Blaine Greenwood, born in Viking Alberta 1951, is an educator by profession – with a career spanning from classroom teacher to museum educator and event planner. It is from this foundation that Blaine’s poetry has come to reflect his interest in psychology, history and spirituality. His verse has been described as “dark, homespun, sensual, rich with images
Blaine was one of the Coordinators of MOST VOCAL Poets Society. He was until very recently one of the artistic directors of Lotos Land spoken word / poetry venue at Fort Macleod Alberta’s South Country Fair and a past main stage performer. He is currently the DJ for CKXU’s Not Your Mother’s Poetry and as that show’s host, participated in 100 Thousands Poets for Change event 2013 – 2015.
The title of Blaine’s first chapbook Walking Naked Down the Street describes the experience of a writer baring his soul to the public as well as some of Blaine’s earliest attempts at poetry. Blaine’s first book was Black Cat in the Shadows. Second to be published by Ekstasis EditionsThe False Mirror is Blaine’s collection of prose poems about Matisse, Magritte and Dali. There are at least fou more manuscripts in various stages of writing and editing.
Blaine holds a B.Ed. and Diploma in Educational Media from the University of Alberta and lives in Lethbridge, Alberta with his wife, Dee.
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I met Blaine Greenwood when the first Lethbridge Word on the Street Festival was being organized. Blaine interviewed me for a weekly show he hosted on CKXU Radio, Not Your Mother’s Poetry. Blaine has always been a very supportive and encouraging force within the Alberta poetry community.
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The False Mirror
Imagine three artists sitting at their easels about to represent the world around them. Take a subject as common as the human eye. Matisse just suggested the eye with two or three strokes of bold color and often hid his initials within those strokes. Magritte took the eye and turned it into a gigantic advertising poster – with clouds floating in the iris. And then there was Dali … the eye appears, suspended in mid-air over a sky, like a bruise glassy and weeping.
The title The False Mirror is taken from the painting by Magritte. Magritte’s work takes ordinary objects and turns them into thought provoking mysteries. Dali, an ultra-surrealist. is an artist of dreamscapes that seem to scream for psychoanalysis. Matisse, who appears to be more serene of the three, is an artist that uses flat patches of intense color and tends towards an economy of line and shape.
These three artists –Matisse, Magritte and Dali – having experienced many common life experiences, represent their views of reality in radically different ways. Hopefully what this collection of poetry will cause you to do is see reality not just with your eyes but your mind and your imagination as well.
Lisa Bowes has been recognized across Canada for her work as a sports reporter, live host, anchor, play-by-play announcer and producer. While working for CBC, she was nominated for a Gemini Award for best writing in an information program or series.
She began her career as an editorial assistant at TSN in 1989. She later became a reporter for TSN in Winnipeg and Calgary. From 1997-1999 she was a commentator for TSN SportsDesk. She then joined The Score as weekend anchor & host/producer of Sports Axxess.
A graduate of the University of Western Ontario, she made Canadian broadcasting history in 2000 when she became the play-by-play voice for the National Women’s Hockey League. She later called basketball games for The Score, WTN & TSN2.
At the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, Lisa was CTV’s host/reporter for women’s hockey.
She worked as an anchor/reporter at CTV Calgary from 2004–2017.
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I think I may have originally met Lisa Bowes through the Calgary publicist who set up media for publishers I represented, and who knew all the media personalities in the city. In any case, Lisa contacted me for advice when she had the idea of writing a series of children’s books about Olympic sports. She has gone on since then to successfully write and publish five books in the series, and has plans to write more! I did promote Lisa on Reading Recommendations several times, as well. Recently though, during this current pandemic, Lisa Bowes has found a unique and brilliant way to reach out to her readers and promote books to children and their families – safely! – by offering what she is calling “curbside readings” held in driveways around Calgary! Masks and social distancing required, of course! (See below for video link.)
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Lucy Tries Sports
Created by veteran sports journalist Lisa Bowes, the Lucy Tries Sports series aims to promote inclusive physical literacy and encourage young readers to get involved in sports. Endorsed by elite athletes, the series focuses on participation and the importance of play. The books follow Lucy and her friends as they learn introductory skills in a variety of exciting sports, guided by coaches and teachers. Lucy’s eagerness to try new things will inspire all children to get outside and play.
Bowes points out that the Lucy books can be resources to encourage kids and families to try a variety of activities and live healthy lifestyles. A recent report in Canada indicates that many kids do not spend enough time doing physical activities. Only 39 per cent of children (aged five to 11) and youths (12 to 17) met the national physical activity guidelines of 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day, according to ParticipACTION, a non-profit group that promotes healthy living.
