• About Us
• Academic
• Authors
• Awards
• Books
• Contact
• Upcoming Events
• Meta-Talon
• News
• Ordering
• Sales & Distribution
• Submission Guidelines
• View Shopping Cart
•  
• Browse Books by Category
• Drama
• Fiction
• Non-Fiction
• Poetry

May 2012

Saturday May 19, 2012
UPROOTED AGAIN book launch - National Nikkei Heritage Centre

Wednesday May 23, 2012
The eh List Author Series: Michel Tremblay and Sheila Fischman

Wednesday May 23, 2012
Talon Poetry Night - Weyman Chan, Colin Browne, and Daniel Zomparelli at Audreys Books

Thursday May 24, 2012
Talon Poetry Night - Weyman Chan, Colin Browne, and Daniel Zomparelli at Pages

Saturday May 26, 2012
Ghosts of Violence - Sharon Pollock - Bluma Appel Theatre

June 2012

Tuesday June 5, 2012
B.Someday Presents Suburban Motel in June - Walking Fish Theatre

Wednesday June 20, 2012
Wanderlust - Morris Panych - Stratford Shakespeare Festival

Tuesday June 26, 2012
The Best Brothers - Daniel MacIvor - Stratford Shakespeare Festival

Thursday June 28, 2012
George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award - Presented to Daphne Marlatt

July 2012

Thursday July 5, 2012
Twisted Poets Literary Salon - bill bissett - Prophouse Cafe

Thursday July 19, 2012
Denman Island Readers & Writers Festival - 2012

Thursday July 26, 2012
Schoolhouse - Leanna Brodie - Stone Fence Theatre

August 2012

Monday August 20, 2012
KlezKanada Poetry Retreat: Three Millennia of Poetic Subversion - Adeena Karasick

September 2012

Tuesday September 18, 2012
Chickens - Lucia Frangione - Chemainus Theatre

October 2012

Thursday October 11, 2012
Where the Blood Mixes - Kevin Loring - Sagebrush Theatre

November 2012

Saturday November 3, 2012
Tom and the Coyote - Michel Marc Bouchard - Factory Theatre

January 2013

Tuesday January 15, 2013
Carmen Aguirre's Blue Box - Great Canadian Theatre Company

Friday January 25, 2013
Leave of Absence - Lucia Frangione - Pacific Theatre

February 2013

Tuesday February 26, 2013
The Glace Bay Miners' Museum - Wendy Lill - Neptune Theatre

March 2013

Thursday March 14, 2013
Dead Metaphor - George F. Walker - Factory Theatre

April 2013

Thursday April 4, 2013
My Turquoise Years - M.A.C. Farrant - Arts Club Theatre

Tuesday April 30, 2013
Le Chant de Sainte Carmen de la Main - Théatre du Nouveau Monde

Enter "The Real World?"

The Real World? is an early masterpiece from Michel Tremblay, one of Canada’s greatest living playwrights. Tarragon revives this Canadian classic nearly 25 years after it premiered it in English in 1988 with a powerhouse cast: Matthew Edison, Cara Gee, Sophie Goulet, Tony Nappo, Cliff Saunders, Jane Spidell & Meg Tilly.

The mother of a precocious young playwright takes issue with his latest play: not only does it put private family matters centre stage, it liberally blends fiction with truth. A play within a play, The Real World? remains a groundbreaking work about art, autobiography and authority.

The Real World? is at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre, playing through June 3, 2012.

The Capilano Review is 40!

On May 16, there is a celebration for the 40th Anniversary Issue of the Capilano Review at Performance Works in Vancouver.

Doors open at 7:00 pm and the readings start at 7:30.

Daphne Marlatt Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

On June 28, the 2012 George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Daphne Marlatt at the Vancouver Public Library.

We are also pleased to announce that Daphne Marlatt’s Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now will be appearing from Talonbooks in 2013.

> Go to story...

BC Book Prize Finalists at the VPL!

This evening at the Vancouver Public Library at 7pm, four of the finalists for the 2012 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize will read from their nominated works.

