Quill and Quire

By David Cronenberg

Do you think a new esthetic can develop? Cancer beauty? ... Will non-cancerous women be begging their cosmetic surgeons to give them false nodes implants?” Imbued with notions of body modification this unsettling, could Consumed ... Read More »

September 15, 2014 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

By Margaret Atwood

Before opening Margaret Atwood’s new collection, ponder the subtitle. Tales, not stories, are what is on offer. As Atwood explains in the acknowledgements, short stories often work “within the boundaries of social realism” whereas “tale” ... Read More »

September 11, 2014 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

By Michael Lista

Right from the devastating cover image, Michael Lista’s second collection is rife with craft and cultural implication. A VCR tape masks a grinning skull with a sickly smile that evokes Shakespeare’s Mercutio: “Ask for me ... Read More »

September 5, 2014 | Filed under: Poetry

By Alison Pick

Toronto writer Alison Pick follows up her Man Booker Prize–longlisted novel Far to Go with an unflinching, courageous memoir that delves deep into her own recently uncovered Jewish heritage. Raised in a Christian family by ... Read More »

September 5, 2014 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

By Dionne Brand

In 1990, Dionne Brand released No Language is Neutral, a poetry collection preoccupied, as much of Brand’s writing is, with the limitations of language to verbalize the experience of the oppressed, and with history’s inability ... Read More »

September 5, 2014 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels