news | Wednesday August 5, 2020

$40 for the Desrosiers Diaspora series!

To celebrate the publication of the first four of nine volumes of renowned Québec author Michel Tremblay’s Desrosiers Diaspora series, we are having a sale!

You can pick up all four volumes for $40.00, or, if you only need to buy one to update your set, receive 30% off a single volume.

To order all four copies, click on one of the following four title links and scroll down: on the bottom left-hand side of the page, you’ll see the option to click “Add to cart” to buy all four volumes in the series. To receive 30% off one title, click on the correct book below, and add it to your cart.

• Crossing the Continent
• Crossing the City
• A Crossing of Hearts
• Rite of Passage

The Desrosiers Diaspora series spans the North American continent in the early years of the twentieth century. In nine linked books, this 1,400-­page family saga provides the backstory for some of Tremblay’s best-­loved characters, particularly Rhéauna, known as Nana, who later becomes the eponymous character in Tremblay’s award-­winning first novel, The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant, and who is based on Tremblay’s own mother. The Desrosiers Diaspora follows Nana and the other remarkable Desrosiers women, including Nana’s grandmother, Joséphine, and her mother and aunts, Maria, Teena, and Tittite, as they leave and return to the tiny village of Sainte-Maria-de-Saskatchewan, dispersing to Rhode Island, Montréal, Ottawa, and Duhamel in the Laurentians. In Tremblay’s vivid, headlong prose, with its meticulously observed moments both large and small, the Desrosiers’ tumultuous and entwined lives are revealed as occasionally happy, often cruel and impulsive.

The first four volumes of the Desrosiers Diaspora series have been translated into English by Sheila Fischman and Linda Gaboriau and published by Talonbooks. English translations of novels five through nine are forthcoming. In French, they were published by Leméac Éditeur.

news | Monday July 27, 2020

George Elroy Boyd has passed at age 68

We are sad to share that Talon author and former CBC broadcaster George Elroy Boyd has died.

Born in 1952, Boyd was a highly acclaimed Nova Scotian playwright and journalist. His plays have been produced by the Neptune Theatre, Eastern Front Theatre, Obsidian Theatre, and the CBC. The founder of the Canadian Black Theatre Society, Boyd was nominated for a Governor General’s Award for his play Consecrated Ground (2000). Another play, Gideon’s Blues, was been adapted into film, which was released in the winter of 2004.

Our condolences to his loved ones.

news | Thursday July 23, 2020

Oana Avasilichioaei on the cover of the Montreal Review of Books

Oana Avasilichioaei is on the front cover of the current issue of the Montreal Review of Books, available online today! The cover story explores Avasilichioaei’s multi-genre poetic practice, including her wonderful book Eight Track.

Writes Klara du Plessis, “One of the many strengths of Avasilichioaei’s practice is that a reader can pick up the material object that is the book and flip through its pages, then transform into a listener attending the public, sensory expansion of the book’s words into sound, while simultaneously morphing into a viewer of art, a critical thinker, and even a participant implicitly invited to adapt one of the poems as a script for further improvisation and production. “

Read the full cover story, and pick up your copy of Eight Track today!

news | Tuesday July 21, 2020

Wanda John-Kehewin reads from Seven Sacred Truths

Rungh has shared a video of Wanda John-Kehewin reading from her book, Seven Sacred Truths.

Check out the reading below, and pick up a copy of Seven Sacred Truths today!

news | Monday July 20, 2020

Synapses excerpted by Geist

Our friends over at Geist magazine have published a great excerpt from Simon Brousseau’s Synapses, translated by Pablo Strauss.

Check out the excerpt.

And pick up your copy of Synapses today!

news | Friday July 10, 2020

A new printing of Crossing the Continent – with a new cover!

Crossing the Continent is the first instalment in beloved Québécois author Michel Tremblay’s Desrosiers Diaspora series. Translated by Sheila Fischman, it won the 2008 Prix du grand public Salon du livre de Montréal / La Presse.

We have republished it with a beautiful new cover drawn by BC artist and illustrator Brad Collins.

