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Sara Hailstone
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Wretched
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“green.,” by Zachari Logan is a book of poetry that could be placed on a coffee table for readers to pick up and flip through. With the sage green front and back covers, and wedge of hand-drawn illustrations by the author filling the middle of the t
“green.,” by Zachari Logan is a book of poetry that could be placed on a coffee table for readers to pick up and flip through. With the sage green front and back covers, and wedge of hand-drawn illustrations by the author filling the middle of the text, “green.,” is a filigree of fecundity, a visual art piece accompanied by poetry. I read the volume this way, absorbing a poem a piece, while dividing the volume and taking in one illustration each time. Published by Radiant Press in 2024, “green.,” is visually infused with a collective of confessional poetry that will take the reader on a journey. Logan carried a sketchbook throughout his global travels and explored throughout these drawings iconic artwork, timeless architecture, landscapes, flora and fauna and a deep respect for nature. Zachari Logan is a queer Canadian settler poet and artist whose work has been exhibited across North America, Europe, and Asia. His artwork is held in collections worldwide, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Remai Modern, the Peabody Essex Museum, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, and Nerman MOCA, among others. In 2014, Logan received the Lieutenant Governor’s Emerging Artist Award, followed by the Alumni of Influence Award from the University of Saskatchewan in 2015, and in 2016 he was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award. His chapbook, "A Eulogy for the Buoyant," was published by JackPine Press in 2010, and his poetry collection, "A Natural History of Unnatural Things," was released by Radiant Press in 2021. Logan’s artwork and writing have been featured in numerous publications internationally. He lives in Regina, Saskatchewan. Following the text and sketches of the collection, Logan describes finding a green sketchbook that takes on the very essence of the combined artwork of “green..” “I found this small sketchbook in Venice, Italy, on April 21st 2019 at the gift shop of the beautiful Fondazione Querini Stampalia.” He continues, “I bought two green ink pens and the journey began as I sat outside in the Museum gardens drawing. I’ve carried this small visual diary with me ever since.” Logan’s sketches are not complementary to the text, but an extension of it. “The thingness of a book, its tangible, aesthetic qualities interest me greatly, maybe too much.” Logan confides in the essence of the reading experience. Thompson writes with art, “Notes on Caravaggio,” “Sofia,” “El Greco,” “Tom Thomson, the Dream,” “The Unicorn Tapestries,” “Hilma”, each poem taking the reader’s hand and guiding them into a museum of viewing. “At some point, I’m not sure when, it became inseparable from the collection of writing it now shares these pages with.” It is apparent that “green.,” is two pieces of art, intermixed and extending beyond each other. One reviewer notes that “Green is immediate, it’s happening as you’re reading it. It is not an artifact or a manifesto, it is a living artwork of various forms, expressions, and tensions. It requires the reader to participate and bring their own life materials to the page.” Together, this immediacy invites the reader into an active, shared making of meaning, where the work continues to live and change through each act of reading. “green.” evokes lushness, young shoots or a season turning over. A new soul, green, before ripening and turning brown. Thompson writes through a series of emotions, fury even and quiet defiance. He wants us to pay attention, as much as he wants us to fall away from ourselves. Thank you Zachari Logan, Radiant Press and River Street Writing for a complimentary copy in request for an honest review. https://www.sarahailstone.com/book-re... ...more |
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“A Bow Forged From Ash,” a poetry collection written by Melissa Powless Day delivers lived experience, ancestral memory, familial storytelling and a deepening relationship with the land. Language is in a state of reclamation, authentic and personal,
“A Bow Forged From Ash,” a poetry collection written by Melissa Powless Day delivers lived experience, ancestral memory, familial storytelling and a deepening relationship with the land. Language is in a state of reclamation, authentic and personal, Powless Day carves out space for authentic reckoning and cementing voice. “A Bow Forged From Ash” cultivates individuality during a time of umbrella terms in the healing of a country facing its colonial past and a time when marginalized experiences rise to the surface. Melissa Powless Day is Anishinaabe and Kanien’kehá:ka from Bkejwanong Territory (Walpole Island First Nation) and has family ties to Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. She is a scholar and educator currently pursuing a PhD in Indigenous Education at Western University. Powless Day serves as chair of Western’s Indigenous Writers’ Circle and works as a Visiting Cultural Teacher with the London District Catholic School Board. Her poetry has appeared in “The Temz Review,” “TNQ,” “The Windsor Review,” “Luna Station Quarterly,” and “Yellow Medicine Review.” Her first chapbook, “Secondhand Moccasins,” was published in 2023 by Anstruther Press and shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award. Her first full-length collection, “A Bow Forged from Ash,” was published by Palimpsest Press in late fall 2025. She lives in Deshkan Ziibi (London, Ontario) with her research assistants, Pixie the chihuahua and Shiloh, the orange tabby. Taken from their website, Palimpsest Press publishes poetry, literary fiction, and non-fiction titles that deal with poetics, cultural criticism, and literary biography. They look for poetry that displays technical mastery, precise language, and an authentic voice, and fiction that is rich in imagery, well crafted, and focused on character development. Their non-fiction titles are essays or memoirs written by poets, and books that examine Canadian poetry and the Canadian cultural landscape. Palimpsest Press’ mission is to publish high quality work in beautifully designed and collectible volumes. Their belief is that a book should be an object of beauty and inspiration. Their objectives are to seek out the best new and established voices in Canadian literature and they have committed at least 30% of their titles to authors living with disability. They are committed to maintaining high editorial and production standards, ensuring their trade books are well distributed, kept in print, and promoted through readings, events and advertising. Their imprint, Anstruther Books, is named after a lake in the North Kawarthas and curated by Jim Johnstone. Anstruther Books publishes poetry from a diverse cross-section of the Canadian literary community. This imprint specializes in poetry that is tapped into the speed and spirit of the 21st century, and includes political, socially-minded, and transgressive poetry, as well as conceptual books that maintain a lyric bent. Divided into three sections, “Nock,” “Pull,” and “Loose,” the very layout of the text transforms it into a weapon. In archery, ‘nock’ is the small notch or fitted piece at the rear of an arrow that clips onto the bowstring. The ‘nock’ holds the arrow in place before the shot. To ‘nock an arrow’ means to set it onto the string. And, that is precisely what Powless Day accomplishes in the first section. In “Nock,” Powless Day presents an achingly powerful image, one moccasin, and she pulls this image through several threads of poems. The poet finds one moccasin in the attic, she also finds ‘this poem,’ with it. “The foot is gone-,” “taken from the dancer or/ a child crying shed it in/ the Sixties Scoop or/ a mother kept it in/ the Voortman’s cookie tin….” Powless Day cuts in deeper. “This moccasin was lost” and “it is deer skin/ old as the last/ Hunt.” The reader follows the line of thought: “WHAT HAPPENED/ ?(to the other mocc).” There, Powless Day leaves us at the core of throbbing pain. Whose moccasin is it? What happened to them? The reality of this pain cannot be fully felt by all readers, they are not on the inside of this pain. A symbol of what was taken from generations of indigenous peoples, the loss of innocence of children. Lost children. The arrow has been placed, and we look straight down the shaft. Powless Day will tell us how the moccasin was found. Her grandmother found it and we do not know the time between her keeping it safe and storing it in her attic. But, “she found the moccasin/ on a forage in the/ eastern corner of what/ she knew as/ the rez.” We can picture a child on the run. The next question hurts more. What happened to the other shoe? With the finality of the volume, Powless Day transforms the very form of her writing into a bow forged from ash. Ash, what comes after destruction and yet, exists simultaneously as endurance. Ash in a tree as well, the wood traditionally used for bows, spear shafts and handles. Ash wood is flexible and shock resistant, an ideal weapon can be crafted from it that holds tension without breaking. This bow, this collection of poetry, is controlled power. A weapon birthed from ruin, not glory, a weapon of necessity. This weapon remembers what was destroyed to make it. I could imagine and wished there were answers given, especially with a bow raised and aimed expertly. Whose shoe was it? What happened to them? This bow is not a weapon of conquest though, it is a tool of responsibility. The answers need not be given. Sadly, the answers cannot be given. We will never know what happened to the other shoe. Thank you to Melissa Powless Day, Palimpsest Press and River Street Writing for a complimentary copy in request for an honest review. https://www.sarahailstone.com/book-re... ...more |
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Allister Thompson’s contemporary climate fiction, “Birch and Jay,” drops the reader into a dystopian future set in Ontario during the 2100s. The world has become decimated as the climate spiralled out of control, human life forever altered. Canada is
Allister Thompson’s contemporary climate fiction, “Birch and Jay,” drops the reader into a dystopian future set in Ontario during the 2100s. The world has become decimated as the climate spiralled out of control, human life forever altered. Canada is a war-torn landscape with violence between climate refugees who fled north from a collapsed United States and flooded the border. Armed conflict has resulted in severely depleted populations and stragglers remain, hunting and fighting to survive. Political, social and financial institutions have been wiped out and what persists are pockets of humans hoping to continue on. We meet Birch and Jay, they belong to an isolated and idealistic community called Norbay. Community members seek out and preserve knowledge of the past human civilization. Jay, a Knowledge Seeker, sets out on his first ‘seeking’ mission. These missions include Jay exploring abandoned domestic spaces and the residue of material culture that once was. Birch, a young woman from the community, who loves Jay, follows him. Both characters must navigate an unforgiving and violent world beyond the confines of their desolate community. Along the way, they meet unforgettable personalities and are forced to contemplate the projection of the state of the world and what will become of it. Allister Thompson is a professional book editor based in North Bay. Thompson is also a musician and he has released music in the genres of psychedelic rock, progressive rock, folk and ambient. Thompson has edited novels in all genres in his 20 plus years in the publishing industry. Latitude 46 Publishing is an independent Canadian literary press based in Sudbury, Ontario, named for the 46th parallel that runs through Northern Ontario. Founded in 2015, the press is dedicated to publishing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by writers who live in, or are connected to Northern Ontario and its landscapes, histories, and communities. Latitude 46 is committed to regional storytelling which helps correct the long-standing Toronto-centric imbalance in Canadian publishing by creating space for northern voices, rural and resource-based narratives, and culturally specific perspectives that might otherwise struggle to find national platforms. By championing both emerging and established writers from the North and situating place as a central literary force, Latitude 46 strengthens Canada’s literary diversity and ensures that Northern Ontario is recognized not as a margin, but as a vital centre of Canadian literary production. I have read and reviewed several works by Latitude 46. “The Donoghue Girl,” by Kim Fahner, “Joe Pete,” by Ian McCulloch, “The Stones of Burren Bay,” by Emily de Angelis, and “A Thousand Tiny Awakenings,” an anthology edited by Connor Lafortune & Lindsay Mayhew. Lastly, “The Art of Floating,” by Melanie Marttila. “Birch and Jay” joins these texts in the unique storytelling and larger questions that the nature of these publications propel readers to face. For YA, some elements of the plot were shocking, despite being authentic to the nature of the world beyond the isolated community. Further, the plot was dialogue driven with a crafting of multiple timelines and character point-of-views challenging the reader to face the world that could become if climate issues are left unchecked. A heavy hand of carrying the story forward was an adult Jay, now an instructor for the next generation of Knowledge Seekers, speaking from 2173 relaying the story of his first mission half a century ago. Other reviewers have noted that this future timeline reduces the sense of drama and suspense with the plot as we know Birch and Jay will make it out alive. I wonder, as this is the first book of a trilogy series, if this dual-timeline will fit in with the two future books and is functioning to build deeper suspense and mystery later? Toronto was a benchmark landscape point that culled my intrigue of this post-apocalyptic and dystopian scenario. Toronto is overrun with a group called, “The Six,” violent warlords ravaging the ruins of lost domestic spaces and enslaving anyone in their path. Birch and Jay encounter Toronto, the almost myth of a once great metropolis, Toronto has more than their desolate Norbay community. Toronto seems clean, at first, the population thriving within its fortress walls, children are even playing out in the open. There are electric streetlights and vehicles. There is also medical care. But, beyond these luxuries of life, there are the warlords. And they force our protagonists to question their upbringing, above all else, they exist to force the protagonists to choose between a life they’ve always known, and the potential of a future, a violent future. It was not fully apparent to me if Thompson played on the title of the text with dialogue or characterization, but the combination of the symbolism of ‘birch’ and ‘jay’ adds a depth and richness to the novel. On their own, ‘birch’ and ‘jay,’ are powerful symbols, but combined, meaning deepens. The birch tree holds memory, a pioneer species, it is often the first tree to grow after fire or clearing. Birch stands for starting again, especially after loss. As thresholds and liminality, the birch’s pale bark and early leafing renders the tree as one in between, between season, winter and spring, and between grief, to healing, silence and then speech. In many traditions, Celtic, Nordic and Indigenous, the birch is linked to purification, shelter and a gentler strength, not