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June 2013

Wednesday June 19, 2013
B.C. Book Prize Poetry Finalists at Vancouver Public Library

Thursday June 20, 2013
Adeena Karasick - 14th Annual Convention of The Media Ecology Association

Thursday June 20, 2013
Garry Thomas Morse Reads for the Teslin Tlingit Council, Yukon

Thursday June 20, 2013
The 2013 Whitehorse Poetry Festival

Sunday June 23, 2013
Songs and Stories from Tomson Highway’s The (Post) Mistress in Toronto

Thursday June 27, 2013
Dramaturges Conference (L.M.D.A.) in Vancouver, with Carmen Aguirre

July 2013

Thursday July 18, 2013
The 11th Annual Denman Island Readers and Writers Festival

Tuesday July 30, 2013
Taking Shakespeare - John Murrell - Stratford Festival

Tuesday July 30, 2013
Taking Shakespeare - John Murrell - Stratford Festival

August 2013

Monday August 19, 2013
KlezKanada 2013 - KlezKanada’s Poetry Retreat - Adeena Karasick and Jake Marmer

Tuesday August 20, 2013
A Brief Review of Jordan Abel’s The Place of Scraps

Wednesday August 21, 2013
Marcus Youssef’s Winners and Losers at Noorderzon Festival, Netherlands

October 2013

Tuesday October 1, 2013
James Bacque – Barton Lecture – Upper Canada College, Toronto

Tuesday October 1, 2013
The St. Leonard Chronicles - Steve Galluccio - Centaur Theatre

Friday October 4, 2013
Sidney Literary Festival, British Columbia – with M.A.C. Farrant

Wednesday October 16, 2013
James Bacque Addresses Senior Faculty, University of Toronto

Friday October 18, 2013
Victoria Writers Festival, British Columbia – with M.A.C. Farrant

Tuesday October 29, 2013
Seeds - Annabel Soutar - Centaur Theatre

November 2013

Sunday November 10, 2013
Marcus Youssef’s Winners and Losers in Toronto

Thursday November 21, 2013
Adeena Karasick - National Communication Association 99th Annual Convention: in the Applied Semantics and Practical Communication Across the Disciplines Session

Tuesday November 26, 2013
Adeena Karasick - Art Bar Series

December 2013

Saturday December 14, 2013
Adeena Karasick - Annual Christmas Party AB Series

Saturday December 14, 2013
Adeena Karasick - Annual Christmas Party AB Series

January 2014

Wednesday January 22, 2014
Seeds – Annabel Soutar – PuSh Festival, UBC

February 2014

Friday February 21, 2014
Galiano Island Literary Festival

Posted: Tuesday June 18, 2013

Kevin Kerr’s You Are Very Star in Vancouver

Kevin Kerr (Skydive, ) and his Electric Company Theatre are putting on a new show, You Are Very Star, at Vancouver’s Space Centre (formerly called the Planetarium). It promises to be

an immersive, transmedia experience … that will transport you back to 1968 and ahead to 2048, from the height of the Space Race to the dawn of a new augmented humanity, as characters in each story look forward or back to 2013 as a mysterious time of wonder.

You Are Very Star was reviewed in the Vancouver Courier by Cheryl Rossi and in the Vancouver Sun by Mark Leiren-Young, both on June 12, 2013.

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Posted: Monday June 17, 2013

John Murrell’s new play, Peace in Our Time, Premieres at the Shaw Festival

Peace in Our Time, the latest play by John Murrell and an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Geneva, is premiering at the Shaw Festival this season (May 19 – October 12, 2013).

The play was recently reviewed by Jamie Portman in the Ottawa Citizen. The following are excerpts from his article.

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Over at the Court House Theatre, a … display of attractive visuals has been supplied by designer Camellia Koo as backdrop to the shenanigans that erupt in the world premiere of Calgary playwright John Murrell’s political romp, Peace in our Time.

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Posted: Friday June 14, 2013

David W. McFadden Wins 2013 Griffin Poetry Prize!

We heartily congratulate David McFadden on winning the 2013 Griffin Poetry Prize!

