Media Hits: YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS, BARFLY, THE FUTURE, and more!

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IN THE NEWS!

YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jon Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Mar 5, 2024), has been reviewed in the Financial Times! The review was published online on April 24, and is available to read in full here.

Reviewer Boyd Tonkin writes,

“Roughton’s radiant English versions of Stefánsson’s novels about the Icelandic encounter with modernity have built into one of the glories of 21st-century literary translation. Craggily gorgeous yet fluid and tender, sometimes comic, they capture the books’ balance between the powers of nature and the passions of humanity with consummate skill . . . This novel with a colloquial, intimate, up-to-date voice boasts sturdy epic bones . . . Throughout, the rhythmic, idiomatic prose gives pulsing reality to people and place, as Stefánsson both cherishes his ramifying clan and warns that only imagination makes them live.”

Your Absence Is Darkness was also reviewed in World Literature Today. The review was published online on April 26 here, and will appear in their May print issue.

Reviewer Daniel Haeusser writes,

“Your Absence Is Darkness posits that we find happiness together even in that melancholy, using arts like music or literature to assert and explore our human connections, to forgive imperfection, and to thumb our noses at inevitability . . . its insights and gorgeously haunting prose make it a novel that fans of philosophic or metaphysical literature should experience.”

Get Your Absence Is Darkness here!

BARFLY

Michael Lista, author of the forthcoming poetry collection Barfly (Jun 4, 2024), was interviewed by Tara Henley on the Lean Out podcast. The interview was posted online on April 24, and you can listen to it in full here.

Tara calls the book,

“Exquisitely raw and vulnerable.”

Order Barfly here!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2023), was featured in Montreal Blog’s article, “We asked 6 Montreal bookstores what every local should read at least once,” chosen by Argo Bookshop. The list was published online on April 23. You can read the article in full here.

The Argo Bookshop team commented,

“Beyond having just won Canada Reads, this book is so artfully crafted, and gives us a poetic vision: despite terrible societal changes, an imaginative future of community and hope can still arise.”

Get The Future here!

SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE

Sorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco Collins (Apr 2, 2024) was featured in the Philly Poetry Chapbook Review‘s list of new poetry titles. The article was published on April 23, and you can see the full list here.

Get Sorry About the Fire here!

THE ART OF LIBROMANCY

The Art of Libromancy by Josh Cook (Aug 22, 2023) was featured in the Chicago Review of Book‘s list of “5 Books by Booksellers About Bookselling.” The article was published online on April 24, and be read here.

Greg Zimmerman writes,

“If you want to really dive deeply into the world of bookselling, this is the exact book for you.”

Get The Art of Libromancy here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man: Selected Stories by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2023) was reviewed in Alberta Views! The review was published in their May print issue.

Reviewer Alex Lettie writes,

“The stories here are brightly coloured, sharp-edged and shatterproof.”

Get Burn Man here!

COCKTAIL shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award!

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We’re pleased to share that this morning, The Writers’ Union of Canada announced the shortlist for the 2023 Danuta Gleed Literary Award, which includes Cocktail by Lisa Alward (Sep 12, 2023)! Check out the full shortlist announcement here.

About Cocktail, the jury praised:

“Lisa Alward’s Cocktail is skilful in its ability to capture the nuance and details of daily life in a way that is striking and deeply felt. With beautiful, precise descriptions and expert pacing, she effortlessly reveals tensions that feel both classic and utterly her own. Exploring the emotional and sexual tensions of couples and families in the Sixties and Seventies, these narratives bring the reader to the core of those unspoken moments, leaving us unsettled. The clarity of sound in Lisa Alward’s sentences—word after word after word—makes it impossible to turn your ear away. This is a quiet voice that booms.”

The 27th annual Danuta Gleed Literary Award recognizes the best first collection of short fiction by a Canadian author published in 2023 in the English language. The Award consists of cash prizes for the three best first collections, with a first prize of $10,000 and two additional prizes of $1,000 each.

The winners will be announced on Tuesday, June 11th at noon EDT on Facebook Live on The Writers’ Union of Canada’s page.

Grab your copy of Cocktail here!

ABOUT COCKTAIL

Longlisted for the 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction • Shortlisted for the New Brunswick 2023 Mrs. Dunster’s Award for Fiction • One of the Globe and Mail’s “Sixty-Two Books to Read This Fall” • Listed in CBC Books Fiction to Read in Fall 2023 • A Miramichi Reader Best Book of 2023 • A Tyee Best Book of 2023

“A writer to watch.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A girl receives a bedtime visit from a drunken party guest, who will haunt her fantasies for years. A young mother discovers underneath the wallpaper a striking portrait that awakens inconvenient desires. A divorced man distracts himself from the mess he’s made by flirting with a stranger. These intimate, immersive stories explore life’s watershed moments, in which seemingly insignificant details—a pot of hyacinths, a freshly painted yellow wall—and the most chance of encounters come to exert a tidal pull. Set in the swinging sixties and each decade since, Cocktail reveals the schism between the lives we build up around us and our deepest hidden selves.

Credit: Maria Cardosa-Grant

ABOUT LISA ALWARD

Lisa Alward’s short fiction has appeared in The Journey Prize and twice in Best Canadian Stories. She has won the Fiddlehead Prize as well as the Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award, has been a finalist for The Malahat Review’s Open Season Award, an honourable mention in the Peter Hinchcliffe Award, and been featured on numerous other long lists, including for the CBC Story Prize and Prism International’s Jacob Zilber Prize (three times). She was born and grew up in Halifax and completed an English degree at the University of Toronto and an MA at Queen Mary College in London, England. In the eighties and early nineties, she worked in book publishing in Toronto, before moving with her young family to Vancouver and ultimately to Fredericton, New Brunswick, where at fifty she began to write stories. Cocktail (Biblioasis), which received a starred review in Kirkus Reviews, is her debut collection.

Media Hits: ALL THINGS MOVE, YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS, WORK TO BE DONE, and more!

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IN THE NEWS!

WORK TO BE DONE

Work to Be Done by Bruce Whiteman (Mar 12, 2024) was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada! The review was published online on April 15, and will appear in the May print issue. Read the full review here.

Reviewer Keith Garebian writes,

“Divided into five parts, Work to Be Done reveals a mind steeped in the classics, particularly the works of Hesiod, Virgil, and Ovid. The book is rigorous in exercise and academically precise, and it strives for a perspective that sometimes seems Olympian in tone.”

Grab Work to Be Done here!

SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE

Colleen Coco Collins, author of Sorry About the Fire (April 2, 2024), was interviewed for All Lit Up‘s ‘There’s a Poem For That’ series! The interview was published online on April 16, and can be read in full here.

Grab Sorry About the Fire here!

YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Mar 5, 2024) was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada, in the article ‘Found in Translation.’ The review will appear in the May print issue.

The review states,

“[Your Absence Is Darkness] . . . lends itself to any number of superlatives: Masterful. Intelligent. Haunting. Biblical and modern in equal measure.”

Your Absence Is Darkness was reviewed in the Tulsa Book Review online on April 19. Check out the full review here.

Reviewer Kevin Winter writes,

“If you are into slightly weird, esoteric literary fiction . . . then this book is for you.”

Get Your Absence Is Darkness here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simic (Feb 6, 2024) was also reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada’s article ‘Found in Translation.’ The review will appear in the May print issue.

The review states,

“[Sajko’s] sentences mimic how, in the heat of argument, thoughts converge, events conflate, and emotions surge until one forgets where it all began.”

Get Love Novel here!

THE EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE

The Education of Aubrey McKee by Alex Pugsley (May 7, 2024) was featured in the Toronto Star‘s “Spring preview: 21 books to put at the top of your reading list.” The article was posted online on April 17, and can be read here.

Deborah Dundas writes,

“This latest is the second book in what is expected to be a four-book series, which began with 2020’s Aubrey McKee, which our reviewer called ‘exuberant, freewheeling stories’ with the general theme of ‘the insanity of being human.'”

Order The Education of Aubrey McKee here!

Check out the first book in The Aubrey McKee Novels, Aubrey McKee, here!