Crossing the Continent tells the story of Rhéauna, who is born in Providence, Rhode Island, to a Cree mother and a French father. Affectionately known throughout Tremblay’s work as “Nana,” she has was previously sent with her two younger sisters, Béa and Alice, to be raised on her maternal grandparents’ farm in Sainte-Maria-de-Saskatchewan, a francophone Catholic enclave of two hundred souls. At the age of ten, amid swaying fields of wheat under the idyllic prairie sky of her loving foster family, Nana is suddenly told by her mother, whom she hasn’t seen in five years and who now lives in Montreal, to come “home” and help take care of her new baby brother.

Novels Crossing the City (2009 Prix du grand public Salon du livre de Montréal / La Presse), A Crossing of Hearts, and Rite of Passage, instalments two, three, and four in Tremblay’s saga, have also been published by Talonbooks.

Pick up your copy of Crossing the Continent today!

news | Thursday July 9, 2020

Iron Peggy has arrived!

We are so pleased to welcome Iron Peggy!

Iron Peggy, by award-winning, international Métis performer and playwright Marie Clements, was commissioned by the Vancouver International Children’s Festival and premiered at Vancouver’s Waterfront Theatre in 2019.

Peg is struggling for survival at her boarding school. Three über-cool “it” girls take aim at Peg and make her life utterly miserable. When her beloved Grandmother dies she just wants to disappear. Then an unexpected gift arrives; inside it, Peg finds three cast-iron Canadian soldiers. In despair, she throws them against the floor. How can they help her? They are so small, and the girls’ shadow is so big. But, miraculously, the toys come to life as Indigenous snipers from World War I, just in time to wage an epic battle against the girls. A powerful play that will appeal to audiences both young and old, Iron Peggy uses a creative and ever-surprising blend of voices and sceneries to tell this moving story. With 2018 marking the 100th-year anniversary of WWI, Iron Peggy is an excellent introduction to its history and a touching testimony that not only celebrates the First Nation participation in the war effort but also a young girl’s personal victory.

Pick up your copy of Iron Peggy today!

news | Tuesday June 30, 2020

Arleen Pare reads from Earle Street

Arleen Pare reads from Earle Street for Planet Earth Poetry! Check it out.

news | Friday June 26, 2020

Cottagers and Indians – now with the Leacock Medal finalist sticker!

Wow! Look how nice the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour finalist sticker looks on Drew Hayden Taylor’s Cottagers and Indians!

Pick up your copy at https://talonbooks.com/books/cottagers-and-indians – it’s currently 25% off, like all books on our website!

news | Friday June 19, 2020

2020 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards nominations

Two plays that will be published soon by Talonbooks have been nominated for 2020 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards.

Congratulations to Tetsuro Shigematsu, whose most recent play, Kuroko, was nominated for nine (!!) Jessie Richardson Theatre awards, including Outstanding Original Script!

Congrats as well to Marie Clements, whose team for Iron Peggy has been nominated for three Jessie Richardson Theatre awards!

Check out the longlist of nominees here!

news | Tuesday June 9, 2020

Searching for Sam has arrived!

Searching for Sam is the second book by popular Québécois novelist Sophie Bienvenu that Talon has published! (Around Her, pictured above, is the first.)

Searching for Sam tells the story of Mathieu, who lives on the street. His main companion is his pitbull, Sam – the one connection he retains in the world, helping him to stay alive. So when Sam disappears out of the blue, Mathieu is left adrift. As he frantically searches for her, his past begins to re-emerge in flashbacks, revealing the tragedies of his life.

Translated by Rhonda Mullins, Searching for Sam is a monologue written from Mathieu’s perspective, one that draws the reader into his interior world. As writer and journalist Marie Hélène Poitras writes in her insightful foreword, it is a book about survivors that “offers readers … a powerful human experience.”