“Physical literacy is as important as math and reading,” Bowes said. “Being active means you can have a healthy life. Have kids try many different sports as opposed to specialization. Build a love of activity into your life.”
Lucy and Friends
Even though some kids cannot access ice rinks or sports fields, Bowes says introducing children to sports in any form is crucial to their physical, social, and emotional well-being.
“It breaks my heart when kids do not have access to sports and athletic opportunities. Because an active start equals an active life. But you can still teach children fundamental movement skills from the beginning, like catching and throwing. This can help give kids the confidence to try sports as opportunities arise.”
With COVID-19 restrictions in place, exercise is even more limited. However, Bowes stresses that being active with family members can build good habits later. “If people are walking and playing together more with their families, that’s something that will carry over once we’ve passed this.”
And when kids can join group activities again, Bowes emphasizes that enrolling in programs with friends means more opportunities for fun, socializing, and growth.
“Sign them up with friends. Make it easy for them to want to participate. Focus on the importance of having fun. No one needs to win at all costs.”
What Lisa Bowes is working on now:
In addition, Bowes is collaborating on a dance book with First Nations communities that teaches indigenous dances.
“This is a chance for Lucy and Friends to learn about the power of dance and culture in First Nations communities. I see this as an opportunity to participate in the reconciliation efforts with First Nations communities in Canada.”
Bowes leads writing residency programs for school-age children, and gives them a chance to write their own Lucy stories. They have contributed self-made books featuring a variety of “Lucy Tries” activities, from surfing to archery to yoga. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Bowes has led curbside readings of her books, sharing the Lucy stories from a safe social distance.
For more information about Lisa Bowes and the series, please see Orca Books‘ website.
Gowan grew up on a farm near Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and studied at the University of British Columbia, where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing. Gowan is presently based in Toronto where he heads the creative writing program at the School of Continuing Studies, University of Toronto.
At the 1996 Gemini Awards, Gowan was nominated for his screenplay Paris or Somewhere. In 2002 his novel Make Believe Love was nominated for the Trillium Award for Best Book in Ontario.
In 2006 his novel The Last Cowboy was published by Albin Michel in France as Jusqu’au bout du ciel.
Lee Gowan is the author of the novels Confession, The Last Cowboy, and Make Believe Love. He also published the critically acclaimed story collection Going to Cuba, and wrote the award-winning screenplay for Paris or Somewhere.
Also, you may read about his multimedia story, My Father’s House, on his website. Here’s an excerpt:
My Father’s House is a multimedia story that explores impermanence. What else can we count on in this life but change?
On the other hand, the house I grew up in was the house my father lived in his entire life, so it represented permanence for him.
It goes without saying, all of the writing is mine. What use would it be to you? If you do have some use for it, please ask my permission before using.
The photos are mostly mine too, though I have borrowed a few from family (Ray Gowan, Jessi Gowan) and friends (Laura Murray and Ranjini George Philip) and from the public domain.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
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I was the southern Saskatchewan sales rep for Fifth House when Lee Gowan published his first book, Going to Cuba. But it wasn’t until decades later that we actually met in person, and in Toronto … I had arranged to meet with author Ranjini George who has already been featured in this Authors-Readers International series. Ranjini had recently married Lee, so it was my great pleasure to be able to chat with both of them over coffee!
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Confession
Eight years since I’ve seen my parents’ graves, and if I haven’t visited it’s a safe bet that neither has anyone else. Maybe a few of the curious, assuming that anyone is still curious about such things. Not a week goes by that I don’t think of them there, under their shared granite slab. They died a day apart, my mother the one day and my father the next, so one stone seemed appropriate and more cost-effective. Not that I paid. I just mean that it must have seemed more appropriate and cost-effective to the man who did pay for the pretty pink rock and the engraving and had them buried side by side. They’re within reach, but they never touch. How so like the world of the living.
You don’t entirely appreciate how alone you are until you’ve lost your parents.
In the beginning, we piled stones on graves to stop wild animals from digging up the remains of our loved ones. I suppose those rough mounds served as markers as well, but the principal reason we piled them so high and wide was because we didn’t want to come back to find our parents’ bones strewn around like any other animal’s. Nowadays, with coffins and fancy fenced-off graveyards in the middle of the city, you don’t have to worry about anything eating your dead parents. We’ve almost run out of things to worry about.
I’m kidding. I wouldn’t even mention it, but down east here, people tend not to know when you’re kidding.
From this award-winning, acclaimed writer comes a searingly powerful novel that portrays how one fateful, brutal day in the life a young prairie man reverberates far beyond imagining – a brilliant portrayal of the struggle between fate and faith.
In the suffocating town of Broken Head, Saskatchewan, Dwight Froese confesses to having killed his father in a duel, maintaining that he was avenging the murder of his mother, whose body had been found floating in a nearby creek the day before. But when the coroner rules the woman’s death an accident, Dwight’s certainty is shattered. In the explosive tale that follows, he attempts to reconcile the violent legacy he has inherited with what it will take to forge a new life for himself – and the complicated relationships with the various townspeople that develop as a result.
What Lee Gowan is working on now: I’m working on a new novel, but it is still very much in progress.
For more information about Lee Gowan, his teaching, writing and books, please see his website.
I write paranormal mystery and urban fantasy in many different forms — novels, novellas, short stories and flash fiction. Sometimes I play around in crime fiction and dystopian fiction (and I wrote a couple of really strange magic realism stories a while back) but I keep coming back to the paranormal, because ghosts are a laugh riot. Right?
I have two grown children, two dogs, and one husband. (I live with the dogs and the husband. The children I let loose on the world quite a few years ago.)
The two dogs are both rescues. Buddy is a 3 legged border collie, and Millie is a Shih Tzu with very few teeth and a bad attitude when it comes to Buddy. (Which is too bad, because we got Millie as a buddy for Buddy.)
I live in a round house that is in a perpetual state of renovation. Sometimes I would dearly love a straight wall or two, because I do have some nice paintings and photos I’d love to hang — but beyond that I quite like the place. The renovations I put up with, because my husband seems to LOVE doing same. Who am I to stop him?
This year we had to renovate because the house got hit by lightning. Really. (And yes, it’s just as scary as it seems on TV.)
Most years I am an Edmonton Oilers fan. This year we are back to sadness and sorrow, but that’s all right. October is just around the corner, and I can again feel hope.
Do I play sports myself? Not so much. I tried to learn darts — is it even a sport? — but it didn’t go well. The only sport I partake of is “walking the dog,” which can get a bit more energetic than I like when a rabbit hops by. (That happens more than you’d think.) Even a 3 legged dog can run like a bat out of hell when he sees a rabbit.
But mostly, I write, which makes my life one of coolest on the planet.
My debut paranormal mystery, Seeing the Light(2014) won the BPAA Award for Best Speculative Fiction Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Bony Blithe Award for Light Mystery. The fourth in the series, Dying on Second (2017) won the Bony Blithe Award for Light Mystery, and was shortlisted for the Book Publishers Association of Alberta award for Best Speculative Fiction. Book 5, Hearing Voices, was released into to wild in October 2018. Book 6, Haunting the Haunted, was published in October, 2019. (I sense a trend here!)
When I’m not writing, I’m living a fine life in my round house with my husband and our two dogs.
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I believe I likely met Eileen Bell at one of the first When Words Collide conferences held in Calgary. She had collaborated on a book with three other Alberta authors, and they collectively called themselves The Apocalyptic Four. I posted a promotion of the book to my Reading Recommendations blog. Then later, I promoted Eileen and her own books three more times on that blog. (See links below.) When I was back in Alberta for a visit and heading up to Edmonton to visit family there, I put out a call on social media to meet up with authors who I’d promoted and get-together over coffee. Eileen Bell was the only author to show up for that, so we had a good private chat about writing, books, and promotion. I’m so happy to see that Eileen has continued to write and publish her own series of books, has just finished writing #7, and is working on #8!
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Haunting the Haunted
A Marie Jenner Mystery #6
Marie Jenner just wants things to stay the same.
Life is finally starting to look up for Marie. Her brand-new business—moving on ghosts for actual money—is taking off. Her relationship with James Lavall is rock solid. All she has to do is find the last two poltergeists from the ball diamond and move them on to the next plane of existence and, as far as she’s concerned, everything will be perfect.
The problem is, life has a way of kicking Marie in the teeth. Patrick Whitecroft, professional psychic debunker, shows up at the Jimmy Lavall Detective agency, out to prove that she’s a fake—live, on TV—and he doesn’t care who he hurts to do it. Even worse, he has over a hundred desperate spirits bound to him, and they want something completely different. They want to be saved.
As Marie tries to help the spirits and keep Patrick from dismantling her life, she finally finds the poltergeists. But they’re not interested in moving on. They want Patrick Whitecroft’s spirits for themselves. If Marie can’t figure out a way to move all the spirits on to the next plane of existence, the poltergeists will happily take them, so they can create an army bent on revenge.
Looks like Marie’s life is going to get interesting. Again.
What E.C. Bell is working on now: I just finished Book 7 in the series. I don’t have a title for it yet—or should I say I have too many titles, so my publisher gets to pick! In this one, Marie goes on a holiday. She ends up in Las Vegas, to move on James Lavall’s Uncle Jimmy, and it doesn’t go well. (As usual.) This one will be out at the beginning of 2021.
Usually the new books come out in October every year, but we put back the publishing date for this one so that the rest of the books could be relaunched with new ebook covers. It was all very exciting, but I’m ready for the new book to be out!
Right now I’m working on Book 8, (working title Saving the Girl,) the last book in the series. I’m feeling some feelings about the whole thing, because I’ve lived with Marie Jenner and her crew for a long time now. It’s hard to say good-bye!
This book will be out in 2022, and I have no idea what I’ll do after that!
E.C. Bell has been featured (as Eileen Bell) on Reading Recommendations three times, Oct. 2014, Feb. 2016, May 2017, and as a member of The Apocalyptic Four.
Antanas Sileika (Antanas Šileika) is a Canadian novelist and critic.
He was born in Weston, Ontario.
After completing an English degree at the University of Toronto, he moved to Paris for two years and there married his wife, Snaige Sileika (nee Valiunas), an art student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. While in Paris, he worked as part of the editorial collective of the expatriate literary journal, Paris Voices, run from the upstairs room of the bookstore, Shakespeare and Company.
Upon his return to Canada in 1979, Antanas began teaching at Humber College and working as a co-editor of the Canadian literary journal, Descant, where he remained until 1988.
He became involved through journalism with Lithuania’s restitution of independence during the fall of The Soviet Union 1988-1991, and for this activity he received the Knight’s Cross medal from the Lithuanian government in 2004.
A past winner of a national magazine award, he retired in June of 2017 as the director for the Humber School for Writers in Toronto.
After writing for newspapers and magazines, Antanas published his first novel, Dinner at the End of the World (1994), a speculative story set in the aftermath of global warming.
His second book, a collection of linked short stories, Buying On Time (1997), was nominated for both the City of Toronto Book Award and the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour, and was serialized on CBC Radio’s Between the Covers. In 2016, almost twenty years later, it was long-listed for Canada Reads and the translation was short-listed in Lithuania for Book of the Year. The book traces the lives of a family of immigrants to a Canadian suburb between the fifties and seventies. Some of these stories were anthologized in Dreaming Home, Canadian Short Stories, and the Penguin Anthology of Canadian Humour. Antanas has published three more novels and a memoir.
Antanas Sileika has worked frequently as a reviewer of books for radio, television, and print.
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When I enrolled in the Humber School for Writers in 2006 to their online programme (I was living full-time on Bequia then, so online learning was new to me and very convenient), Antanas Sileika was the director. I did not meet him in person during the course, but I attended a session at Humber College later when I was back in Toronto for a visit, and I met him then. We also met up years later at the University of Calgary when we both attended a Canadian conference on creative writing programmes. I had set up a table displaying books by authors I was promoting, many of whom were also present at that conference. Antanas is now retired from that position of director and is concentrating on his own writing. I’ve read his most recent novel (below) and found the historical fiction about his parents’ homeland of Lithuania fascinating. And, needless to say, very well written! (While Antanas was born in Canada and has lived most of his life in the country, I’m going to add to his A-RI listing that he is descended from Lithuanians, because that country plays a large part in all of his writing.)
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Provisionally Yours
After World War I and the collapse of Czarist Russia, former counterintelligence officer Justas Adamonis returns to Lithuania, a fragment of the shattered Empire. He’s not entirely sure what he’ll find. His parents are dead, he hasn’t seen his sister since she was a teenager, and Kaunas has become the political center of the emerging state. He’s barely off the train when he’s recruited back into service, this time for the nascent government eager to secure his loyalty and experience. Though the administration may be new, its problems are familiar, and Adamonis quickly finds himself ensnared in a dangerous web of political corruption and personal betrayal. Antanas Sileika’s Provisionally Yours is a vivid depiction of realpolitik—as well as an unforgettable story about treachery and the enduring human capacity for love.
