news | Saturday March 8, 2025

Women's History Month

March is Women’s History Month, and today, March 8, is International Women’s Day. It’s the perfect opportunity to express our gratitude to the women whose shoulders we stand on and to those now squaring up their own shoulders. To celebrate Women’s History Month, here are just a handful titles by brilliant women working in poetry, in fiction, in memoir, and in drama that we’d love to recommend.

1. The Ballad of Ginger Goodwin & Kitimat: Two Plays for Workers by Elaine Ávila

Discover how Canada got the eight-hour workday! Visit the first town to vote on Big Oil! The Ballad of Ginger Goodwin recreates the events surrounding the mysterious death of Albert “Ginger” Goodwin, who led a strike at a Canadian zinc smelter in Trail, BC, that brought the WW I British war machine to a halt. In Kitimat, residents of an industry town in the glorious BC wilderness struggle to decide between economic prosperity and environmental protection when they must vote yes or no to a proposed oil pipeline. Pick up your copy here.

2. Revolutions by Hajer Mirwali

Forthcoming this spring is Hajer Mirwali’s debut book, Revolutions. Revolutions sifts through the grains of Muslim daughterhood to reveal two metaphorical circles inextricably overlapping: shame and pleasure. In an extended conversation with Mona Hatoum’s artwork + and –, Revolutions 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. Pre-order your copy here.

3. Grazie by Lucia Frangione

Grazie is Lucia Frangione’s first novel. When Graziana’s violent stalker dies in a car crash, the abrupt news and its resulting catharsis land her in hospital. Her eight-year-old, the willful and creative Hazel, suddenly becomes the ward of Grandpa “Grumpy” Herman, while her mother embarks on a necessary path to healing – a path that includes a pilgrimage to Italy to bike the famous Via Francigena. Get your copy of Grazie here.

4. allostatic load by Junie Désil

Junie Désil’s new poetry collection is arriving in April! allostatic load navigates the racialized interplay of chronic wear and tear during tumultuous years marked by global racial tensions, the commodification of care, and the burden of systemic injustice. Moving between diaristic intimacy and the remove of news reportage, Désil’s second poetry collection invites readers to hold the vulnerability and resilience required to navigate deep healing in a world that does not wish you well and where true restoration and health must co-occur with the planet and with each other. Pre-order your copy here.

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

Hot off the press! The dual-language edition of Uiesh / Somewhere in Innu-aimun and English has just hit the shelves! The poems in Uiesh / Somewhere 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. From her quiet centre, she listens to the voices of the Old Ones, whose stories are alive within her, and reflects on the beauty and the pain of her long life. Order your copy here.

6 They Called Me Number One by Bev Sellars

Like thousands of Indigenous children, Xatsu’ll chief Bev Sellars spent part of her childhood as a student in a church-run residential school. In this frank, powerful, and poignant memoir of her years at St. Joseph’s Mission, Sellars breaks her silence about the residential school’s lasting effects on her and her family—from substance abuse to suicide attempts—and shares her own path to healing. Purchase your copy here.

7. The Boys’ Club by Martine Delvaux, translated by Katia Grubisic

The Boys’ Club examines the history of gentlemen’s clubs and male fraternity in this devastating wide-reaching study of patriarchy. Delvaux lays bare the brazen misogyny of boys’ clubs across many fields, including media, politics, technology, law enforcement, architecture, and the military. Examining popular media produced by men about men, The Boys’ Club exposes a culture of consumption which profits off female experiences while disregarding female voices. Pick up your copy here.

8. cop city swagger by Mercedes Eng

Investigating whose safety really matters in the most expensive city in the nation, cop city swagger conducts a threat assessment of Vancouver’s police. Holding close lived and living connections to the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown neighbourhoods, Eng juxtaposes the police’s and the city’s institutional rhetoric with their acts of violence against marginalized people, presenting a panoramic media montage of structural harm and community care. Order your copy here.

9. Crowd Source by Cecily Nicholson

Forthcoming this spring, Crowd Source parallels the daily migration of crows who, aside from fledgling season, journey across metro Vancouver every day at dawn and dusk. Continuing Nicholson’s attention to contemporary climate crisis, social movements, and Black diasporic relations, this is a text for all concerned with practising ecological futurities befitting corvid sensibilities. Pre-order your copy here.

We are proud to work with women who dig their heels in, who refuse to cooperate with oppressive systems, and who continue to push creative boundaries with their brilliance, their vision, and their words. We’re grateful for the sharing of stories and ideas, the lighthearted and the serious alike. Happy Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day! We wish you good reading.