news | Tuesday September 3, 2024

ryan fitzpatrick Announced as University of Alberta's Writer-in-Residence

Author and editor ryan fitzpatrick has been announced as University of Alberta’s Writer-in-Residence! fitzpatrick is the author of Coast Mountain Foot, Fortified Castles and more. They are currently working on a collection of essays on asexuality that is forthcoming from Book*hug Press in 2025. Congratulations, ryan!

Read the formal announcement here.

news | Sunday September 1, 2024

Junie Désil Named 2024 Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence!

Author of eat salt | gaze at the ocean and Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize–finalist Junie Désil has been named the 2024 Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence at SFU! Désil will be available for student consultation from September 13th until December 13th, 2024.

Keep your eyes peeled for Désil’s forthcoming spring 2025 poetry collection allostatic load. Congratulations, Junie! We are so excited for the work you’re doing and all of the students who’ll have the opportunity to work with you.

Check out the formal announcement here.

news | Wednesday August 28, 2024

sophie anne edwards on CBC

sophie anne edwards chatted with CBC Sudbury about her forthcoming poetry and visual art collection Conversations with the Kagawong River.

An excerpt from the article: ‘“So over two or three years, I started leaving little cardboard and paper letters on the river for the river to engage with. So I would find, for instance, an otter trail and leave [poetry] along the otter trail, or I would hang pens from trees for the trees and the wind to write together.”

The letters might get moved around by animals, and the resulting combinations might not spell words in either English or Anishinaabemowin, but Edwards saw the process as one of collaborating, she said.

The process forced her to slow down and pay attention and taught her how the ecosystem changes over time.’

Read the article here.


news | Wednesday August 28, 2024

Sangeeta Wylie on On The Coast with Gloria Macarenko

On Friday, tune into CBC Radio’s On the Coast with Gloria Macarenko to hear an interview with debut Talonbooks author Sangeeta Wylie! Learn about Wylie’s outstanding debut play we the same, her upcoming launch, and much more. You didn’t hear it from me, but there may even be a chance to win a copy of we the same, so don’t miss this segment on August 30th at 3:30 p.m. PDT. We can’t wait!

news | Tuesday August 27, 2024

Leanne Dunic Interviewed in Plenitude

L’amour Lisik interviewed Leanne Dunic about her new poetry and photography collection Wet for Plenitude Magazine.

An excerpt from their conversation: “At one point in the novel, we learn “I remember being / on a trip with my ex. / […] He was asleep in my arms / and still / I was empty.” There’s a distinct sense of loneliness, compounded by the photos featuring empty urban landscapes, lifeless figurines, and occasionally people, their faces obscured by shadows, masks, or distance—a juxtaposition between how the narrator feels and the bustling city-state she lives in. How did you go about taking and choosing the photos to include in this project? What was the process for arranging them amongst the poems?

I’m glad that loneliness came through. I think the idea of loneliness as a consequence of climate disaster is often overlooked. If folks didn’t have to quarantine, or stay indoors due to extreme weather, I’d like to think we’d be connecting. I went to Singapore after a seven-year absence, only to arrive with Covid for the first time, and so I was isolated for nearly two weeks—very similar to the character in Wet. The cover is a photo I took in the hotel bathroom while isolating. I took the rest of the photos in the two days that I was no longer testing positive. It was very hard to narrow down and curate the sequences, but I’m happy with the arrangements.”

Read their full interview here and be sure to catch Leanne Dunic at the Victoria Festival of Authors this October! Details here.

news | Friday August 23, 2024

Sangeeta Wylie Interview

Charlie Smith interviewed Sangeeta Wylie about her debut book we the same and her forthcoming book launch with TAIWANFest Vancouver.

An excerpt from the article: ‘The play was inspired by a family’s true story. However, Wylie created different characters and added various elements to the story based on her research and imagination.

“I was in such awe and admiration of this woman to have survived in those conditions with six children under the age of eight,” Wylie, who’s also a dentist, tells Pancouver. “I know the family—so many of the people—and the way that they have survived has been with a lot of grace and kindness and warmth.”

The playwright travelled to Vietnam and Malaysia to trace the family’s journey. And this first trip to Vietnam changed her.’