“Offers the delightful unearthing of a little-known corner of the world—post-war Lithuania. Espionage, illicit love, bureaucratic bungling, marvelous descriptions of food and drink, strong women, desperate men. And subtle humour. And ultimately sadness, brought on by amorality in the struggle for power. A fine read.” —David Bergen, Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author of The Time in Between
What Antanas Sileika is doing now: I have a novel manuscript called Skylark, Badger, Mole out for consideration, set in The Soviet Union in the late fifties. And while the acquisition editor is thinking, I am completing a comic novel-in-progress called The Seaside Cafe Metropolis, loosely based on the opera, La Boheme and the Broadway Play, Rent.
For more information about Antanas Sileika, his books and writing, please see his website.
Alison Wearing is a Canadian writer and performer.
Her celebrated Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter is both a bestselling memoir and a multiple award-winning solo play. The memoir was shortlisted for the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Nonfiction, nominated for the RBC/Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction, and was selected as an Indigo Books Top 50 Pick. The solo play has been featured in international theatre and literary festivals. Its numerous awards include Best Dramatic Script at New York City’s United Solo, the largest festival of solo theatre in the world.
Her most recent memoir, Moments of Glad Grace, has been heralded as “a wise, funny, and tender book, beautifully written and perfectly executed from first to last sentence” by Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi. She is also the author of the internationally acclaimed travel memoir Honeymoon in Purdah: an Iranian Journey.
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I met Alison Wearing through Bequia-friend Anna Landry, who knew Alison because they were both living in Statford the summer I visited Anna there. Anna told me about Alison’s books, both of which I subsequently read and enjoyed, and I invited Alison to be promoted on Reading Recommendations. A week after that post was published, I wrote another post about my trip to The Bayfield Writers’ Festival. I mainly went to see, again, Marina Endicott (already promoted on this Authors-Readers International series) who I knew from my other life as a sales rep back in Alberta. Alison Wearing was also in the audience, so we finally met in person in Bayfield! Here’s a link to the blog post I wrote about that Festival.
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Moments of Glad Grace: A Memoir
published by ECW Press
Moments of Glad Grace is a moving and witty memoir of aging, familial love, and the hunt for roots and belonging. The story begins as a trip from Canada to Ireland in search of genealogical data and documents. Being 80 and in the early stages of Parkinson’s Disease, Joe invites his daughter Alison to come along as his research assistant, which might have worked very well had she any interest — any at all — in genealogy.
Very quickly, the father-daughter pilgrimage becomes more comical than fruitful, more of a bittersweet adventure than a studious mission. And rather than rigorous genealogy, their explorations move into the realm of family and forgiveness, the primal search for identity and belonging, and questions about responsibility to our ancestors and the extent to which we are shaped by the people who came before us.
Though continually bursting with humor, Moments of Glad Grace ultimately becomes a song of appreciation for the precious and limited time we have with our parents, the small moments we share, and the gifts of transcendence we might find there.
“This is a wise, funny, and tender book, beautifully written and perfectly executed from first to last sentence. It’s about a daughter and her ageing father, it’s about genealogy and identity, it’s about Ireland, but actually it’s about how we love the ones we love.
Moments of Glad Grace is a travelogue of the heart.
It’s a road you’ll want to travel.”
~ Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi
What Alison Waring is working on now: Alison’s current project is Memoir Writing, ink., a 12-week online writing program, which guides people through the process of transforming personal stories into memoir.
For more information on Alison Wearing, her writing and books, performances, and writing program, please see her website.
Alison Wearing was a guest on Reading Recommendations in July 2015.
Bill Engleson is a Canadian author and retired child protection social worker. He was born in Powell River, BC, raised in Nanaimo, and spent his first year of life trapped aboard his parents leaky fishboat. He resided in New Westminster for most of his adult years, retiring to Denman Island in 2004.
He writes long fiction, flash fiction, essays, poetry, letters to the editor, and, of late, the occasional book reviews for the Ormsby Review, a new online journal about B.C history and literature.
He has been writing most of his life. His first couple of efforts, poetic in nature, were printed in his mid-teens (quite a long time ago) in the, now, sadly defunct Nanaimo Daily Free Press.
He self-published his first novel, Like a Child to Home in 2013. Silver Bow Publishing released his second book, a collection of humorous literary essays titled Confessions of an Inadvertently Gentrifying Soul, in October, 2016.
Additionally, he has had flash stories published in a few modest publications including two Centum Press anthologies, One Hundred Voices Volumes One and Two.
As a side note, he appeared in a locally produced music video two years ago as a portly, slightly balding, suspendered, card playing (cribbage) human prop. Thus far, the five minutes and change Conrad Campbell video of his song, Big Electric Jesus, has had over 100,000 views. Nothing to do with Bill’s appearance, however. Half of our island (a slight exaggeration) also appeared.
