news | Monday November 24, 2025

Talonbooks Distribution Agreement with Login

Exciting distribution news: Talonbooks and Login have announced a new exclusive Canadian distribution agreement! All orders in Canada for Talonbooks titles should be directed to Login as of December 15, 2025. Frontlist orders can be placed with Login immediately. US distribution will still be performed by Consortium.

Sales representation for Talonbooks will continue to be provided by Ampersand, Inc.

Please note that Login will not accept returns of Talonbooks titles that were not purchased from Login. University of Toronto Press is accepting returns of Talonbooks titles until March 15, 2026. Talonbooks titles purchased from Login will be returnable for 12 months.

Standard recall notices will be provided prior to the return date for each book.
Please see lb.ca/returns for Login’s return policy.

About Login

Founded in 1991, Winnipeg-based Login provides customers with access to over 400 publishers, stocks thousands of titles in its Winnipeg and Mississauga distribution centers, and offers over 2 million more. Login is Canadian owned and operated, with over 34 years of investment in the Canadian book and publishing industry.

For more information about Login, visit www.lb.ca.

For information regarding the distribution agreement, please contact:

Login at 1 (800) 665-1148 or (204) 837-2987.

news | Tuesday December 2, 2025

Cozy Fest 2025: Dina Del Bucchia

Ready to get cozy? Catch poet, author, and literary socialite Dina Del Bucchia reading work from her latest poetry collection, You’re Gonna Love This for Cozy Fest 2025, a series put on by All Lit Up! Celebrate the spirit of the season with Del Bucchia here.

news | Monday December 1, 2025

End-of-Year Shipping Details

Talonites, it’s somehow December again. We’re coming at you with some end-of-year shipping information: all orders placed after December 22, 2025 will be shipped after January 7, 2026. Whether you’re picking up presents or stocking up on books for your own reading pleasure, get your orders in soon!

Happy reading, everyone!

news | Saturday November 29, 2025

Crowd Source Named One of The Grind's Books of the Year

Crowd Source, the latest poetry collection by multi-award winning poet and educator Cecily Nicholson, has been named one of The Grind’s books of the year! Crowd Source focuses on the habits, communications, and twice-daily migration of the crows who stitch across Vancouver’s skies.

The Grind says of Crowd Source: “Here, Nicholson applies her capacious, multi-dimensional imagination to the covenly world of crows. Her language dances like light on water, moving from corvid facts to industrial history, from formal play to anti-colonial instruction, ever restless and shimmering. Nicholson employs mischief as a texture of movement; collective responsibility as a pathway to embodiment. This book is not meant to be just read, but practised.”

Check out all of The Grind’s favourite books of the year here.

news | Friday November 28, 2025

Revolutions Featured on All Lit Up

Author Greg Rhyno has put together a gift guide for book lovers on All Lit Up and Revolutions by Hajer Mirwali is one of his recommendations! Of the collection, Rhyno says, “Mirwali’s inventive use of repetition, shape, and redaction explores the endless cycle of pleasure and shame that informs the identities of many Arab women … Her precise and careful use of language demonstrates a wisdom far beyond her years.” Get your holiday gifting inspiration here.

news | Tuesday November 25, 2025

rob mclennan on Revolutions

Revolutions, the debut poetry collection by Hajer Mirwali is included on rob mclennan’s list of recommended books in this article on 49th Shelf.