dominance. Lastly, birch bark has historically been used for canoes, containers and writing. Birch, a recording, carrying and preserving of story. Birch is quiet resilience, life that returns without spectacle. The Blue Jay can exist in contrast to birch. The piercing cry, impossible to ignore. The Blue Jay speaks up, especially when danger or injustice is present. Jays will imitate other birds and their sounds, linking them to language and storytelling, deception and revelation. Jays, the guardians of the forest, call out the boundaries. Jay has been known to break silence so something can change. Together, birch and jay symbolize a land that heals and the voice that warns. They are combined gentle renewal and sharp speech. In places of recovery, there is witness and testimony of what will not be forgotten. Together, they are a living landscape that both remembers and speaks. Thompson presents a cli-fi novel for a young adult readership of hope. There is potential for a better future. The intended audience is given a space to contemplate and dream of something better, that they can go out into the world and explore solutions, rather than caving under the weight of climate anxiety. “Birch and Jay” would be a beneficial text for conversation in a mature classroom. Thank you to Allister Thompson, Latitude 46and River Street Writing for a complimentary copy in request for an honest review. https://www.sarahailstone.com/book-re... ...more |
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Dec 26, 2025 09:27AM
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Carole Giangrande’s poetry collection, “this may be the year: poetry,” touched me at the crux of the title poem. Published on August 15, 2025 by Inanna Publications and Education Inc, the 70 pages of 62 poems dug in, sharp and fresh. Carole Giangrand Carole Giangrande’s poetry collection, “this may be the year: poetry,” touched me at the crux of the title poem. Published on August 15, 2025 by Inanna Publications and Education Inc, the 70 pages of 62 poems dug in, sharp and fresh. Carole Giangrande came to Canada from the New York City area to study at the University of Toronto. She has worked as a broadcast journalist for CBC Radio. Giangrande has appeared in Grain, New Quarterly, Descant, Canadian Forum, Matrix, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and Books in Canada. Her poetry has been published in Queens Quarterly, Grain, Spiritus, The New Quarterly, Braided Way, Mudlark and Prairie Fire. Her essays have appeared in Eastern Iowa Review, EcoTheo Review and Antigonish Review. Giangrande lives in Toronto. “this may be the year” is the first text I have read by Inanna Publications and Education Inc.. An independent Canadian feminist press, Inanna Publications specializes in fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction by and about women. The focus of the press is to “change and enhance women’s lives everywhere.” From Inanna’s website: “Our aim is to conserve a publishing space dedicated to feminist voices that provoke discussion, advance feminist thought, and speak to diverse lives of women. We have always been particularly interested in ensuring that the voices of disenfranchised and marginalized women are heard and we are committed to working closely with talented, emerging writers, as well as established writers.” Inanna Publications was founded in 1978 and is a publisher of one of Canada’s oldest feminist journals, “Canadian Woman Studies/ les cahiers de la femme.” Focussing on feminist topics, the press launched the Inanna Poetry and Fiction Series in 2004. Seeking to deepen the lives of Canadians and provide a space of representation for the diversity of Canadian women, Inanna publications has further provided educational resources used in university courses and advancing curriculum. Inanna Publications is a member of the Association for Canadian Publishers, the Ontario Book Publishers Organization and the Literary Press Group of Canada. Divided into four sections, “Birdmind,” “Breath of Ghosts,” Memory’s Shadow,” and “In The Long Grass,” the everyday laments and revelations of the ordinary become edged with the title poem. “This May Be the Year,” gives space to contemplation of when nature will not carry out its functions as we assume it always will or expect nature to. “It’s crossed my mind/ that this may be the year when trees/ will not turn green.” This line caught me, a hook and line. “This may be the year/ when earth, in grief, will turn its back on Spring, on stark woods, breaths of violet, hepatica,/ waxen bloodroot.” We have turned our backs on nature for over a millenia, I never thought of the capacity that nature would turn on us, and why wouldn’t she? This collection was a wake-up call, as shrill and knee-jerking as the warning shrieks of a raven penetrating both our physical and spiritual planes. I can only embrace “...for whatever comes.” Thank you to Carole Giangrande, Inanna Publications and River Street Writing for a complimentary copy in request for an honest review. https://www.sarahailstone.com/book-re... ...more |
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Dec 12, 2025 03:56AM
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There is a dance, a series of bodily movements, untamed and intuitive, that accompanies this poetry collection titled, “total,” by Aisha Sasha John. Published by McClelland and Stewart this year, there was an inescapable drum rhythm, or spontaneous m
