“The trick was not to let them see you suffering,” (Foss 142). There’s too much happening in middle-aged single parent Elin Henriksen’s life. Her distant mother’s health is declining, her teenage daughter Betts is planning on going somewhere but won’t tell Elin where, the new high school principal where she teaches disapproves of how she …
I received this book from Playwrights Canada Press in exchange for an honest review. “Behave. YOU DON’T THINK I’VE TRIED THAT? For years and years. Waited my turn and raised my hand and it doesn’t CHANGE ANYTHING – behaving – just makes me easier to ignore,” (Jeffery 77). A group of former girl scouts begin to lose trust …
I received this book from Playwrights Canada Press in exchange for an honest review. “He knows where everyone is! He just doesn’t want to tell us,” (Walsh 105). Things have not been going well for twelve-year-old Genevieve, her mom is missing and Genevieve has to help out around the house and make sandwiches for her many brothers and …
“I’m a coward. I run from knowing everything…I can’t grasp death. The immensity, the finality, if you don’t believe there’s a place where someone is waiting for you. I don’t know what to do with something so immovable. To know you can see someone only by looking back,” (Jackson 284). Things have been rough for twenty-four …
CW: Sexual assault (off-page), animal death. “I will hide her small truths in this story and she will take shape among the pages, emerge like a pop-up, come face to face with the reader. Then they will know. Then, his story will be concluded,” (Parker 86). Famous Canadian author Baby Davidson is writing a memoir, or …
“I think it is critical that non-Indigenous Canadians be aware of how deeply the Indian Act penetrated, controlled, and continues to control, most aspects of the lives of First Nations. It is an instrument of oppression,” (Joseph 4). I didn’t learn about residential schools until I was in university and to this day I’m grateful for my …
“These letters, and the people who wrote them, were a lifeline for me, an antidote, a cure for the sudden stillness of the wheels under me,” (Coyote 5). During the beginning of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Ivan Coyote found themselves grounded in Ontario after years of performing and speaking around the world. During this time, …
“If it had not rained on a certain May morning Valancy Stirling’s whole life would have been entirely different,” (Montgomery 9). Twenty-nine-year-old Valancy Stirling lives a sad and lonely life with her overbearing mother and strange aunt, never having been in love and considered the “old maid” of the Stirling clan. The only solace she …
“I write as though I’m writing about someone else. ‘I’ is an invention to prove we exist. ‘I’ is the line drawn through the fabric of time. ‘I’ imposes meaning on random events. ‘I’ implies significance,” (Thanh 16). Yasuko Thanh’s memoir follows her early childhood in Victoria, B.C as an honour role student and embracer …
I received this book from Playwrights Canada Press in exchange for an honest review. “Pickle veggies on the side, milky coffee on the ice Your pick of rice, friend or white, at no additional price Not only that, I got a burner stove and cans of gas So you can slurp a bowl of pho …
Sarah O'Connor 