Quill and Quire

By David Montrose

The term “Canadian noir” sounds almost oxymoronic – as a concept, it runs contrary to both our complacently benign self-image and our international reputation as wholesome, apologetic, and frostbitten. The strange difficulty of convincing ourselves ... Read More »

December 15, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

By Margaret Atwood

Any act of artistic performance shares a close affinity with magic. Stephen King has made this connection in numerous essays, forewords, and introductions to his own work, and in his recent memoir, Bruce Springsteen refers ... Read More »

December 12, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

By Mary Frances Coady

With Holy Rule, Mary Frances Coady revisits the cloistered Catholic world she explored in her 2009 short-story collection, The Practice of Perfection. Those stories followed a group of novitiates taking their first steps toward becoming ... Read More »

December 12, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

By Penn Kemp

It seems strangely à propos to see refined, award-winning poet and activist Penn Kemp return to a thematics of barbarism in her latest book. Kemp opens with “Tip Line,” a poem that sets the stage ... Read More »

December 6, 2016 | Filed under: Poetry

By Meaghan Strimas

In Meaghan Strimas’s third collection, the poet picks up where she left off in 2010’s A Good Time Had by All. Not one to shy away from life’s rougher edges, Strimas possesses a knack for ... Read More »

December 6, 2016 | Filed under: Poetry

By Ann Eriksson

Music and money drive Ann Eriksson’s fifth novel. Hana Knight is a gifted young pianist who narrates the story of her family, her struggles as a musician, and her relationship with a deranged homeless woman ... Read More »

November 29, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels