Ontario book news, interviews and more

Reading the Veil

When it’s going well, writing feels like magic. You sit in front of a blank page, and against all expectation, open a portal to new people, scenarios, settings, and ideas. Through some synthesis of ...

Naben Ruthnum on His Delightfully Creepy YA Horror Debut, a Spooky Love Letter to the 90s

Behind the facade of small towns lurk many things – something high schooler Vish knows all too well in acclaimed author Naben Ruthnum's first foray into young adult fiction, The Grimmer (ECW Press).Vish's ...

Governor General's Literary Award Finalists Revealed, with Nods for Suzette Mayr, Iain Reid, and More

Today the Canada Council for the Arts revealed the nominees for the Governor General's Literary Awards in both English and French. The seven categories for English nominees include 35 books, five in each ...

Excerpt: Get Spooky with Chris Kuriata's Dark Wishing-Grant Tale, Sacrifice of the Sisters Lot

Every kid who ever made a wish while blowing out their birthday candles would assume that having your every wish granted would be, well, spectacular. But in Chris Kuriata's deliciously creepy new novel, Sacrifice ...

Book Therapy: My Body is Distant

“(Y)ou can be an elf, a monster, a kind of person you can’t be in Real Life. You can get outside of your head and escape.”- Paige Maylott, My Body is Distant Escape as a therapeutic avenue is ...

Jan Conn's 10th Collection Blends Flowers, Neurons, & More to Celebrate and Cry Out for the Earth

Jan Conn's award-winning brand of poetry, which she has established in her nine previous collections, is absorbing, smart, and constantly curious; a poetry engaged with the world as it is and might be.  ...

Writing For Ghouls

It’s spooky season, and here in Atlantic Canada the ambiance is that of a flooded crypt. The smell of wet fallen leaves, rainy days that feel heavy and dark as night, smoke on the air indicating warmth ...

Glimpse into the Wealth of Filipino-Canadian Writing Talent in this Excerpt from Magdaragat

Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing (Cormorant Books) opens with the line "Magdaragat is Filipino for 'seafarer' or 'mariner'". It's a first line that heralds the expansiveness of the ...

Getting to Know Aley Waterman, the Newfoundland Author Whose Debut Novel is Destined to Become a Toronto Classic

In Aley Waterman's debut novel Mudflowers (Rare Machines/Dundurn Press), Sophie's life seems like an indie movie dream from the outside – in her cramped but cool apartment in Toronto's west end, she ...

Eclipsed by the Source

“It’s not all dark.” - Roger Waters, “Eclipse”They say the original is always better. In our era of reboots and revivals, when adaptations or sequels fail to capture the scope of their source ...