Here is the link for the rock and roll curious.
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I first “met” Bill Engleson through an introduction from JP McLean, an A-RI Author who also lives on Denman Island. When I asked Bill for his updated information for this post he added the following: Incidentally, Jo-Anne McLean and another local writer/videographer, have been filming a few of us to be a part of a virtual Denman Island Readers Writers Festival. A very energetic, community-minded author is Jo-Anne.
I promoted Bill’s books on Reading Recommendations and quite enjoyed his writing. When he was about to publish his second book, a collection of essays, he asked if I’d like to read an advance copy with an eye to reviewing it for him to coincide with publication. As the book was about life on an island, I said yes! My review was eventually published in the Denman Island newspaper, which was kind of cool for me! (Review is below.)
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Confessions of an Inadvertently Gentrifying Soul
Published by Silver Bow Publishing
When I moved permanently to a small Caribbean island, there was a saying within the long-term expat community: Why would we want to change what brought us here in the first place? Unfortunately, those outsiders who arrived during the decades following me didn’t get this same memo. So I approached Bill Engleson’s new collection of essays with complete understanding and empathy.
Confessions of an Inadvertently Gentrifying Soul is writing with a glint in its eye and an upwards curve to the lips. Yes, these are rants about the inevitable changes that come to any small place once it’s discovered, but through these rants Engleson manages to also preserve the memory of that which brought him to Denman Island in the first place. With this collection, we have a unique opportunity to see what life was like before those other gentrifying souls moved into “Ruraltania” and changed it into something that closer resembled their way of life they left behind back in the big cities.
Peppered with relevant quotes from famous authors, comedians, and other thinkers, these essays (both previously published and new) on island and small-town life, cover subjects as diverse as: libraries, librarians and unusual objects found inside borrowed books; the usefulness (or not) of committees; censorship; tradition; the generation of ideas; local characters and curmudgeons; movies and old episodes of Leave It To Beaver.
So even though you have never lived on an island or in a small place, there’s still a great deal of insight into life in general to be gained from reading Confessions of an Inadvertently Gentrifying Soul. Engleson’s writing is comfortable, and very much like chatting over coffee while sitting in mismatched upholstered chairs in front of a wood fire. In fact, the entire book is like reminiscing with an old friend.
What Bill Engleson is working on now: At the moment, Bill is working furiously, in between moments of sloth, on several new projects, including a prequel to his first novel entitled Drawn Towards the Sun, a mystery, A Short Rope on a Nasty Night, and, a bit of a longshot, a collection of home-grown, satirically tinged essays, DIRA Diary: Tall Tales of Democracy in Traction.
For more information about Bill Engleson, please see his website.
Bill Engleson has been a guest on Reading Recommendations twice, in Jan. 2014 and Dec. 2016.
The unusually bookish JoAnn McCaig writes, edits, teaches, reviews, talks about, publishes, and sells books.
Over the course of her working life, JoAnn McCaig has become an established literary authority in Western Canada. She began her writing career as an ad copywriter, and eventually earned three degrees in English literature. In her 20 years of teaching English at the University of Calgary, JoAnn ensured that hundreds of students not only overcame their fear of poetry, but also learned how to use the semicolon correctly. JoAnn published her first novel in 2000, and in 2007 became a founding board member of Calgary literary press Freehand Books. In 2010 she realized a lifelong dream by opening Shelf Life Books, an independent bookstore in Calgary’s inner city Beltline area, thereby making the circle of bookishness complete.
“I like to involve the reader in the making of meaning, rather than handing the reader a story in a neat little package.”
I’ve been a book nerd all my life, from my earliest memories of snuggling with my mom and brother to hear the latest adventures of The Bobbsey Twins. In elementary school, I loved to find library books about historical figures like Lady Jane Grey and Spain’s Little Infanta, and I started high school in the late 60s with a copy of a Hemingway biography under my arm. In grade 11 psych class, I chose to read Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment for an essay assignment on conscience.
My university years were devoted to the study and teaching of English literature. I taught English as a sessional lecturer for twenty years, and the course I enjoyed most was the historical survey class for honours and majors students, affectionately known as ‘From Beowulf to Virginia Woolf.’ When my kids were young, it was not unusual to have their viewing of the Simpsons interrupted by me yelling over the kitchen counter, “Did you catch that reference to King Lear?”