Of Revolutions, mclennan says “this collections weaves and interleaves such wonderful structural variety, offering a myriad of threads that swirl around a collision of cultures … [Mirwali] writes of multiple points of departure and relationships to people, to individuals, to geographies and geopolitical crises; she writes of home, of hearth. She writes of the contradictions of where the heart may go and how one connects to the world, seeking solace and urgency, a connection to where part of her might always remain.”

news | Saturday November 22, 2025

ryan fitzpatrick in The Calgary Guardian

The Calgary Guardian ran a profile on the author of No Depression in Heaven ryan fitzpatrick for their “A Day in the Life” segment. Learn more about what poet, author, and editor ryan fitzpatrick is up to here. You may even get a peek at their amazing bookshelf!

news | Friday November 21, 2025

Jovanni Sy on Getting Lit with Linda

Tune in to the latest episode of Canadian literature podcast Getting Lit with Linda with special guest, actor, director, and playwright Jovanni Sy. Linda and students from Bishop’s University interview Sy and talk about Sy’s powerhouse play A Taste of Empire wherein delectable samples from a real-time cooking demonstration offer food for thought about colonialism and the ethics of modern-day food systems. Listen to the episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts.

news | Wednesday November 19, 2025

Dina Del Bucchia on Wax Poetic

Looking for a fun, quick, poetic listen? Tune into this interview with Dina Del Bucchia on Wax Poetic. Del Bucchia shares excerpts from You’re Gonna Love This, chats pop culture, the life of a working class poet, the joys of poetry in transit, and the classic smelter-to-poet pipeline. Listen to episode here.

news | Tuesday November 18, 2025

th book uv lost passwords 1 in The Literary Review of Canada

There’s a review of th book uv lost passwords 1 by bill bissett in the December 2025 issue of The Literary Review of Canada. The write up calls bissett’s latest collection “nothing short of profound.” To get your copy of the latest issue of The Literary Review of Canada to read the full review, click here.

news | Friday November 14, 2025

Hot Off the Press! Heartlines: A Love Story Is Here!

Heartlines: A Love Story, the brand new play by Sarah Waisvisz has arrived back from the printer! Heartlines imagines the extraordinary love, art, and resistance of gender pioneers Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore. This work of historical fiction takes readers and audiences through the dizzying romance of Cahun and Marcel’s early lives together in the Parisian avant-garde – and the subsequent fracturing of their lives with the rise of nazism. Identities of all kinds are explored, suppressed, and liberated as their love withstands oppression, violence, and time itself.

An excerpt from Heartlines:

“SUZANNE
I won’t actually do that, Claude. But can’t we do something?

CLAUDE
We are doing something. Our job is to not get arrested.

SUZANNE
That’s not enough. I’m sick of doing nothing. I don’t want
to ration paper anymore. I don’t want to eat soup made from
vegetable skins or worry that another of our friends has
disappeared. People are being rounded up! Where the fuck are
they being taken to?

CLAUDE
You need to keep your voice down. Do you think I don’t
know all that? But someone might hear you. We can’t trust
anyone anymore.

SUZANNE
What happened to all your bravado? You’re telling me to keep
my voice down? You? The one who used to dance all night on
the street, drunk, singing with the musicians until you lost your
voice? You, who dragged me into Contre-Attaque with all those
arrogant men like Breton so you could wage surrealist battle on
fascism – you want me to be quiet?

CLAUDE
You’re not the one they’re after. You’re not the Jew.

SUZANNE
I am a Jew too, inside, where it counts. And we’re both
disgusting homosexuals to them.

Pause.

CLAUDE
I know.”

Pick up your copy of this riveting new play here.

news | Thursday November 6, 2025

2025 Governor General's Literary Award for Translation Winner!

We couldn’t be happier to share that Uiesh / Somewhere by Joséphine Bacon, translated by Jessica Moore has won the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation!

Uiesh / Somewhere is a dual-language poetry collection in Innu-aimun and English. The poems in Uiesh / Somewhere are rooted in Innu Elder Joséphine Bacon’s experiences of moving between the nomadic ways of her Ancestors in the northern wilderness of Nitassinan and the clamour of the city. Wherever she is, Bacon is attentive to the smallest details of her environment, from the moon and the stars, the Northern Lights, and the falling snow, to the sirens of fire engines and the noise of a busy bar night. From her quiet centre, she listens to the voices of the Old Ones, whose stories are alive within her, and reflects on the beauty and the pain of her long life.

