Tag Archives: canadian literature

Closer Still: On Reading What I Could Not Understand by Isabella Wang

Some artists first learn to draw by tracing the work of others – sentence structure, tone, plot, word play, imagery. Until I found my own voice, I wrote in the voices of other writers that I read from and tried to mimic. If I were to name one most influential title in my early life, […]

On Queer Sexuality and Canadian Theater: An Interview with Erum Khan

Erum Khan is a film and theatre maker. Current and recent projects include: Writer and performer for Noor (The Aga Khan Museum/ Generous Friend); creator and performer for Becoming (Rhubarb Festival & Ottawa Fringe Festival, 2018); assistant director for Acha Bacha (Theatre Passe Muraille/ Buddies); production assistant and collaborator for 7th Cousins; performer and assistant director […]

Mistaken Longings: When I Write of Calcutta, I Don’t Write of “Home”

Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, India. Dec 25 2011.   “I have a question,” a middle aged man says, his bald pate shiny against the afternoon light filtering into the Lakeside Terrace room at Harbourfront Center. We are at “Safar: Journeys to South Asia” panel of Toronto International Festival of Authors. He addresses the authors, “Do you […]

Collecting/Telling/Writing Stories by Bilan Hashi

I was in transit at Dubai. People watching and collecting stories. There were women in saris, men in dashikis, the pilgrims for Ummrah wrapped in their white cloths: traditional clothing a backdrop against the modern lines of the terminal. The airport’s status as an international hub was evident as conversations in different languages overpowered the […]

Creating Beauty through Poetry: An Interview with Shirley Camia

Shirley Camia is a Filipina-Canadian poet. She is the author of four collections of poetry: the forthcoming Mercy (Turnstone Press, 2019); Children Shouldn’t Use Knives (At Bay Press, 2017), 2018 winner of The Manuela Dias Book Design and Illustration Award (Book Design) at the Manitoba Book Awards, and an Honourable Mention in Poetry at The Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence […]

Poetry and its Preoccupations: An Interview with Annick MacAskill

Annick MacAskill’s debut collection of poetry, No Meeting Without Body, was published by Gaspereau Press in the spring of 2018. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Grain, Room, Canadian Notes & Queries, Prism, Versal, Arc, The Fiddlehead, and The Antigonish Review. She has also been selected as a finalist for prizes including the CBC Canada Writes Poetry Prize, the Edna Staebler Personal […]

Happy Birthday, All Lit Up!

All Lit Up, the best place on the internet to find indie Canadian books, is celebrating its first birthday this September with a huge sale and lovely retrospective blog post. And Sideshow Concessions is Julia’s (the amazing general manager of LitDistCo) fall 2015 book pick. Here’s what she has to say: I’ve been lucky enough […]