The evening will be hosted by Evelyn Lau, Vancouver’s Poet Laureate.

Buzzzzzz!!!

Whether it is the fly-whisks or wingless locusts, North American readers and independent booksellers are abuzz about the new translation of Martine Desjardin’s novel Maleficium, which has already being reprinted, due to growing demand.

Brave readers will enter the realm of Vicar Jérôme Savoie’s Gothic-era confessional, where seven men, just returned from faraway lands, profess to have fallen victim to the strange and evil spells of a mysterious woman. Throughout the Middle East, these men sought the finest goods and rarest experiences the world had to offer, but as each came closer to the object of their desire, they were struck by debilitating maladies and crippling deformities. All seven had encountered a young woman with a scarred face and now they’ve come to warn the priest that she will soon bring her dark arts to bear against the Catholic church itself. It is not until the young woman enters the confessional that truth emerges and the crimes of the seven men come to light.

This evening at 7pm, please join Martine Desjardins and her award-winning translators, Fred A. Reed and David Homel, for the launch of this book in Montreal at the Drawn & Quarterly bookstore, where there will be a reading from this text.

May is Talon Poetry Month!

This month, Governor General’s Poetry Award finalists Weyman Chan and Colin Browne will join local poetry impresario Daniel Zomparelli for a book launch at the Anza Club in Vancouver on May 15, followed by a launch at Audreys Books in Edmonton on May 23, and then a launch at Pages on Kensington in Calgary on May 24.

Also, ALL THREE titles are now available from Talonbooks!

> Go to story...

bill bissett reading at Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery

bill bissett reading poetry on January 20, 2012 in conjunction with “LETTERS: Michael Morris and Concrete Poetry” at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery from January 13 through April 8, 2012.

Laurence Anyways

Xavier Dolan is set to adapt the Michel Marc Bouchard play Tom a la ferme and he’ll be writing the screenplay in collaboration with Bouchard.

Dolan’s Laurence Anyways will have its world premiere later this month in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival and will open in Quebec May 18.

Tom a la ferme made its bow at the Theatre d’Aujourd’hui last year. It is a drama about a guy, Tom, who only gets to know the family of his lover after his death and it turns out that his lover’s mother had no idea of the existence of Tom. The lover’s brother Francis forces Tom to keep quiet about his gay relationship.

Découvrez Montréal à la Galluccio

Montréal à la Galluccio (Éditions de l’Homme), un guide qui présente les restaurants, terrasses, boutiques, bars et cafés de Montréal favoris de l’auteur et scénariste Steve Galluccio.

Margaret Reynolds Speaking About Support for B.C. Creative Sector

Margaret Reynolds, executive director of the Association of Book Publishers of B.C., speaks at a news conference on April 26, 2012, about the need to help the province’s creative sector become more competitive.

At present, registration is open for BCreative 2012, an inaugural conference and showcase to be held May 10 to 12, 2012 at Simon Fraser University’s downtown Vancouver venues. It is designed to bring together government, business, the creative sector, and researchers to stimulate thinking, policy and action directed at developing a strategy and levering resources to further build the creative economy and to help British Columbia BC become a leader in the creative sector in the twenty-first century.

For more information visit the SFU BCreative website.

Fred Wah at Charles Olson Centenary

Canada’s Poet Laureate Fred Wah reading at Simon Fraser University (extension downtown Vancouver) as part of the Charles Olson Centenary in June, 2010.

Ghosts of Violence in Halifax

On May 5th, 2012 Ghosts of Violence is coming to Halifax.

This is the result of a creative collaboration between Igor Dobrovolskiy and Canadian theatre icon Sharon Pollock, an inspiring and beautiful ballet based on the stories of women who have been victims of abuse. This remarkable multi-media ballet production is created to build awareness and inspire dialogue around the issue of violence against girls and women across Canada.

Down Dangerous Passes Road - Featurette

A 10 minutes featurette with the cast of the Encore Theatre Company’s Down Dangerous Passes Road by Michel Marc Bouchard, running April 20-22 and 26-28 at the Ernie Checkeris Theatre in Sudbury, Ontario.