The peer assessment committee, comprised of Bilal Hashmi and Dimitri Nasrallah says of Uiesh / Somewhere: “Jessica Moore leans into Innu Elder Joséphine Bacon’s Uiesh/Quelque part with humility, admirable care and sensitivity to space. Through this timely dual-language edition, Moore charts a path for the interpretation of poetry and sharing of wisdom across generations. This is translation at its highest calling—an opening for a wider audience to discover a poet’s life and work.”

A huge congratulations to Joséphine and to Jessica, and to all of this year’s winners! Uiesh / Somewhere is an incredibly special book and we are so pleased that Bacon and Moore’s outstanding work is being celebrated and honoured. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, pick up your copy here.

news | Wednesday November 5, 2025

Junie Désil in The Vancouver Guardian

Jen Currin

The Vancouver Guardian ran a feature on Junie Désil, author of allostatic load and eat salt | gaze at the ocean for their “A Day in the Life” segment. Get to know this amazing poet (and goat rearer?!) better! Here’s A Day in the Life with Junie Désil.

news | Saturday November 1, 2025

th book uv lost passwords 1 Has Arrived!

It’s here! The latest book from the legendary bill bissett has landed and is ready to wow you. Part poetry collection part novel in verse, th book uv lost passwords 1 is a cosmic experience. It expands on bissett’s multivalent and long-standing poetic practice by rearticulating the novel as a radiant field of sound, image, story, memory, dream, and fantasy. It criss-crosses geographies, hopping on planes and between planes to get to th breth uv th pome and everywhere else.

An excerpt from “th alphabets uv our beings”:

“dayze n nites retreev us
conseev us re create us row
guide n steer us enlarge us
diminish us find sheltr n
recuse releev spin resiliens
clasp each othr in hopeful em
brayce th pineal mysterious

n as th mewsik n lettr s change
sew ar we sumtimes carreeing
what we can or nothing as we
go our mouths suckin in a secret”

th book uv lost passwords 1 oxygenates the brain and soul. Order a copy of your own here.

news | Friday October 31, 2025

Happy Halloween from Talonbooks!

Happy Halloween, Talonites! Whether you like to lean into the horror, creepy-crawly ambience of the season, to don a creative, extravagant costume, or just enjoy bulk buying miniature chocolate bars on sale, we hope this day delivers on whatever autumnal vibes you love the most.

At Talon, we like an eerie read to mark the thinning of the veil. Whether you want to dig into a novel, a poetry collection, or get theatrical with a play, we have something spooky for your TBR pile.

1. Jump Scare by Daniel Zomparelli

Using horror movies as a vehicle, the poems in Jump Scare dig deep into mental health, neurodivergence, grief, dreams, monstrosity, sexuality, pop culture, queer consumer culture, and the commodification of identity.

2. Medusa by Martine Desjardins, translated by Oana Avasilichioaei

This gothic novel is, as the title might suggest, inspired the beloved myth of Medusa. Driven from her family home, Medusa – whose eyes are so horrible her gaze repel women and petrify men – is locked up in the Athenæum, an institute for young “malformed” girls, which stands on the shores of a lake infested with jellyfish. Medusa is a provocative story of women’s body shame and men’s body shaming, phallocratic oppression, and the power of femininity.

3. Zora, A Cruel Tale by Philippe Arseneault, translated by Fred A. Reed and David Homel

The winner of the 2013 Robert-Cliche Prize, Zora, A Cruel Tale is a gothic fantasy tale of the macabre and the bizarre, of black magicians and alchemists, and of the life and times of Zora Marjanna Lavanko, the daughter of a brutish tripe-dresser who dies for love. This surreal novel is set in the murky fictional domain of the Fredavian Forest, in the very real province of Karelia, then a part of the Grand Duchy of Finland, in the closing years of the nineteenth century. Violent, cruel, and unusual, it’s a perfect work with which to embrace the unsettling.