David W. McFadden, the veteran author of 35 books, received the nod for What’s the Score? (published by Mansfield Press imprint Stuart Ross Books). McFadden was previously nominated for the prize in 2008 for his selected poems, Why Are You So Sad? The other Canadian nominees were Sailing to Babylon by James Pollock (Toronto, Madison, Wisconsin) and Personals by Ian Williams (Brampton).

With a purse of $65,000 for each of the division winners, the Griffin Poetry Prize is among the most prestigious and lucrative poetry awards in the world.

Winner in the International division was Fady Joudah (U.S.), for Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems (translated from Arabic by Ghassan Zaqtan). The other nominees in the category were Liquid Nitrogen by Jennifer Maiden (Australia), Night of the Republic by Alan Shapiro (U.S.), and Our Andromeda by Brenda Shaughnessy (U.S.)

Read more about this year’s winners and proceedings here.

Posted: Wednesday June 12, 2013

Mariner Janes on Co-op Radio out of Vancouver

Mariner Janes joined the Wax Poetic radio show today, June 12, 2013, to discuss his social work in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (D.T.E.S.) and first book of poetry, The Monument Cycles.

Stream or download the June 12 Wax Poetic podcast here and follow Mariner Janes online.

Posted: Monday June 10, 2013

Meta-Talon: For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival, In Review

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, a play by Michel Tremblay, is currently being staged at the National Arts Centre (N.A.C.) in Ottawa, Ontario, as part of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival.

Lorne Cardinal and Margo Kane star in For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, by Michel Tremblay (translation: Linda Gaboriau), produced by Western Canada Theatre.
Photograph by Handout photo, Magnetic North

Patrick Langston recently wrote two reviews of the play for the Ottawa Citizen, (June 3 and June 8, 2013). Excerpts from these reviews are available on Meta-Talon.

Posted: Friday June 7, 2013

Meta-Talon: Drew Hayden Taylor’s Political Persuasions

Award-winning Ojibwa author and playwright Drew Hayden Taylor (Dead White Writer on the Floor, 2011) writes the occasional column for the Peterborough Examiner in Peterborough, Ontario, which is just south of his home, the Curve Lake First Nation. In his latest column (from Tuesday, June 4, 2013), he discusses his approach to storytelling and politics. The column has been republished on Meta-Talon with permission from the Examiner.

Posted: Thursday June 6, 2013

Five Weeks Running on the B.C. Bestsellers List for They Called Me Number One!

They Called Me Number One by Xat’sull Chief Bev Sellars is celebrating its fifth week on the B.C. Bestsellers list! The list is compiled by the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia based on sales data from bookstores around the province. They Called Me Number One made its debut at number two on the bestsellers list, then took sixth place, then fourth for two weeks – and is now back in the number two slot! A frank and moving piece of personal and national history, we wish it continued success.

This the first full-length memoir to be published out of St. Joseph’s Mission at Williams Lake, BC, in which she tells of three generations of women who attended the school, interweaving the personal histories of her grandmother and her mother with her own. She tells of hunger, forced labour, and physical beatings, and also of the demand for conformity in a culturally alien institution where children were confined and denigrated for failure to be White and Roman Catholic.

The book launched in Vancouver to an audience of 130 people in May and has since received much critical attention from such sources as B.C. historian Jean Barman, who offered observations that were published on Meta-Talon, and C.B.C.’s The Sunday Edition, on which an interview was conducted.

Posted: Wednesday June 5, 2013

Meta-Talon: Quill & Quire Reviews Daphne Marlatt’s Liquidities

The June 2013 issue of Quill & Quire includes a review of Daphne Marlatt’s latest book of poetry, Liquidities (Talonbooks, 2013). We republish this review by Jason Wiens here, on Meta-Talon, with permission from Quill & Quire.

Posted: Tuesday June 4, 2013

B.E.A. and Congress 2013: Talonbooks Was Here

Over the weekend of June 1–2, 2013, on either side of the continent, two significant book fairs overlapped: Book Expo America (B.E.A.) in New York City and the Congress 2013 Expo in Victoria, British Columbia. Talonbooks was at both!

In case you missed us in New York, here’s a virtual taste of the Talonbooks booth, where review copies of current and forthcoming titles were available (including They Called Me Number One, Wigrum, and Rogue Cells / Carbon Harbour).