BARFLY

Barfly by Michael Lista (June 4, 2024) was also featured in the Toronto Star‘s “Spring preview: 21 books to put at the top of your reading list.” The article was posted online on April 17, and can be read here.

Deborah Dundas writes,

“The language is punchy, it can be raunchy, benefits from being read aloud, and when you do, like a Hole song, it’s full of bravado and vulnerability.”

Order Barfly  here!

ALL THINGS MOVE

All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel by Jeannie Marshall was featured in Vanity Fair‘s article “11 Books to Read This Month”! The list was published online on April 16, and can be read here.

Keziah Weir calls the book,

“Rich, meditative . . . The book is part art history, part memoir; a case for slowing down, curiosity, a closer look.”

Get All Things Move here!

DREAMING HOME shortlisted for the 2024 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize!

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We’re thrilled to share that this morning, the shortlist for the 2024 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize was announced, which included Dreaming Home by Lucian Childs in the Literary Fiction category! You can view the full shortlist here.

With the tenth annual Emerging Writer Prize, Rakuten Kobo endeavours to raise the profiles of debut authors by recognizing exceptional books written by first-time Canadian authors in three categories: Literary Fiction, Nonfiction, and this year’s type of genre fiction, Mystery.

The winning authors will be announced on June 18, 2024 and awarded a $10,000 CAD cash prize in each category.

Grab your copy of Dreaming Home here!

ABOUT DREAMING HOME

A Globe and Mail Best Spring Book • One of Lambda Literary Review‘s Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of June 2023 • A Southern Review Book to Celebrate in June 2023 • A 49th Shelf Best Book of 2023

A queer coming-of-age—and coming-to-terms—follows the after-effects of betrayal and poignantly explores the ways we search for home.

When a sister’s casual act of betrayal awakens their father’s demons—ones spawned by his time in Vietnamese POW camps—the effects of the ensuing violence against her brother ripple out over the course of forty years, from Lubbock, to San Francisco, to Fort Lauderdale. Swept up in this arc, the members of this family and their loved ones tell their tales. A queer coming-of-age, and coming-to-terms, and a poignant exploration of all the ways we search for home, Dreaming Home is the unforgettable story of the fragmenting of an American family.

Photo Credit: Marc Lostracco

ABOUT LUCIAN CHILDS

Lucian Childs has been a Peter Taylor Fellow at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. He is a co-editor of Lambda Literary finalist Building Fires in the Snow: A Collection of Alaska LGBTQ Short Fiction and Poetry. Born in Dallas, Texas, he has lived in Toronto, Ontario, for fifteen years, since 2015 on a permanent basis.

 

Media Hits: SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE, THE FUTURE, WORK TO BE DONE!

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IN THE NEWS!

SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE

Sorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco Collins (Apr 23, 2024) was reviewed in the Toronto Star. The review was published on April 5, 2024, and you can read the full article here.

Wanda Praamsma writes:

“The poems in this slim volume, the first from artist and songwriter Colleen Coco Collins, feel richly off-kilter, exciting as they bound from earth and the material and felt treasures and on through the infinite.”

Get Sorry About the Fire here!

WORK TO BE DONE

Work to Be Done: Selected Essays and Reviews by Bruce Whiteman (Mar 12, 2024) was featured in Lit Hub for it’s US publication! The article was published on April 9, 2024 and can be read here.

Grab Work to Be Done here!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2023) was reviewed in PRISM international. The review was posted online on April 5, 2024, and you can read the full piece here.

Reviewer Marcie McCauley writes,

“Catherine Leroux’s novel The Future (freshly translated by Susan Ouriou) presents a complex, layered story that probes how people navigate turbulent times, alone and together.”

Get The Future here!

Media Hits: SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE, HOLLOW BEAST, YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS, and more!

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IN THE NEWS!

YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (March 5, 2024) has been reviewed in The Washington Post. The review was published online on March 16, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Michael Barron writes:

“I couldn’t put it down.”

Your Absence Is Darkness was reviewed in The Miramichi Reader. The review was published online on March 31, 2024. Read the full review here.