For me, having a role in introducing students to the wondrous language of Shakespeare and Keats, to the power and drama of the Brontes and Faulkner, to the visionary genius of Blake and Atwood, is a joy and a privilege. In my own work, I tend to create the kind of complex, layered structures I enjoy reading – like Swann: A Mystery by Carol Shields, or Joshua Then and Now by Mordecai Richler, or Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.
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While I was a sales rep for Calgary-based Freehand Books in 2008 when they first began publishing, I didn’t actually meet JoAnn McCaig, the founder of the press, until a few years later, and that was through mutual friends, Audrey and Doug Andrews. JoAnn was beginning to set up Shelf Life Books by that point, and I was no longer a sales rep, but was promoting authors directly through Alberta Books Canada. I attended a number of events at Shelf Life, including their grand opening – always a lot of fun, and the store has continued to do a great job of supporting local authors and publishing.
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An Honest Woman
Stories nest inside stories in An Honest Woman, JoAnn McCaig’s very bookish novel about the writerly process and about the places where literary ambition collides with erotic desire.
If there ever was a time and place to explore the territory of mature women and their journeys this would be the time. The subjects of sex, passion, confidence in JoAnn McCaig’s An Honest Woman are beautifully played out against society’s stereotypes of women as they age and as they confront the truths of themselves outside the societal frameworks in which they have been boxed. There are metafictional elements turned loose in this novel. First, there is an intensely self-conscious narrator and second, there are characters who live inside fictional worlds and travel outside those worlds for intense real-life encounters. Their storytelling draws attention to themselves as both living, breathing people but also fleshed-out fictional world characters. The structure of the novel is complex, layered, and interwoven. There are several narrators, stories within stories, and writers making things up and fantasizing while living real (albeit fictional) lives. There are literary allusions galore and cameo appearances by thinly disguised famous authors. It can all get a little crazy, so McCaig has provided a few support materials: an infographic that maps out the different characters, and relationships and authorships, a fairly detailed table of contents, a few postscripts, and a couple of appendices. Watch for symbols that indicate that the narrator has lapsed into fantasy and for when she returns to her “real” life, such as it is. That said, An Honest Woman has enough grounded familiar plot lines to keep a general reader interested and layered ambiguities to keep the well-read interested. While there is some undermining of traditional literary conventions, there is nothing lost in McCaig’s exploration of the relationship between literature and life. The novel is humorous, and sometimes really funny; it is also a smart and warm and moving read.
“An immensely gutsy novel that works to both undermine and expand its own story through an entertaining and teasing literary puzzle\u2026. This is an intelligent and, especially, a brilliantly written novel.”
— Sharon Butala (an Authors-Readers International series author)
What JoAnn McCaig is working on now: A forthcoming publication is an essay called “Mastery of the Instrument” which will appear next year in a University of Alberta Press anthology called You Look Good For Your Age. The novel I’m working on now is called The Venus Hum. It’s a trio of linked novellas that follow the life of a woman named Seren.
For more information about JoAnn McCaig, her writing, books, publishing, and bookselling, please see her website.
Antony Millen is a Nova Scotian living and writing in New Zealand.
Originally from Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada, he moved to New Zealand with his wife and two children in 1997. He has lived in Taumarunui since then, working at St Patrick’s Catholic Primary School and, more recently, as the head of the English department at Taumarunui High School.
During his early years in New Zealand, he wrote sporadically, but with a dream to write novels as a major part of his life-style if not as a career. In 2013, he launched his first novel, Redeeming Brother Murrihy. He followed this in 2014 with Te Kauhanga: A Tale of Space(s). The Chain is his first novel for young adults.
He has since seen several short stories and articles published in literary journals. He is currently stalled, but chipping away on the draft of his 4th novel.
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I first “met” Antony Millen online when he was featured on the site Canadian Writers Abroad, curated by Canadian Debra Martens. An excellent website, Debra features interviews, reviews and information about Canadian authors who live and work outside of their native country. My first novel was reviewed on the site in 2013, and Antony Millen came to my attention when he first appeared on the site in 2017. A Canadian living and writing in New Zealand! I read his novel The Chain and really enjoyed it. We began corresponding and I promoted Antony on my Reading Recommendations blog. (Link below.) More recently, both Antony and I were included in a post Debra wrote titled, Where Are They Now? in which she finds out what we who were living abroad at the beginning of the pandemic would do – whether we would heed the call to repatriate to our home and native land, or stay put. Darlene Foster, a Canadian writer who lives in Spain and has been promoted on Authors-Readers International, was also mentioned in this CWA post.
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The Chain
Two brothers. One mission: Restore privacy to the world.