Above: Spencer Williams of Talonbooks and New York editor Philip Turner of Philip Turner Book Productions at the Talonbooks booth at Book Expo America (B.E.A.) last Friday in New York. (Check out Philip’s blog, The Great Gray Bridge.)

Meanwhile, closer to home, the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences was held in Victoria, B.C., and Talon books were at the Expo in the McKinnon building of the University of Victoria. Congress attendees found Vicki (not pictured) and Greg, among our many excellent books, ready for chatting.

Above: Greg Gibson of Talonbooks at the Talonbooks both at the Congress 2013 Expo. Photo by the Literary Press Group of Canada

Posted: Monday June 3, 2013

Phyllis Webb in the Poet’s Corner of the Sunday Times

The Sunday Times (London, U.K.) ran Phyllis Webb’s poem “My loves are dying” last week (May 26, 2013). Read it here. The poem comes from From Water and Light: Ghazals and Anti-Ghazals: Poems (Coach House Press, 1984).

Two collections of Webb’s poetry are available from Talonbooks: The Vision Tree (1982) and Hanging Fire (1990). Talon has also published a study of Webb’s work: Phyllis Webb and the Common Good by Stephen Collis. Webb currently lives and writes on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia.

Posted: Friday May 31, 2013

Talonbooks at Congress 2013 in Victoria, B.C., with Authors Marie Clements, Lucia Frangione, and Bev Sellars

The annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences kicks off today at the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia, and Talonbooks will be there. This meeting of meetings is the largest annual multidisciplinary gathering in Canada – and it’s the home of a huge academic trade show (did someone say “book fair”? No. But yes).

What is Congress? From the “About” page on Congress’s website:

Unrivaled in scope and impact, the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences is known simply as ‘Congress.’ … Organized by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Congress brings together academics, researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners to share findings, refine ideas, and build partnerships that will help shape the Canada of tomorrow.

Not only will Talon represent itself at the Congress Expo (stop by our booth and say hello!), a number of Talon’s authors and associates will be speaking over the course of the conference.

A keynote speech, “A Creator’s Guide to The Unknown,” will be given by playwright and filmmaker Marie Clements at 9:15 a.m. on Saturday, June 1, in the Chief Dan George Theatre (Phoenix Theatre Building).

Later on Saturday, Talon will co-host a lunch with the Canadian Association of Theatre Research (CATR). Playwright Lucia Frangione will be the guest speaker. This event starts at 12:30 p.m. in the Chief Dan George Theatre (Phoenix Theatre Building).

Linda Morra, who contributed the afterword to Jane Rule’s autobiography Taking My Life (2011), will speak about this book at the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE) Conference as part of a panel on Sunday, June 2 at 9:00 a.m.

Chief Bev Sellars, bestselling author of They Called Me Number One, will speak on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 4, at 3:45 p.m., in Room A357 of the Social Sciences and Mathematics building.

These events have all been listed in the Upcoming Events section of the Talonbooks website.

More information on Congress is available on its website.

Posted: Thursday May 30, 2013

Video: Talonbooks Spring 2013 Poetry Launch, Vancouver

Talonbooks launched its Spring 2013 poetry titles at the Anza Club in Vancouver on Thursday, April 10. The launch comprised five readings, of various characters and tones, from Mariner Janes, Wanda John-Kehewin, Dina Del Bucchia, Daphne Marlatt, and Stephen Collis.

The full video (which appears to be from Talon’s blue period) is now available! What a perfect opportunity to catch up on what you missed… or relive what joys you have already experienced.

Posted: Wednesday May 29, 2013

Video: Stephen Collis Reads at the Talonbooks Spring Poetry Launch in Vancouver, 2013

Stephen Collis reads from To the Barricades, which launched in Vancouver in April.

The full video of the launch – including readings by Mariner Janes, Wanda John-Kehewin, Dina Del Bucchia, and Daphne Marlatt – will be made available online later this week.

Posted: Tuesday May 28, 2013

Video: Daphne Marlatt Reads at the Talonbooks Spring Poetry Launch in Vancouver, 2013

Daphne Marlatt reads from Liquidities, which launched in Vancouver in April.