Jerry Wasserman to receive Sam Payne Award for 2011

Jerry Wasserman, professor and head of UBC’s Dept. of Theatre and Film, is to receive the Sam Payne Award from the Union of B.C. Performers which recognizes “humanity, artistic integrity and encouragement of new talent.”

Moving to Vancouver in 1972 to teach English and later, theatre at UBC, Wasserman became an integral part of Vancouver’s burgeoning professional theatre scene, performing on stage and in many American and Canadian film and television shows. He is a well-known theatre reviewer and an editor of Modern Canadian Plays, an anthology used in Canadian theatre courses. Wasserman has influenced thousands of drama students during his 40 years of teaching.

Established in 1984, the Sam Payne Awards are presented annually to honour Canada’s well loved and respected professional actors in two categories.

Click here for more information about the Awards Presentation on April 27, 2012.

Megaphone's Voices of the Street (2012)

Megaphone’s Voices of the Street is a special 68-page literary issue featuring prose and poems from our community writing workshops (which are run in the Downtown Eastside and downtown Vancouver).

Megaphone’s homeless and low-income vendors buy each of these issues for $2.50 and sell them for $5.

We will be having a special Voices of the Street launch event, featuring readings from the issue, at the Waldorf Hotel on Thursday, April 19th, 2012 from 7 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $10.

For more information, please visit MegaphoneMagazine.com.

L'Enfant matière de Larry Tremblay

L’Enfant matière – texte de Larry Tremblay – Théâtre Blanc, du 10 au 28 avril 2012.

Joanna Skibsrud, Jessica Moore, and Jean-François Beauchemin!

On Thursday April 19th at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Bookstore in Montreal, 2011 Giller Prize winner Johanna Skibsrud (The Sentimentalists) will be reading from This Will Be Hard to Explain and also Jessica Moore and Jean-François Beauchemin will be talking about (and reading from) the book Jean-François wrote and Jessica translated, Turkana Boy.

With her new collection, Skibsrud introduces an astonishing array of characters, showing us through their eyes what even they cannot see and uncorking minor epiphanies in the most unremarkable days. These wise querying stories bear the mark of one of Canada’s most remarkable voices, and linger in the mind long after the final page has been turned.

Jessica Moore will be reading from Turkana Boy, her translation (from the French) of the award-winning poetic novel by Quebecois author Jean-François Beauchemin, the first part of which won a PEN America Award in 2008. The novel is a contemplative, sometimes surreal, and deeply questioning narrative, underlain with the protagonist’s sadness after the disappearance of his son.

Poetry is Dead - Issue Five!

Issue five is now available in bookstores across Canada, get it now by subscribing. Issue five is 64 pages of poems, interviews and original art. This issue includes essays by Jonathon Turner, Katia Grubisic and Neal Rockwell, along with poems by Stephen Collis, Jacqueline Turner, Amber Dawn, derek beaulieu and many more. Also features an interview with David O’Meara conducted by Kevin Spenst, and much more.

Order the latest issue from poetryisdead.ca.

bpNichol - "Love poem for Gertrude Stein"

Commons 2012 Plunder of the Planet 1 - Stephen Collis

Stephen Collis speaks on the Plunder of the Planet: the Ecological Crisis panel at the Tragedy of the Market: from Crisis to Commons conference on January 8, 2012 in Burnaby, BC. His presentation starts with a short poem from The Commons.

Monodrama!

Word is that MoMA PS1 and Creative Time are working with MTV to resurrect “Art Breaks,” the bite-size video art nuggets that used to air during commercial breaks on the cable network.

Stan Douglas’ Monodramas, ten 30- to 60-second videos from 1991, conceived as interventions into commercial television, interrupted the usual flow of advertising and entertainment when broadcast nightly in British Columbia for three weeks in 1992. These micronarratives mimic televisions editing techniques, but as kernels of a story they refuse to cohere. They are tales of dysfunction and dislocation, misanthropy and misunderstanding. When the videos were aired unannounced during commercial breaks, viewers called the station to inquire about what was being sold, their responses evincing how the media can refocus attention from content to consumption.