The year is 2043. Empowered by the anti-encryption program, ICALL, and the world-wide wireless Blanket, the Global Domain reigns over all colocation centres with its Connectivist ideology, enforcing mandatory online activity for every eartizen and disabling attempts to secure privacy. The Domain’s slogans are: “Secrecy Threatens Security” and “Privacy Prevents Prosperity and Peace.”
From his death-bed in New Zealand, Fenton Ouvert commissions his sons, Topia and Lukan, to locate a flash drive containing the files of Jeremy Winterton, files stolen thirty years earlier from international surveillance agencies. A former investigative journalist, Ouvert hid the flash drive at the end of a chain of clue-bearers around the world. Contacted by the resistance movement known as Arachne, Ouvert believes the drive contains original plans for the ICALL program and thus, hope for a free world.
Travelling the globe, the Ouvert boys locate the links, but what will their journey reveal about their father and the effects of the Global Domain’s dominance? And what will their quest mean for the world when they reach the end of the chain?
Antony Millen has also been writing poetry … This too
For more information about Antony Millen’s writing, his books, and life in New Zealand, please see his website.
Antony Millen was a guest previously on my blog Reading Recommendations in Apr. 2017.
Joan Barfoot was born in Owen Sound, Ontario, and graduated with a degree in English from the University of Western Ontario in 1969. She worked as a reporter and editor for various newspapers in Ontario including the Windsor Star, the Toronto Sun and the London Free Press. As a child, while she and her mother watched a squirrel in their back yard from their kitchen, her mother told Barfoot to tell her the squirrel’s story and she’d write it down. Barfoot doesn’t remember the story but remembers her delight when her mother read the story back to her and the power of creating it. Barfoot was also encouraged to write by a teacher who told Barfoot she wrote well and to consider some word-related career. In addition to writing Barfoot occasionally teaches creative writing classes though she believes writing ought to be an entirely private pleasure and a puzzle. She lives in London, Ontario.
Joan Barfoot is the award-winning author of 11 novels, ranging from Abra, which won the Books in Canada (now Amazon) prize for first novels, to Critical Injuries, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Trillium Award, to Luck, shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Her work, which reviewers have variously called ‘harrowing and hilarious’, and ‘gloriously subversive’, has been compared internationally to the fictions of Carol Shields, Anne Tyler, Margaret Atwood and Margaret Drabble, and also include Dancing in the Dark, which was adapted into an award-winning Canadian entry in the Cannes, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals, Duet for Three, Family News, Plain Jane, Charlotte and Claudia Keeping in Touch, Some Things About Flying, Getting Over Edgar, and Exit Lines.
Translations include French, German, Italian, Russian, and various Scandinavian languages. In English, the novels have been published in the U.S. and U.K., as well as Canada.
Professional Activities, Awards:
Shortlisted, 2005 Scotiabank Giller Prize – Luck
Longlisted, Man Booker Prize, 2002 – Critical Injuries
Shortlisted, Trillium Book Award, 2001 – Critical Injuries
Marian Engel Award, 1992
Books in Canada First Novel Award – Abra
Honorary doctorate, Western University, 2013
Huron University College Medal of Distinction, 2005
A recipient of the Marian Engel Award (presented to a female Canadian novelist in mid-career for her entire body of work), Joan Barfoot has also been a journalist during much of her career. She lives in London, Ontario, Canada.
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Joan Barfoot first came to my attention in 1978 when I was a brand-new bookseller in Calgary and she won the Books in Canada First Novel Award for Abra. I loved that book, and I credit it for sowing the seed in my brain that I might one day try writing my own stories. Many years later, when I became a sales rep, I was selling a number of Joan’s reprint and original novels for both Lester & Orpen Dennys and Key Porter Books. (Anna Porter, who was the publisher of Key Porter Books, is listed on this Authors-Readers International series.) I don’t remember actually meeting Joan in person though until she was in Calgary in 2010 to promote Exit Lines at the Memorial Park Branch of Calgary Public Library. While I only own six print copies of Joan’s books, I have read most of the rest online as borrowed eBooks from the library! She’s always been one of my favourite authors to read, and her stories and storytelling are an influence on my own writing. Thanks for writing, Joan Barfoot!
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These are Joan Barfoot’s books I have on my Bequia book shelf!
Several are signed copies.
And I have a copy of Exit Lines at the trailer!
What Joan Barfoot has been up to lately: In renewal news, e-books of the Barfootian oeuvre have just been redesigned, and my website’s being updated, presumably as I type.
Books: Publishing, Reading, Writing 