The full video of the launch – including readings by Mariner Janes, Wanda John-Kehewin, Dina Del Bucchia, and Stephen Collis – will be made available online later this week.

Posted: Tuesday May 28, 2013

Video: Dina Del Bucchia Reads at the Talonbooks Spring Poetry Launch in Vancouver, 2013

Dina Del Bucchia reads from her first book of poetry, Coping with Emotions and Otters, which launched in Vancouver in April.

The full video of the launch – including readings by Mariner Janes, Wanda John-Kehewin, Daphne Marlatt, and Stephen Collis – will be made available online later this week.

Posted: Monday May 27, 2013

Video: Wanda John-Kehewin Reads at the Talonbooks Spring Poetry Launch in Vancouver, 2013

Wanda John-Kehewin reads from her first book of poetry, In the Dog House, which launched in Vancouver in April.

The full video of the launch – including readings by Mariner Janes, Dina Del Bucchia, Daphne Marlatt, and Stephen Collis – will be made available online later this week.

Posted: Monday May 27, 2013

Video: Mariner Janes Reads at the Talonbooks Spring Poetry Launch in Vancouver, 2013

Here is a small taste of The Monument Cycles by Mariner Janes, which launched in Vancouver in April.

The full video of the launch – including readings by Wanda John-Kehewin, Dina Del Bucchia, Daphne Marlatt, and Stephen Collis – will be made available online later this week.

Posted: Friday May 24, 2013

“The Universe of Michel Tremblay” at the Musée de la Civilisation in Quebec City

The Musée de la Civilisation in Quebec City, Quebec, celebrates and commemorates the opus of playwright Michel Tremblay in their current multimedia exhibit, titled “L’Univers de Michel Tremblay,” which runs until August 18, 2013.

For more on this exhibit (including visiting information), visit the museum’s website or read this review by Gib McInnis in the Chronicle Telegraph.

Posted: Thursday May 23, 2013

2013 Jessie Richardson Award Nominations for Talonbooks Playwrights

We are happy to announce that plays written by three of our Talon authors, and the acting work of another, have been nominated for Jessie Richardson awards!

The Jessie Richardson awards celebrate outstanding achievements in Vancouver professional theatre.

The play My Turquoise Years, written by M.A.C. Farrant (The Strange Truth About Us, 2011), has been nominated in the large theatre category for two awards: set design (nominee is Alison Green) and Best Supporting Actress (nominee is Georgina Beaty). My Turquoise Years premiered at the Arts Club in Vancouver during the 2012-2013 season.

In the small theatre category, Leanna Brodie, author of The Book of Esther, has been nominated for Best Actress for her role in Terminus, which played at the Pi Theatre in early 2013.

The play God and the Indian by Drew Hayden Taylor, which was produced at the Fire Hall Arts Centre and is to be published by Talonbooks in Spring 2014, has also been nominated in the small theatre category for set design (nominee is Lauchlin Johnston).

Winners and Losers by Marcus Youssef has also received a nomination for Outstanding Production in the small theatre category. The play was produced by Theatre Replacement and Neworld Theatre in association with Crow’s Theatre. Youssef’s play How Has My Love Affected You has also been nominated for Outstanding Original Script.

See the full list of nominees here.

The 31st annual awards ceremony will be held at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver on the evening of Monday, June 24, 2013.

Posted: Tuesday May 21, 2013

Fall 2013 Catalogue Now Available Online!

Talonbooks is in the process of publishing a number of exciting new works of drama, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction – including some in translation.

Our forthcoming titles can be seen in the Fall 2013 catalogue (top right corner of this website) and along down the right-hand side of the website.

Posted: Thursday May 16, 2013

Baba Brinkman’s Evolutionary Tales Series in NYC

Baba Brinkman, author of The Rap Canterbury Tales, presents three off-Broadway shows as part of his Evolutionary Tales series: Ingenious Nature, the Rap Guide to Evolution, and Canterbury Tales Remixed. The shows run on overlapping schedules from the end of May to the third week of June.