Pick up your copy of Searching for Sam today!

news | Friday June 5, 2020

Justice for Chantel Moore

We were horrified and deeply saddened to read that a young Nuu-chah-nulth woman, Chantel Moore, from British Columbia, was shot and killed by police on early on Thursday morning in Edmundston, New Brunswick. The Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council has called for Immediate Action for Justice for Chantel Moore.

People across Canada have been speaking out about police violence against Indigenous people and Black people. Here in BC, the Independent Investigations Office of BC is currently investigating dozens of instances of death and serious harm of civilians that took place at the hands of the RCMP and municipal police forces just this year.

We here at Talon add our voices to those who are demanding justice.

news | Thursday June 4, 2020

Black Lives Matter

We here at Talon stand with Black Canadians and Americans fighting for justice against police violence (the photo above is from the demonstration held at the Vancouver Art Gallery on Sunday, May 31, which one of our staffers attended). We encourage our readers to educate themselves about fatal encounters with police in Canada, in particular the disproportionate violence faced by Black Canadians and Indigenous Peoples. If you are able, please consider donating to a fund that supports justice and well-being for Black and Indigenous Canadians – The Leap has developed a good list of resources.

We must daily engage in the ongoing work of freeing our society from racism. While the most violent examples of racism are horrible, and must be vocally opposed, day-to-day struggles for justice and equality are equally important – both to create a world in which this violence does not take place, and in general to create a more welcoming and just society.

news | Friday May 22, 2020

annie ross on CBC's North by Northwest

Talon author annie ross was on CBC’s North by Northwest this past Sunday, May 17, to talk about Pots and Other Living Beings.

Check it out – her segment begins at 1:44:54.

news | Tuesday May 19, 2020

"every miracle is a hidden (yet in plain-view) supernatural event."

Poet Rob Taylor interviewed annie ross about Pots and Other Living Beings for Read Local BC. Check it out!

news | Tuesday May 19, 2020

Daphne Marlatt reads for SpokenWeb

This month’s Spoken Web podcast minisode features Talon author Daphne Marlatt reading “Lagoon” from Vancouver Poems, published in 1972. Check it out!

Want to read more? Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now gathers many of the poems from Vancouver Poems, somewhat revised or in some cases substantially revised, and follows them with “Liquidities,” a series of recent poems about Vancouver’s incessant deconstruction and reconstruction, its quick transformations both on the ground and in urban imagining.

news | Wednesday May 13, 2020

Curb-side pick-up at Talonbooks!

Talon is now doing curb-side pick-ups at our office in Vancouver, BC! We’re located next to the Fraser River, near the Oak Street bridge – if you’re in the Lower Mainland, give us a call at 604-444-4889 to order books and schedule a pick-up!

news | Monday May 4, 2020

Talonbooks Reading Sale! 25% off all titles, plus new shipping rates!

Talonbooks is holding a Reading Sale! And we’ve extended it until June 30!

From now till June 1 June 30, all books on our website are 25% off!

Additionally, freight rates for US customers are now lower: your first book costs $6 to ship, and all subsequent books in the same order cost only $2.

Check out our frontlist for amazing new books by Bill Richardson, Roy Miki, Mercedes Eng, Michel Tremblay, Arleen Paré, and many more!

And browse your favourite older books by heading to talonbooks.com/books.

news | Monday May 4, 2020

Drew Hayden Taylor's Cottagers and Indians shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour

We are so pleased to share that Drew Hayden Taylor’s Cottagers and Indians has been shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.

Congratulations, Drew!!

news | Thursday April 30, 2020

David Fennario's Banana Boots documentary is available on the NFB!

In search of something great to quaranscreen? David Fennario’s Banana Boots documentary is available on the National Film Board of Canada website.

Banana Boots is a one-man-show / memoir in which Fennario recounts, with astonishing insight and wit, the phenomenon of taking his famous bilingual play Balconville to Belfast on a British / Canadian cultural mission. Given the subject of Balconville, that the real problem in Quebec is not one of language or culture, but one of British imperialism and the class structure it imposes on its “colonials,” the ironies of such an event are, of course, both delicious and irresistible.

Pick up your copy of Banana Boots here, and screen the documentary here.