news | Wednesday May 6, 2026

An Interview with Jónína Kirton

Shari Narine interviews Jónína Kirton, author of the new hybrid poetry and prose collection Save Your Prayers – Send Money for windspeaker.com. The pair discuss Kirton’s new book, why Kirton decided on hybridity for this latest collection, unpacking trauma, and more.

An excerpt from their discussion:

“Red River Métis-Icelandic author Jónína Kirton hopes her newest book, Save Your Prayers – Send Money, makes people think about how they respond to those who have chronic illnesses.

The title ‘is a bit cheeky. And you know, we Métis, we’re cheeky. It’s one of our favourite things,’ said Kirton. She said the title is meant to be poetic. The word money is intended to be a metaphor for support.

‘We need actual practical support.’

The “we” Kirton refers to are people who have chronic illnesses and their caregivers. She contends that better supports are needed for both.

‘Prayers are not enough,’ she writes.”

Read the complete interview here.

news | Tuesday May 5, 2026

Hajer Mirwali Is a Finalist for the Trillum Book Award for Poetry!

Revolutions, the debut collection by Hajer Mirwali, is a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry! Revolutions sifts through the grains of Muslim daughterhood to reveal two metaphorical circles inextricably overlapping: shame and pleasure. This collection asks how young Arab women – who live in homes and communities where actions are surveilled and categorized as 3aib or not 3aib, shameful or acceptable – make and unmake their identities. Way to go, Hajer! The Trillium Book Award for Poetry is given to an exceptional first, second, or third book of poetry from an Ontario-based author. Read the official announcement here.

news | Friday May 1, 2026

th book uv lost passwords 1 in The British Columbia Review

Harold Rhenisch writes about his experiences on a road trip with bill bissett and shares his thoughts on bissett’s latest work, th book uv lost passwords 1 in The British Columbia Review. Rhenisch says, “When bill reads, he creates a charged space by chanting and shaking a rattle. That enhanced excitement is here throughout the book, too.” Read the full article here.

news | Thursday April 30, 2026

Save Your Prayers – Send Money an Indigenous & Lit Book Club Pick!

Jónína Kirton new book Save Your Prayers – Send Money is Black Walnut Books’s Indigenous & Lit Book Club pick for their July 19 session! Save Your Prayers – Send Money delves into disability politics through the lived experience of a seventy-year-old Métis woman and recovering New Ager. Moving between poetry and prose, in this collection Kirton takes on the wellness industry and explores how a peace might be found whether we heal or not.

Check out all of Black Walnut Books’ picks for their 2026 Indigenous & Lit Book Club here.

news | Wednesday April 29, 2026

Kevin Loring on Global News

Kevin Loring speaks about his award-winning play Little Red Warrior and His Lawyer: A Trickster Land Claim Fable with Juliane Bodini on Global News. Loring discusses the impetus for writing the play, the importance of the story at this moment, and more. A production of Little Red Warrior and His Lawyer is running now at Regina’s Globe Theatre, get your tickets here. Watch the interview here.

news | Tuesday April 28, 2026

Caroline Russell-King on Redeye

Caroline Russell-King is a guest on the podcast Redeye! She delves into the new play that she co-wrote with Maria Crooks, Selma Burke: Carving a Sculptor’s Life. Russell-King chats about finding Selma Burke as the subject of the play, the process of dramturgy, and what she hopes people take from the play. Listen to the interview here.

news | Sunday April 26, 2026

Nicole Raziya Fong on All Lit Up

All Lit Up features Nicole Raziya Fong for their National Poetry Month series, Poets Resist, where twenty-one poets use poetry to push back against marginalizing forces. Nicole Raziya Fong reads work from their new collection SUBTEXT, which takes a multifaceted approach to questions of diaspora and selfhood, incorporating visual and textual elements that dialogue with one another and ask readers to negotiate the unsteady shoals of identity and history. They also give an interview on the role poetry might have in resistance. From the interview:

“Poetry’s resistance is formal, historical, and personal. Poetry is a place where we can begin to approach that which cannot be plainly stated in ordinary speech. Poetry has the potential to work within language to dissemble the walls created between things—both visually and conceptually.”

Listen to Nicole Raziya Fong read and check out their interview with the All Lit Up team here.

news | Saturday April 25, 2026

Elee Kraljii Gardiner on North by Northwest with Margaret Gallagher

On April 18, Elee Kraljii Gardiner was a guest on North by Northwest with Margaret Gallagher! The pair chatted about Kraljii Gardiner’s new collection sometimes, forest, her time as Vancouver’s Poet Laureate and her legacy project, the practice of co-creating art with the woods, hylofeminism, the benefits of “becoming strange to yourself,” and more. In Kraljii Gardiner’s new collection, the speaker revisits the same forest every day, noting the changes both inside and outside of herself as she does. Listen to their conversation and get your dose of Elee Kraljii Gardiner reading her remarkable poetry here.

news | Friday April 24, 2026

Taryn Hubbard Named Chilliwack's Inaugural Poet Laureate!

Some great news from Chilliwack, BC: Taryn Hubbard, author of the brand new poetry collection Beautiful Unknown Future, Desire Path, and more has been named Chilliwack’s inaugural Poet Laureate! Congratulations on this exciting news, Taryn! Read the Chilliwack Arts Council’s press release here.

news | Thursday April 23, 2026

Hot Off the Press! Verbal Violence Is Here!

Verbal Violence by poet and malprofessional Danielle LaFrance has landed and is ready to storm your bookshelf! Verbal Violence unravels, dissects, and shreds the language of the professional managerial class. Hacking up neoliberal doublespeak, ideological reproduction, and progressive-except-Palestine rhetoric, Verbal Violence spits it out time and time again.

An excerpt from Verbal Violence:

Verbal Violence confronts capitalism’s managerial style guide for saying nothing at all with the fiery and empathetic conscience of the managed, their cri de cœur cracking the straight-faced bureaucracy of our most banal communications. Pick up your copy here.