May 31 – June 21: Ingenious Nature

June 1 – June 22: Rap Guide to Evolution

June 2 – June 23: Canterbury Tales Remixed

The Players Theatre
115 MacDougal Street
New York City, NY, United States

Ticketing and other information is available from the Evolutionary Tales website.

Posted: Tuesday May 14, 2013

They Called Me Number One on B.C. Bestsellers List!

They Called Me Number One – a frank, moving, and thoughtful memoir by Bev Sellars about her time in a B.C. residential school and the effects it has had on her life – is the sixth-best-selling book in B.C. for the week of May 12, 2013. See the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia’s list here.

Posted: Monday May 13, 2013

Two of Talon’s Translators Recently Celebrated in Montreal

On May 6, 2013, renowned playwrights from Quebec and across Canada gathered in Montreal to commemorate the last fifty years of contemporary performance writing for the stage under the umbrella of the Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal (PVM), a professional theatre centre based in Montreal and dedicated to the development of Canadian work and new writers for the stage. Translator Linda Gaboriau was honoured with a special tribute. (More on this event from the Montreal Gazette)

Translator Sheila Fischman was also recently honoured in Montreal, at the Opening Cocktail of the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival a few weeks ago, as one of “two key players of the era in which our national literature went from neglect to proper appreciation”:

Sheila Fischman has done more than perhaps any other single person to bridge the divide between French- and English-language readers of Canadian fiction.

(More on this event from the Montreal Gazette)

We look forward to seeing the ongoing contributions of these excellent translators to Canadian literature!

Posted: Thursday May 9, 2013

Stephen Collis on Co-op Radio

Stephen Collis joined the Wax Poetic radio show on March 13th, 2013 to discuss his upcoming poetry title and works, including To The Barricades.

Click here to listen to the entire broadcast.

Posted: Monday May 6, 2013

Montreal Celebrates Fifty Years of English Theatre!

Ann-Marie MacDonald, writer, actor and television personality, will host the 50th Anniversary Gala Event, and welcome writers and guests from across Canada.

On May 6 2013, renowned playwrights from Quebec and across Canada are gathering in Montreal to commemorate the last fifty years of contemporary writing for the stage.

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Thursday June 13, 2013 in Meta-Talon

Canada: Home to a Dangerous Industry

By Fred A. Reed & Robin Philpot

Alain Deneault and William Sacher wrote Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Choice for the World’s Mining Companies (2012) to provide Canadian and international public opinion with tools to help ask critical questions about Canadian activities in the South and in Eastern Europe, as well as about the role of the Canadian government in relation to these activities. It is hoped that the evidence presented here will encourage Canadians to enter public debate about how the mining industry is regulated in Canada and to form an opinion on this topic independent from the one suggested by official agencies or media that belong to large Canadian financial conglomerates and tend to espouse their interests.

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Monday June 10, 2013 in Meta-Talon

In Review: For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival, National Arts Centre, Ottawa

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, a play by Michel Tremblay, is currently being staged at the National Arts Centre (N.A.C.) in Ottawa, Ontario, as part of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival.

The following are excerpts from two reviews of the show, originally published in the Ottawa Citizen on June 3 and June 8, 2013, written by Patrick Langston.

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Friday June 7, 2013 in Meta-Talon

Drew Hayden Taylor’s Political Persuasions

By Drew Hayden Taylor

Award-winning Ojibwa author and playwright Drew Hayden Taylor (Dead White Writer on the Floor, 2011) writes the occasional column for the Peterborough Examiner in Peterborough, Ontario. In his latest column, available in its original form here, he discusses his approach to storytelling and politics.

As a First Nations writer of fiction and non-fiction, and frequent lecturer on the university/college and conference circuit, I am commonly asked about my political persuasion. Do I swing left, right, or am I more ambidextrous?

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Wednesday June 5, 2013 in Meta-Talon

A Postmodernist Examines the Contours of a Western Canadian City: Quill & Quire Reviews Daphne Marlatt’s Liquidities

The June 2013 issue of Quill & Quire includes a review of Daphne Marlatt’s latest book of poetry, Liquidities (Talonbooks, 2013). We republish this review here with permission from Quill & Quire.

Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now extends a project Daphne Marlatt began over 40 years ago with the 1972 publication of Vancouver Poems …

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