Read the full article here, and don’t miss Wylie’s book launch on September 2. Get your tickets here.

news | Wednesday August 21, 2024

Two Talonites in BC Booklook's Alphabet

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize–finalist Samantha Nock, author of A Family of Dreamers and author of lettuce lettuce please go bad Tiziana La Melia are letters “N” and “T” respectively in BC BookLook’s Who’s Who alphabet. Learn your authorial ABCs here.

news | Wednesday August 21, 2024

Dorothy Dittrich Interviewed in Monday Magazine

Tim Collins interviewed Dorothy Dittrich about The Piano Teacher: A Healing Key, her Governor General’s Literary Award–winning play, in Monday Magazine.

An excerpt from the article: ‘“The play explores the power of music and the power of the human spirit,” Dittrich says. “It’s also about the power of friendship. Erin meets a friend who guides her from her nightmares. The lesson, I suppose, is that while the emotion of grief is a private one, it doesn’t mean that we have to go through it alone.”’

A production of The Piano Teacher runs at Chemainus Theatre starting September 26. To purchase tickets, click here. To read the complete article in Monday Magazine, click here.

news | Tuesday August 20, 2024

Taylor Marie Graham Interviewed in Cambridge Today

Doug Coxson interviewed Taylor Marie Graham about Cottage Radio & Other Plays and Corporate Finch which will be performed at the International Fringe Theatre Festival in Cambridge Today.

An excerpt from the article: ‘Now that her plays are available to a wider audience in print, Graham hopes there are still a few people out there who enjoy reading them as much as she does.

“You get to become the director. You get to make all those decisions, those visual decisions. You get to decide with the actors sound like you get to decide what the lights look like you get to design the set,” she says.’

Read the complete piece here.

news | Tuesday August 6, 2024

August is Women in Translation Month!

August is Women in Translation Month! We want to take this opportunity to showcase and celebrate some of the incredible women who extend the reach of great literature to English-speaking audiences and the authors who allow us to interpret and share their work. Here are a handful of books in translation we’ve had the honour of working on that we would love to recommend to mark the occasion:

Hot off the press is the winner of the 2020 Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal The Boys’ Club: The Many Worlds of Male Power by Martine Delvaux and translated by Katia Grubisic! Acclaimed Québec feminist writer Martine Delvaux turns her sharp eye and sharper pen on the brazen misogyny of men in power in every field, including Hollywood, politics, tech, law enforcement, architecture, religion, and the military. In this piercing study of patriarchy, Delvaux points out the deleterious effects of the tunnel vision that results from only seeing and reflecting the male experience. A study of the social impacts of visual media, The Boys’ Club looks at the history of gentlemen’s clubs and male fraternity on a global scale. The Boys’ Club exposes a culture of consumption which profits off the female experience while disregarding the female voice.

As Always: A Memoir of a Life in Writing by Madeleine Gagnon and translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott is an engaging memoir from one of Canada’s greatest literary figures. Re-examining the influences of her early life in a large, rural Catholic family, Madeleine Gagnon not only explores her rejection of unexamined values as part of her intellectual development but also her refusal to be categorized by her gender.

Winner of the 1998 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation Bambi and Me by Michel Tremblay and translated by Sheila Fischman consists of 12 autobiographical pieces about how movies shaped the young life of Michel Tremblay, one of their biggest fans. Bursting with wit, charm, and the profound resonance of youthful self-discovery, check out Bambi and Me today.

Canoes is a gorgeous collection of short stories written by Maylis de Kerangal and translated by Jessica Moore. In Canoes seven stories orbit a central novella, creating a collection that resonates with the vibrations and frequencies of women’s voices. Daughters, friends, sisters, young and old, talkative or daydreaming – in this moving and poetic collection, Maylis de Kerangal casts light on them all.

Winner of the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Drama Tom at the Farm by Michel Marc Bouchard and translated by Linda Gaboriau follows urban ad executive Tom as he travels to the country to attend the funeral of his lover and to meet his mother-in-law, Agatha, and her son, Francis – neither of whom know Tom even exists. In a play that unfolds with progressively blurred boundaries between lust and brutality, between truth and elaborate fiction, Bouchard dramatizes how gay men often must learn to lie before they learn how to love.

Finally, if you haven’t had a chance to check out Medusa by Martine Desjardins and translated by Oana Avasilichioaei, there’s no better time than now! Medusa walks with her head down, face hidden behind her hair to spare others the sight of her Deformities – eyes so horrible they repel women and petrify men. Medusa is a modern gothic of women’s body shame and men’s body shaming, phallocratic oppression, and the redemptive power of a feminist imagination. With ironic wit, Medusa confesses her incendiary story, throwing light, both raw and refined, on monstrosity.

This month and every month we are so grateful to the brilliant, award-winning women working in translation who allow us to share their words.