4. The Mystery Play by Josh MacDonald

The Mystery Play is a detective story, a ghost story, and a memory play. A supernatural chiller of rattling cupboards, overnight séances, and spectral possessions, this play has readers following crime-solving Sister Vivian Salter, a flinty, fifty-ish Catholic nun forced into the role of amateur sleuth.

Happy Halloween and happy reading, everyone!

news | Thursday October 30, 2025

Carmen Aguirre on North by Northwest with Margaret Gallagher

Can’t get enough of award-winning playwright Carmen Aguirre? Neither can we! Listen to her in conversation with Margaret Gallagher on CBC’s North by Northwest. The pair discuss Aguirre’s latest play Fire Never Dies: The Tina Modotti Project. They touch on how Aguirre came to learn about Tina Modotti, the decision making that went into curation of Modotti’s photographs for inclusion in the production, Modotti’s personal history of poverty, and more. Listen to the episode here.

news | Tuesday October 28, 2025

CBC News Interview with Carmen Aguirre

Elena Massing conducted an interview with the award-winning playwright Carmen Aguirre for CBC News. They discuss Aguirre’s latest play Fire Never Dies: The Tina Modotti Project, which ran this October at The Cultch.

From their discussion: ‘“For me, her story was the perfect way to explore larger questions of What is the purpose of art in the face of fascism and … can it serve the poor? And if so, how?” she says.

Aguirre first read a book about Modotti 35 years ago. At the time, Aguirre was in theatre school and struggling with the fact that her courses were only focused on refining skills.

Born in Chile, where “art is married to politics,” as she says, it felt as if something was missing. And learning about Modotti, Aguirre felt less alone in how she approached her work.’

Read the complete article here.

news | Saturday October 25, 2025

The Grand Melee and Twists of Fate in Canadian Literature

Ralph Sarkonak writes about two books in Michel Tremblay’s Desrosiers Diaspora series in Canadian Literature: The Grand Melee and Twists of Fate. Sarkonak provides analysis of both texts in the context of both the series and Tremblay’s wider oeuvre. He writes, “As always Tremblay is at his best in the in-between of literature and history or reality and fantasy.”

Read the complete piece here.

news | Friday October 24, 2025

The Piano Teacher in The Kingston Whig Standard

Michaela Tassone reviews Thousand Island Playhouse’s production of The Piano Teacher by Dorothy Dittrich in The Kingston Whig Standard. In this lovely, considered review, Tassone calls The Piano Teacher “sincere, heart-wrenching and a testament to the power of art; another stunning piece of Canadian theatre that should not be missed.” Read the complete review here.

news | Friday October 24, 2025

Play Ball!

CBC Books is celebrating the Toronto Blue Jays reaching the World Series with a spate of fantastic book recommendations about – you guessed it – baseball! On that list is George Bowering Baseball Love. Check out all of their selections here. 49th Shelf also recommends Baseball Love for their World Series reading, all of their suggestions can be found here.

news | Thursday October 23, 2025

Uiesh / Somewhere Named a Governor General's Finalist!

We are elated to share that Uiesh / Somewhere by Joséphine Bacon, translated by Jessica Moore, is a finalist for the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation! Translated from the French, the poems in this incredible dual-language collection appear in Innu-aimun and English.

The pieces in Uiesh / Somewhere are rooted in Innu Elder Joséphine Bacon’s experiences of moving between the nomadic ways of her Ancestors in the northern wilderness of Nitassinan and the clamour of the city. Bacon is attentive to the smallest details of her environment, from the moon and the stars, the Northern Lights, and the falling snow, to the sirens of fire engines and the noise of a busy bar night. In this collection, she listens to the voices of the Old Ones, whose stories are alive within her, and reflects on the beauty and the pain of her long life.

A huge congratulations Joséphine and Jessica for this wonderful and well-deserved accomplishment, and congratulations to all of this year’s finalists! Read all about them here.