Johnstone (b. 1978) is a writer and physiologist in Toronto. He is the author of two previous collections of poetry: Patternicity (Nightwood Editions, 2010) and The Velocity of Escape (Guernica Editions, 2008). His poems have been published in several Canadian magazines, including Descant, enRoute, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Maisonneuve, The Malahat Review, and PRISM International and anthologized in The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2010. He is the founder and editor of Misunderstandings Magazine and poetry editor of Cactus Press. See jimjohnstone.wordpress.com.

About the Illustrator

Julienne Lottering was born in South Africa but has been living in Canada and exhibiting in Toronto, Lyon, and New York since 2000. Her artwork has appeared on the book cover of Life and the Sheath of Enlightenment and in Misunderstandings Magazine.

Praise for Patternicity

“Patternicity transforms the mundane into the otherworldly.”
—Mark Callanan, Quill & Quire

“I love Patternicity for its dirty noises . . . Jim Johnstone’s forms are shapely, but feral. His music is beautifully rational, complex and charismatic.”
—Carmine Starnino

Posted in Catalogue, Poetry, S, Spring 2011 | Tagged , , , |

Strangers in Paris: New Writing Inspired by the City of Light

Posted on 10/03/2011 by admin

ISBN-10: 1-926639-32-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-926639-32-1
Price: $19.95
Pub Date: May 2011


An anthology of poetry and fiction with the city of Paris as its unifying thread.

The stunning variety of writing in this volume addresses the city of Paris in all its complexity, while challenging the mythology of expatriate Parisian literature. The anthology contains entries as diverse and disparate as an excerpt from John Berger’s novel, Here is Where We Meet; Suzanne Allen’s ekphrastic poetry, a tongue-in-cheek take on the nineteenth-century novel by Helen Cusack O’Keeffe; Canadian writer Lisa Pasold’s story of a forced extended stay in Paris; and an interview with the celebrated American poet Alice Notley.

Strangers in Paris presents anglophone Parisian writing as it is today, without the veneer and expectations of stereotypes, romantic notions, or iconic representations. More than anything, this anthology is a landmark, a notice that begs and entices readers to explore the current English-language authorship developing in and about Paris.

Featuring work from Suzanne Allen, Mia Bailey, David Barnes, Barbara Beck, Edward Belleville, John Berger, Judith Chriqui, Marie Davis, Sion Dayson, David Eso, Megan Fernandes, Jorie Graham, Jeffrey Greene, Jonathan Hamrick, Isabel Harding, Marty Hiatt, Margaret J. Hults, Andrea Jonsson, Julie Kleinman, Antonia Klimenko, Sam Langer, Colin Joseph Wolfgang Mahar, Alexander Kolya Maksik, Jessica Malcomson, Danielle McShine, Alice Notley, Helen Cusack O’Keeffe, Lisa Pasold, Rufo Quintavalle, Alberto Rigettini, Sarah Riggs, Eleni Sikelianos, Kathleen Spivack, Cole Swensen, Elizabeth Willis, and Neil Uzzell.

Editor Biographies

David Barnes moved to Paris in 2003 with the idea of staying for six months. He is still there. He won Shakespeare and Company’s short story competition, Travel in Words, in 2006 and now runs a writing workshop there and a weekly open mic poetry night in Belleville called SpokenWord. His stories have been published by Spot Lit Magazine, Upstairs at Duroc, and 34th Parallel.

Megan Fernandes is a PhD student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is currently writing a dissertation on cognitive approaches to twentieth-century Irish and American literature. During her time in Paris, she has conducted research at the Center for Literature and Cognition at the Université Paris VIII and will be published in the upcoming issue of Upstairs at Duroc (2010). She has presented at conferences in the US, Ireland, and Poland and has an essay on Beckett to be published in the literary journal, Miranda (University Press of Toulouse).

Posted in Anthologies, Catalogue, Poetry, S, Spring 2011 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Roll With It | Heather J Wood

Posted on 10/03/2011 by admin

ISBN-10: 1-926639-34-0
ISBN-13: 978-1926639345
Price: $17.95
Pub Date: June 2011


Figure skater turned roller derby girl Neddy will bowl you over in Heather Wood’s uplifting book about growing up and deciding for yourself.

Neddy rejects the sacrifices necessary to succeed as a figure skater—early mornings, a diet of apples and celery, and the pressure to perform—in favour of the rough and tumble adventures and fiesty camaraderie of the roller derby community.

Her father is out of the country while she embarks on her first year of university, so Neddy is free to consider her guilt about not following in her mother’s footsteps, navigate a new love, and discover who she really is and what she really wants.

Praise for Roll With It:

“Readers will roll and spin and root for Neddy. I certainly did!” —Sheree Fitch, author of Pluto’s Ghost

“A fun, painful, yet joyful celebration of one athlete’s coming of age, readers will find Neddy’s story of smashing it up on the derby floor irresistibly engaging—this book is for anyone who has ever seized a challenge, put on a pair of skates, or believed in the long shot.” —Ibi Kaslik, author of Skinny and The Angel Riots

“Neddy’s my kind of young woman: fearless, opinionated, and not afraid to wipeout on the derby track. Any girl who identifies with tough, in- your-face heroes, rather than perfect princesses, should read this book immediately. Then go out and buy some roller skates and a helmet!” —Emily Pohl-Weary, author of A Girl Like Sugar and Strange Times at Western High

About the Author

Heather J. Wood was born and raised in Montreal. She now lives and writes in Toronto. Tightrope Books published her first novel, Fortune Cookie, in 2009.

Posted in Catalogue, Fiction, R, Spring 2011 | Tagged , , , , , , |