by Carolina Maria de Jesus Child of the Dark is the diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus, who lived in a favela, a slum, of São Paulo in the late ’50s. (Well, longer than that in truth, but this is at least the period recounted within these pages.) With only a second-grade education, she sold…
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by Tanya Talaga Here we are again: race relations in Thunder Bay. I’m really having a hard time determining where to start with this one, and probably not just because of its sensitive nature, but because of the uneasy feeling I’m left with when I dwell on it for too long. I think it has…
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by Terry Fallis One Brother Shy is narrated by Alex MacAskill, an Ottawa developer working on the latest and greatest face-recognition software. He takes care of his ailing mother and, because of a mysterious, traumatic event in his past, he suffers from an almost debilitating shyness, so bad he can barely look coworkers in the…
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by Grace O’Connell Be Ready for the Lightning follows the narrator Veda’s life before and after a traumatic event––being trapped aboard a Manhattan bus during a violent hostage situation. The story centres around the fractious relationship between Veda, her brother, Conrad, and their core group of friends as they all attempt to approach normalcy in…
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by Gary Barwin Yiddish for Pirates follows Moishe’s journey from being a young boy on the shtetl to captain of a pirate ship in the late fifteenth century. Narrated by Aaron, the African grey parrot who chose Moishe’s shoulder as his perch, the story tells of Moishe’s attempts to help Yids flee persecution during the…
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edited by Rosalind Maki and Deborah de Bakker Coming from humble beginnings in 1997, The Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop has grown over the years to become the largest literary organization in the region––definitely cause to celebrate. Twenty Years on Snowshoes is a fitting celebration, a collection of winning entries from the short fiction and memoir…
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by Homer The Odyssey continues the story immediately after the sacking of Troy by the Greeks, so you can imagine it’s at least a bit exciting, picking this up so soon after finishing The Iliad. The hero, Odysseus, attempts to return to Ithaca, to his patient wife and son whom he left as an infant….
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by Homer What a time to be alive, the era of glory and warfare recounted within The Iliad. Life gave no room for softness was we know it today: You were forced to cruelty, or else be left to the whims of those without mercy. A more modern discussion of peace and harmony among men…
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by Greg Rhyno I hate it when I’m right. I mean, it feels fine being right in general sense, but, in the context of a book that tries to surprise you, it tends to bring things to an unsatisfying conclusion, especially when the twist is presented as though it should have shattered your world. But…
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