news | Wednesday August 12, 2026

Québec Book Day 2026

August 12 is Québec Book Day! The literary scene in Québec is world class and Talonbooks has the joy of publishing so many incredible authors, poets, playwrights, and thinkers based throughout the province. Here are some recent and forthcoming books by Québec-based authors that we think you’ll love:

1. Sailors Can’t Swim by Dominique Scali translated by Jessica Moore

The winner of the 2023 Prix des libraires du Québec, the 2023 Prix Jacques-Brossard de la science-fiction et du fantastique, and the 2023 French Prix Imaginales will soon be available in English! The island of Ys in the Atlantic ocean is a place of great stratification. The rich live safely behind high, city walls while on the shores, the poor must rebuild again and again after every great tide. Danaé Poussin, an orphan born with the rare and suspect ability to swim, flows between shore, city, and sea, steering through the rocky possibilities for women in the calm before revolution. Pre-order your copy here.

2. A Great Consolation by Michel Tremblay translated by Linda Gaboriau

Books 8 and 9 of the award-winning Desrosiers Diaspora series place us in Montréal in 1935 and 1941, following the Desrosiers family through twists, turns, triumphs, and tragedies. Order your copy here.

3. SUBTEXT by Nicole Raziya Fong

This genre-defying book of poetry sifts through dreams, refracting the language of identity formation. It collages the echoes of diasporic and colonial histories through poetry, drama, autobiography, and archival uncovering. Order your copy here.

4. The Tao of the World by Jovanni Sy

Premiering right now at Stratford Festival, his bawdy play asks what it means for things to return to normal. Recently liberated from the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore’s wealthy elite – armed with taste, bon mots, and the invisible labour of the working class – scheme, woo, connive, and behave badly. Pick up your copy here.

5. Uiesh / Somewhere by Joséphine Bacon, translated by Jessica Moore

This award-winning, dual-language poetry collection presents gorgeous poems side by side in Innu-aimun and English. With empathy and deep observation, these poems travel between the clamour of Montréal and the nomadic ways of Bacon’s Ancestors in Nitassinan. Get your copy here.

6. Convivialities: Dialogues on Poetics by Michael Nardone

How are the great arts practitioners of our time thinking about the world? About creating? Through conversations with luminaries and recipients of awards such as the Pulitzer Prize, the Venice Biennale’s Silver Lion, the PEN American Open Book Award, the MacArthur Fellowship, and more, Michael Nardone investigates. Order your copy here.

Happy Québec Book Day!

news | Tuesday August 11, 2026

The Vancouver Sun on bill bissett: Over 40 Years of Art

The Vancouver Sun names bill bissett: Over 40 Years of Art at the Wil Aballe Gallery one of the top five must-see art events in Vancouver. This exhibit highlights the visual art of the multi-talented bill bissett, author of th book uv lost passwords 1, its th sailors life / still in treetment, and more.

The article quotes Wil Aballe, who says “Bill Bissett is one of the most significant and under-recognized figures in Vancouver’s conceptual art history, … The show is an opportunity to place Bill’s visual work in the context it deserves, alongside the city’s broader lineage of conceptualism … It’s also part of a longer-term commitment of my gallery to bridge Vancouver’s historically significant artists with the emerging Canadian scene we represent today.”

bill bissett: Over 40 Years of Art is on at the Wil Aballe Gallery until September 5. See more details here.

To learn more about some of the exciting art events in the city of Vancouver this August, read The Vancouver Sun’s full article here.

news | Monday August 10, 2026

An Article on George Bowering

Silas Kaufman

Cecily Ross pens a piece about George Bowering in The Literary Review of Canada, covering his farewell collection Pearl, Bowering’s profound legacy, and more. Ross says of Pearl, “Lyric poems reflect Bowering’s sly humour and love of everyday … detail.” Read the article here.

news | Sunday August 9, 2026

Jónína Kirton on Wax Poetic

Jónína Kirton, author of Save Your Prayers – Send Money, An Honest Woman, and more, is a guest on the radio show Wax Poetic! Kirton talks about the knowledge of the body, what it means to care for another being (be that plant or human), and how love changes with age. Hear Kirton read her poems and listen to the interview here.

news | Thursday August 6, 2026

A Review of SUBTEXT

rob mclennan wrote a review of SUBTEXT, the new book of poetry by Nicole Raziya Fong. mclennan refers to it as “cinematic” and “compelling.” SUBTEXT 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. Read the full review here.

news | Wednesday August 5, 2026

Women in Translation Month 2026

August is Women in Translation Month! It’s refreshing to see translated works (and the highly skilled women in the field) get more shine in recent years. The work of translation is the work of connection, it’s essential. To mark the occasion, Talonbooks is highlighting three works, recent and forthcoming, translated with remarkable finesse that we’d like to celebrate.

1. Uiesh / Somewhere by Joséphine Bacon, translated by Jessica Moore, finalist for the 2026 Pat Lowther Memroial Award and winner of the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation! Uiesh / Somewhere is a dual-language book of poems that 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. Pick up a copy here

2. Dear Chekhov by Michel Tremblay, translated by Linda Gaboriau is forthcoming this October! Familial bonds and tensions are on glorious display over a Thanksgiving dinner in this new play by Michel Tremblay in which he re-examines an old, unfinished script that pays tribute to the great Anton Chekhov. Pre-order a copy here.

3. Sailors Can’t Swim by Dominique Scali, translated by Jessica Moore arrives back from the printer this September! Part oceanic fairy tale, part history of an alternate eighteenth century, the winner of the 2023 Prix des libraires du Québec, Prix Jacques-Brossard de la science-fiction et du fantastique, and French prix imaginales will soon be available in English. Get your copy here.

We wish you a wonderful month of reading!

news | Tuesday August 4, 2026

cop city swagger on Warland Award Shortlist

We’re thrilled to see cop city swagger by Mercedes Eng on the shortlist for the 2025 Warland Award! The Warland award is administered annually to an exceptional hybrid-genre book published in Canada.⁠
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cop city swagger combines poetry with documentary practices to examine whose safety really matters in the most expensive city in the nation. ⁠
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Congratulations to all of the shortlisted authors! Learn more here.

news | Friday July 24, 2026

Recording of George Bowering Interviewing Daphne Marlatt

The University of British Columbia Okanagan published a recording of George Bowering (Pearl, Taking Measures, and more) interviewing Daphne Marlatt (Intertidal, Then Now, and more)! Tune in here to listen to these two icons of Canadian literature converse.

news | Wednesday July 22, 2026

An Interview with Jenn Ashton in The Vancouver Guardian

Check out this interview in The Vancouver Guardian with Jenn Ashton, a finalist for the 2026 Sunshine Coast Writers and Editor’s Society’s Book Awards for BC Authors! Here she shares some of her art, what it’s like to have her new book based on her teenage journals Growing My Way Home in the world, and more. To learn more about this multi-talented creative, click here.

news | Tuesday July 21, 2026

Growing My Way Home a Finalist for Book Award for BC Authors!

Growing My Way Home by Jenn Ashton is a finalist for the 2026 Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society’s fourth annual Book Awards for BC Authors in the Indigenous Voices category! A huge congratulations to Jenn! Growing My Way Home is a powerful story of struggle, perseverance, and reconnection based on Ashton’s teenage diaries. Check out all of this year’s finalists here.