Showing posts with label McGillis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McGillis. Show all posts

08 January 2024

Canadian Notes & Queries at 114, Véhicule Press at 50, and a Few Favourite Forthcoming Things



A few days into the year and already a new issue of Canadian Notes & Queries. This one – number 114! – features writing by:
Noelle Allen
Tamara Faith Berger
Brian Bethune
Mark Bourrie
Randy Boyagoda
Kate Cayley
Steacy Easton
Alex Good
Brett Josef Grubisic
Canista Lubrin
Ian McGillis
Emily Mernin
John Metcalf
Vanessa Stauffer

As always, the cover is by Seth.

I contribute 'Véhicule Press at Fifty,' an interview with publishers Simon Dardick and Nancy Marrelli. Together we discuss the history and future of the press through ten key titles, beginning with the very first: Bob McGee's Three Sonnets & Fast Drawings

Subscribers also receive the latest issue – number 5! –of The Bibliophile. Just look at the goodness it offers:


So, why not subscribe!

Here's the link.

30 December 2017

My Favourite Read of 2017?



Not Wives and Lovers, the best novel. Not Frustration, the worst. Not Dan Hill's self-flagellating Comeback, the strangest. No, my favourite and most memorable read this year was Judith Merril's Shadow on the Hearth. Ian McGillis posed the question and I answered, with explanation, in the Montreal Gazette.

Kaie Kellough, Sean Michaels, Sina Queyras, Heather O'Neill, Carolyn Marie Souaid, Jack Todd, and Kathleen Winter chime in with theirs.

Read all about it here:



Related posts:

06 October 2016

Tonight: A.M. Klein at the Writers' Chapel



Not Klein himself, of course, but an evening held in celebration of his life, culminating with the unveiling of a plaque in his honour.

Ian McGillis writes about the Chapel in yesterday's Montreal Gazette:


St. Jax Montréal (formerly St. James the Apostle)
1439 St. Catherine Street West (Bishop Street entrance)
Montreal

The event begins at 6:00. 

All are welcome.

02 February 2016

Of War, Peace and Montreal's Writers' Chapel



It seems 2016 has barely begun and yet the year's first issue of Canadian Notes & Queries has already landed. The ninety-fourth, it's the first under the editorship of Emily Donaldson.

My fellow contributors will understand, I hope, when I write that my favourite piece is "My Heart is Broken", a talk delivered by John Metcalf at the unveiling of a memorial plaque to Mavis Gallant at Montreal's Writer's Chapel this past autumn. Ian McGillis provides a companion piece on the venue, its history and the group behind the whole thing.*

Others featured in the issue include:
André Alexis
Heather Birrell
Michael Cho
Jason Dickson
Beth Follett
Douglas Glover
David Godkin
Anita Lahey
David Mason
Michael Prior
Seth
Bruce Whiteman
In my own contribution – another Dusty Bookcase on paper – I make the case for There Are Victories (New York: Covici Friede, 1933), an ambitious, unconventional and next to unobtainable novel by Charles Yale Harrison. Sharp students of Canadian literature will make a link with his Generals Die in Bed (New York: Morrow, 1930), Harrison's first work of fiction, inspired by his experiences in the Great War.


There Are Victories is not a war novel, though I've seen it described as such. The conflict figures only in that a third of the way in the protagonist, Montrealer Ruth Courtney, marries a man who disappears for a time to fight in Europe. He returns damaged, violent, prone to rape, and drawn more than ever to prostitutes. Ruth escapes to Manhattan, where she finds comfort in the arms of another man. He's better only in comparison.

As I write in the piece, There Are Victories is the sort glorious failure that is worthy of attention.

May you be so blessed as to come across a copy.
* Full disclosure: I'm a member of that self-same group.
Related posts:


17 October 2015

Ian McGillis on Montreal's Writers' Chapel



In today's Gazette, a full page devoted to Montreal Writers' Chapel penned by Ian McGillis. Yours truly is quoted.

You can read it online here. And there's a video!

06 May 2015

Thirteen for '15… what's left of it, anyway



A pile of books – beloved underdogs all – recommended by writers polled by Partisan magazine. I'm honoured to have been one.

My selection, Margaret Millar's An Air That Kills, won't come as much of a surprise to regular readers. You know how I'm always going on about her writing. If not An Air That Kills it would've been Vanish in an Instant or Wall of Eyes or The Iron Gates or Beast in View or… But no, with action alternating between Toronto and cottage country, An Air That Kills makes most sense. Summer approaches. Besides, I think it's her best novel.

The Partisan list, numbering thirteen, has some old favourites; I see others deserving reconsideration. I'll be reading them all over the next few months – including the four I don't know at all.

How come no one told me about Jonathan Goldstein's novel?

Anyway, here's the list. I'm presenting it in order of publication for no other reason than it places my selection first, but you'd do better to read the actual Partisan piece.

An Air That Kills – Margaret Millar
Recommended by Brian Busby

From a Seaside Town – Norman Levine
Recommended by Nathan Whitlock

Pandora – Sylvia Fraser
Recommended by Mark Sampson

Dancing Nightly in the Tavern – Mark Anthony Jarman
Recommended by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

Onyx John – Trevor Ferguson
Recommended by Andrew Hood

The Republic of Love – Carol Shields
Recommended by Joel Yanofsky

Wigger – Lawrence Braithwaite
Recommended by Derek McCormack

Paradise, Piece by Piece – Molly Peacock
Recommended by Guillaume Morissette

Lenny Bruce is Dead – Jonathan Goldstein
Recommended by Ian McGillis

A Tourist’s Guide to Glengarry – Ian McGillis
Recommended by Andrew Steinmetz

HA! – Gordon Sheppard
Recommended by Dimitri Nasrallah

The Darren Effect – Libby Creelman
Recommended by Saleema Nawaz

Lighthouse Island – Paulette Jiles
Recommended by Michael Winter


Related post: