News & Extras
Botticelli In The Fire & Sunday in Sodom by Jordan Tannahill
Aug 11, 2020
Botticelli in the Fire won the Governor General’s Award for Drama in 2019. Its author, Toronto playwright Jordan Tannahill, is remarkably clever and to an extent knows his subject. On the surface, the story is potentially compelling. The play is set in Florence just before and during the period when the friar Savonorola imposed a fanatical religious […]
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No Good Asking by Fran Kimmel
Jul 31, 2020
Hannah Finch is eleven years old. Almost twelve. She is a troubled girl, abused and alone. Her mother is dead. One week before Christmas, she leaves the place she calls home and steps out into a winter storm. Eric Nyland, a retired RCMP officer, on his way to pick up a Christmas tree for his family, […]
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Ruba’iyat for the Time of Apricots: A Poem by Basma Kavanagh
Jul 13, 2020
Three epigraphs open Basma Kavanagh’s Ruba’iyat for the Time of Apricots. The first, from Joy Harjo’s Remember, honours the “mother,” her presence forever evident in her child; the second, from Mahmoud Darwish’s Nothing Pleases Me, questions identity or self; and the third,from Karen Barad’s Meeting the Universe Halfway, reminds us how the past is so much a part of the […]
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One Thing — Then Another by Claire Kelly
Jun 1, 2020
Canada is so vast that Europe could almost fit inside it. With vastness comes variance—from wet climates to dry climates, from “have-not” provinces to “have” provinces. In her second poetry collection, One Thing — Then Another, Claire Kelly explores this variance like a travel writer interested not in popular activities or landmarks but the locals and their […]
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This Has Nothing to Do With You by Lauren Carter
May 13, 2020
Author Lauren Carter doesn’t waste any time drawing you into the complicated, compelling and uncomfortably familiar lives of her characters. From the first page, you’re immersed in the moving landscape of their existence, but you’re not immersed in a way that suggests urgency. The pace of Carter’s narrative begs reflection, rather than a frantic rush to […]
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Naming the Shadows by Sharon Berg
Apr 21, 2020
Naming the Shadows, Sharon Berg’s collection of stories, is a fascinating exploration of diverse subjects, from uncovering family secrets and probing social taboos, to examining career choices and overcoming personal trauma. The stories are character driven, and the theme that connects the ten stories and a novelette is the author’s tireless search for a woman’s place […]
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