In My World

Happy publication to Long Exposure by Governor General and the Gerald Lampert Award winner, Stephanie Bolster, published by Palimpsest Press. ✨ After Hurricane Katrina, the photographer Robert Polidori flew to New Orleans to document the devastation. In the wreckage he witnessed, and in her questions about what she saw in what he saw, Stephanie Bolster found the beginnings of a long poem. Those questions led to unexpected places; meanwhile, life kept pouring in. The ensuing book, Long Exposure, is Bolster’s fifth, a roaming, associative exploration of disasters and their ongoing aftermaths, sufferings large and small, and the vulnerability and value of our own lives. Incremental, unsettling, Long Exposure rushes to and through us. Stephanie Bolster has published four books of poetry, the most recent of which, A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth, appeared with Brick Books in 2011 and was a finalist for the Pat Lowther Award. Her first book, White Stone: The Alice...

  Happy Publication Day to Starry Starry Night by Shani Mootoo and published by Book*hug Press. Out of the frayed filaments of the yarn of memory, a cohesive tale is spun. In Starry Starry Night, Shani Mootoo gives us the singular voice of Anju Goshal, a young girl living in 1960s Trinidad. Spanning her life between the ages of four and twelve, we experience the world just as Anju does, coming to understand she has evolved into a keen observer because her safety depends on it. Through her clear-eyed perspective, the reader is fully transported and becomes both a witness to and participant in Anju’s negotiations of an unexpectedly new and complex life. Starry Starry Night illuminates the experiences of a well-off and socially advancing family during the turn of a country's fortunes. Thoughtfully articulated via the innocent commentary of a child, the book tackles larger issues of family, loss, and trauma. It relays the story of a British colony just before and after its independence...

  Happy publication to Under the Full and Crescent Moon by Aamir Hussain, published by Dundurn Press! In a battle of words and beliefs, a young woman must defend her city against zealotry during the Islamic Golden Age. After his long-time scribe retires, Khadija’s father, the city’s leading jurist, offers his introverted daughter the opportunity to take on the role of his assistant. By doing so Khadija is thrust into her community, the medieval hilltop city of Medina’tul-Agham, where she, as a motherless young woman, has spent little time. Led by Imam Fatima and guided by the Circle of Mothers, it is a matriarchy — the only one in the empire. Though forced to set aside her quiet life among the books and parchments of her family home, Khadija thrives, finding her power and place in the world with the support of her new friends and strong female mentors. Yet Khadija’s idyllic new life is shattered when fanatical forces weaponize Sharia law to threaten the very fabric of the society. ...

  Happy publication to Walking with Beth: Conversations with My Hundred-Year-Old Friend by celebrated Canadian author and Governor General Award finalist, Merilyn Simonds (Penguin Random House Canada, September 23, 2025). In the spring of 2021, worn down by pandemic isolation, Merilyn Simonds asked her friend Beth Robinson if she’d like to go for a walk. Simonds had just turned 70, which struck her as mysterious, even frightening stage of life. Yet she was still active, still writing and felt as strong as ever. Beth had just hit her centenary, a smart, vibrant woman who'd held a job until she was 99, still lived alone, and was as awake to the world as a person half her age. Who better to ask what might come next? During three years of weekly walks, the conversation between the two women deepened, as they opened up about their heart-felt passions, the lingering influence of their pasts, and their hopes and fears for the future. Walking with Beth is available wherever books are boug...

Happy publication to This May Be the Year , Named and Nameless , and Mad Dog and the Sea Dragon , published by Inanna Publications. ♥️ About This May Be the Year by Carole Giangrande: The latest collection from this award-winning poet explores time, grief, rebirth, and recalibration through the lens of the pastoral. In this “birdmind” view of love, loss, and belonging, Giangrande captures the uneasy interplay between the human world and the natural world, offering a poetic meditation on the fragile connections that hold us in place. About Named and Nameless by Susan McCaslin: In this new collection of poetry, Susan McCaslin explores the meaning and significance of identity and all that can be found in a name, or, lack thereof. Mixing the personal with the societal, McCaslin explores her own past and women’s continued role in child-rearing. This dreamlike series of encounters with nature and the divine invites deep reflection through re-discovering the familiar. Her joyful wordplay in...

Happy publication to  Remaindered People and Other Stories , (short stories) by Pratap Reddy, published by Guernica Editions.  Reddy’s first collection Weather Permitting & Other Stories was centred on the predicament of new immigrants who are coping with the challenges they face immediately upon arrival in Canada. In this new collection, the focus is on the other side of immigration, exploring the often-neglected aspects: the plight of empty nesters left behind in India, parents compelled to immigrate with their adult children, about immigrants returning to their home country for good or for holiday, of people aspiring to migrate but falling by the wayside. Whatever the surrounding circumstances, all the stories are about people on the move, people who often don’t seem to know where they are headed. @river_street_writes @pratapreddycanada @guernicaeditions #immigrantstories #shortfiction #mississauga #shortstories #shortstory #shortstorywriter #litfic #canlit #bookishcan...