HumourTag

"Raw and Real and Blunt" Hannah Green on Getting Sober & Her Semi-Autobiographical Long Poem, Xanax Cowboy

The long poem that is Hannah Green's electric Xanax Cowboy (forthcoming from House of Anansi Press in April) is like nothing most poetry readers have encountered. When an early version of the poem was ...

Murder at Sea, a Roaring 20s Romp, & an Aristocrat with a Shady Past: Read an Excerpt from The Merry Widow Murders

The last thing Lady Lucy Revelstoke—the endearing protagonist of Melodie Campbell's madcap historical mystery novel The Merry Widow Murders (Cormorant Books)—needs is anyone prying into her past.The ...

Artist & Poet Amy Ching-Yan Lam on Stories, Healing, and a Cheese-Based Universe

Stories are more than simply tales we tell ourselves and each other. They are lessons, conversations, cultural landscapes both collective and deeply personal – and in celebrated multi-discipline artist Amy ...

Stuart Ross Creates a Place for a Weirder, Wilder, More Innovative CanLit with 1366 Books

The rules for what a novel or short story can—or must—be have been in flux since the forms first began. And yet, truly out-of-the-box fiction and successful formal experimentation is hard to find. ...

Read an Funny, Gentle Excerpt from Veterinarian David Waltner-Toews's Memoir of Backyard Chickens

When we think about the relationships between humans and animals that have changed the course of history, it's easy to default to the obvious: the horse, the dog, the ox. But there is a more humble animal ...

We Will Ever Eat Cheese on Mars? Read an Excerpt from Food Scientists Lenore Newman & Evan D.G. Fraser's Dinner on Mars

We've put a man on the moon, but will we ever make cheese there? It may seem like a silly question, but the real possibility of settling other planets and satellites is becoming less and less the stuff ...

Camels with Botox, Lizard Overlords, & Salinger as Inspiration: Rod Carley on His Hilarious & Fresh Story Collection, Grin Reaping

CanLit doesn't have a reputation for hilarity, but the third book from North Bay based writer Rod Carley, Grin Reaping (Latitude 46 Publishing), is more evidence that our supposedly serious rep needs ...

Screenwriter Turned Novelist Claire Ross Dunn on Fire Phobia, Sleeping in a Coffin, & Her Drake Connection

After getting her start as an actor, screenwriter Claire Ross Dunn has written for Degrassi, Little Mosque on the Prairie, and numerous other acclaimed shows. This season, she's brought her witty, smart, ...

Frances Koncan on How Playwrighting Gets Her "Closest to the Truth"

Frances Koncan's play, Women of the Fur Trade (Playwrights Canada Press) is the antidote to dull historical renditions of early Canada. Set in "eighteen hundred and something something", it follows three ...

Humour and Children’s Books

I don’t think I was raised in a particularly funny family. My dad was often described as being extremely intelligent, but I don’t think I ever heard someone call him funny.Growing up, I recognized ...