Kind of a Drag!

Please join Isolde N. Barron and Apocalypstick this Sunday to help launch Daniel Zomparelli’s first book of poetry, Davie Street Translations.

Davie Street Translations is an edgy new paean to gay male culture in Vancouver and a homage to many of Zomparelli’s poetic idols and sources of inspiration.

This spectacular event (with readings, music, drag show, and other lavish entertainments) will take place at the Cobalt in Vancouver.

Doors open at 8pm and the show starts at 9pm.

Merritts for MacDonald and MacIvor!

We were very pleased to learn that two playwrights published by Talon were the recipients of Merritt Awards on Monday night at a gala event in Halifax.

Bryden MacDonald, a nationally renowned playwright and director, was presented the Mayor’s Award for Achievement in Theatre.

Daniel MacIvor, a Governor General’s Award-winner, received the Merritt for new play by a Nova Scotia for Bingo! which toured Nova Scotia in late July and early August.

The Merritt Awards recognize outstanding achievement in professional theatre in Nova Scotia. Named after educator Robert Merritt, the awards celebrate achievement in areas of acting, directing, playwrighting, design, technical theatre, and overall achievement in Nova Scotian theatre.

Congratulations to all the winners! Click here to see them all.

Vigil is at Montreal's Segal Theatre

A scene from Montreal’s Segal Centre production of Vigil by Morris Panych, playing through April 01, 2012.

Raven Stole the Sun is at SteppingStone Theatre

Based on a traditional Tlingit story as recounted by Sháa Tláa Maria Williams, Raven Stole the Sun is about a fabulous and magical creature of impulse and curiosity. In order to satisfy his overwhelming sense of curiosity, Raven hatches a brilliant scheme for stealing the stars, the moon and the sun and ends up bringing light to the people of the world.

Raven Stole the Sun runs March 23-25 at SteppingStone Theatre in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

A Conversation with Martine Desjardins

A Conversation with Martine Desjardins about her novel Maleficium:

Maleficium is a shift for me, because I have left that realm to venture a little more toward the unreal. Thus the main female character has physical attributes that make her appear foreign, almost monstrous and alien. She has a harelip, but is also described as having a long tail, vulvar stamens, perfumed earwax, thorns growing from her scalp; she is seen carrying a larva in her navel, shedding tortoiseshell tears, extracting iridescent oil from her skin.

> Go to story...

The Long Goodbye: A Review of Morris Panych's Vigil

Morris Panych’s Vigil is reviewed by James MacKillop:

Once playwright Panych has won us over with the audacity of his concept, Kemp’s outrageous lack of compassion, he has given himself the problem of making this increasingly interesting for nearly two hours. Ratcheting up the zingers works for a start: “I’m concerned about your health these past few days: It seems to be improving.” This escalates until Kemp introduces a do-it-yourself suicide machine, with a lethal brick and an electrocutionist’s helmet.

> Go to story...

Do You Pass the Empathy Test for Conceptual Writing?

Does Adeena Karasick consider herself a “conceptual” writer? Here is her response:

So, in asking “Do you consider yourself a Conceptual Poet”, one has to ask – where do the aesthetics begin and the friendships end? How do you continuously (contiguously) belong without belonging in an ever-widening circle of language, production, filiation, power and desire.

> Go to story...

“Living the Border” with Guillermo Verdecchia

Steve Fisher interviews Guillermo Verdecchia about returning to Fronteras Americanas:

It’s a deeply Canadian play, and while I think it makes sense in other places—you could take this play to Mexico, or Argentina, or anywhere, because these borders and bi-cultural negotiations take place all over the world—it’s of ongoing interest to Canadians. It’s another way of looking at our nation; there are plays that have been produced in Canada that hold up an image that I don’t believe ever existed, but we like to think did…

> Go to story...