Alison Manley writes:

“Stefánsson is a brilliant storyteller, and Roughton’s translation is well-done, capturing the meandering tone of the characters as they wander through the decades.”

Your Absence Is Darkness was also featured in Lit Hub as one of “The 22 Best Book Covers of March.” See the full article here.

Grab Your Absence Is Darkness here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simic (Feb 6, 2024) was reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press on March 16, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Harriet Zaidman writes:

“Sajko’s taut, innovative writing has a pounding tempo; she unleashes a stream of consciousness that combines all the hopes, regrets and resentments competing in the minds of her characters . . . Every word has been chosen carefully.”

Love Novel was also reviewed in The Miramichi Reader, published online on March 16, 2024. Check out that review here.

Anne Smith-Nochasak writes:

“A necessary read . . . brief yet intricate, raw but profoundly touching.”

Grab Love Novel here!

THE HOLLOW BEAST

The Hollow Beast by Christopher Bernard, translated by Lazer Lederhendler (April 2, 2024) has been listed by CBC Books as one of “52 works of Canadian fiction coming out in spring 2024.” The list was published online on March 2, 2024 and can be read here.

The Hollow Beast was featured in the Globe and Mail’s Spring Preview, published online on April 4, 2024. Check out the full preview here.

Emily Donaldson writes:

“The seed of Bernard’s big, high-octane novel, which won several Quebec prizes, and was a finalist for the 2018 Governor-General’s Award in French, is a 1911 hockey game in Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula whose bizarre, controversial ending results in a generations-long vendetta.”

Grab The Hollow Beast here!

SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE

Sorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco Collins (April 23, 2024) was featured in CBC Books as one of their “37 Books to Watch for Spring 2024.” The article was published online on April 2, 2024. Check out the full article here.

Sorry About the Fire was also reviewed in The Miramichi Reader. The article was published online on April 1, 2024. You can read the full article here.

Critic Michael Greenstein writes:

“Drawn to rims, arising patterns, nervy and peripheral flow, a hard-won lexicon, oblique echoes of crow, and twist of contrapposto, the Irish-French-Indigenous poet windhovers and burns through words and pages until the nadir of ember and ash.”

Get Sorry About the Fire here!

WORK TO BE DONE

Bruce Whiteman, author of Work to Be Done (March 12, 2024) was interviewed on Open Book. The interview was published online on April 2, 2024, and you can read the full interview here.

Get Work to Be Done here!

CROSSES IN THE SKY

Crosses in the Sky by Mark Bourrie (October 8, 2024) was featured in the Globe and Mail’s Spring Preview, published online on April 4, 2024. Check out the full preview here.

Emily Donaldson writes:

“Bourrie’s latest, like its Charles Taylor Prize-winning predecessor, Bush Runner, focuses on the clash between European and Indigenous cultures in 17th-century colonial North America. Here, it’s the events leading to the violent ruin of Huronia, traditional home of the Huron-Wendat people, as they were experienced by the French Jesuit missionary and mystic Jean de Brébeuf.”

Order Crosses in the Sky here!

THE EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE

The Education of Aubrey McKee by Alex Pugsley (May 14, 2024) has been reviewed in Booklist! The review will be published online on April 11, 2024.

In the review Michael Cart writes:

“Pugsley has done a particularly good job of character development in this fine, extremely well-written novel that will hold readers’ attention until the end.”

The Education of Aubrey McKee was listed by CBC Books as one of “52 works of Canadian fiction coming out in spring 2024.” The list was published online on March 2, 2024 and can be read here.

Order The Education of Aubrey McKee here!

AWARDS NEWS!

ON COMMUNITY

On Community by Casey Plett (November 7, 2023) has been longlisted for The Publishing Triangle 2024 Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature. The longlist was announced March 18, and can be seen here.

On Community has also been shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction! The shortlist was announced on March 25, and you can check it out here.

Get On Community here!

COCKTAIL

Cocktail by Lisa Alward (Sep 12, 2023) has been shortlisted for the 2023 New Brunswick Book Award Mrs. Dunster’s Award for Fiction. The shortlist was announced on March 20, 2024.

You can read the full list here.

Grab Cocktail here!