There is a dance, a series of bodily movements, untamed and intuitive, that accompanies this poetry collection titled, “total,” by Aisha Sasha John. Published by McClelland and Stewart this year, there was an inescapable drum rhythm, or spontaneous musical rift that pulsed beneath the lines of text as I navigated through. Knowing that the author is also a choreographer and dancer could not underscore the innate sound and feel of the tone of “total.” The cover of “total” pulled me in too. A wide pupilled-eye contracts as a beacon from the cover, microscopic and zoomed in, I would enter that eye and possibly feel the world from another’s perspective. To me, the cover also appeared like a burning sun with pock-marked valleys of golden rays, a black hole inferno. This poetry collection could be scorching. Described by other reviewers as “contemporary mysticism, a lunar erotics of rage and grief,” the collection took seven and a half years to create. The everyday is transcribed and resists in its own existence the reader’s comprehension and expectation of what poetry is meant to do. “total” has been translated as “prayerfulness as claws out, eyes wet, throat open, eyes turned up and in.” Performative poetry, I admired that the text retains its power and cannot be unravelled or pulled apart easily. The author maintains autonomy, in making herself vulnerable by exposing the thoughts from inside of this pupilled inferno, Aisha cements her contours and stance, she does not lose it. I admire her for that. As Aisha’s fourth collection, her readers will encounter lines in all-caps, fragmented lines that feel cut and arrive out of context. You might not get it, and that's the point. This collection is not about legibility or coherence, there is no clean narrative woven through, no easy over-arching exploration of thematics or even a play on semantics. The collection is transparent, as simple as the thoughts that brew up and boil over. Thoughts that are transcribed onto the page. Ultimately, this feeling of disorientation and lines that explode into our space out of the void, is intentional. With “total,” we will be forced to confront what we expect from collections of poetry and beyond, what we want from language and the artist will not easily be given. “total” is comprised of 104 numbered poems and is divided into 8 sections: “Wolf/Nest/Peace of Meet,” “I am New to Evenings.,” “The Spirits in the Corner and the Cat,” “I am ‘Selfish’ and I am Rich,” “You’ve Called Faith ‘God’ and Doubt ‘the Devil,’” “But Then I Thought What is Wildness, or What Worth is Wildness, without the Structure of Devotion,” “‘One’s Personal History, Whatever Else it is, is a history of One’s Obedience,” and “‘I Do Feel Something Back Here, but it doesn’t feel like pain. It feels like Knowledge.” Aisha Sasha John is a performer, choreographer and a poet. Her previous works include “I have to live” (McClelland & Stewart, 2017), a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize, “THOU” (Book°hug, 2014), a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for and the ReLit Poetry Award, “The Shining Material” (Book*hug), and the chapbook “TO STAND AT A PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED” (Ugly Duckling Press, 2021). Dance is infused in Aisha’s being, performance as a space of connection informs her writing. Aisha is the inaugural Affiliate Artist at Toronto Dance Theatre. Her work, “The Pool,” made with the TDT ensemble will premier in the winter of 2025. Further, Aisha’s duet, “DIANA ROSS DREAM (Danse-Cité 22), performed with Devon Snell, has been presented in Montreal, Vancouver, and Rouyn-Noranda, and was developed during her 2019-2022 Dancemakers choreographic residency. Aisha’s first full-length solo work debuted as the “aisha of oz” at the Whitney Museum in 2017, and in 2018, iterations of the “aisha of oz” were presented at Montreal arts intercultural (MAI) and Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival. Aisha’s debut co-creation with fellow choreographer/performer Clara Fury will premier in 2026. Aisha has earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and her B.A. in African Studies and Semiotics from the University of Toronto. In her previous works, Aisha felt obedience to legibility, “total” is a breaking free from that control of art and expression. I still question, how raw and fully transparent is thought to text in this collection? It would be interesting to know the creation process of this collection, the methodology of recording thought, and the choices made during editing and production. Is “total” recorded in a single take, a seven and a half year chronology? “HEY WHAT DO YOU GUYS DO WITH YOUR THOUGHTS?” (total) I wondered occasionally, is Aisha shouting at me? Wake up Nemo. Thank you to Aisha Sasha John, McClelland & Stewart and River Street Writing for a complimentary copy in request for an honest review. https://www.sarahailstone.com/book-re... ...more |
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Dec 12, 2025 03:07AM
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Descending Into Darkness (The Adventures of Izzy Adams, #1)
by Jessica Lee Sheppard (Goodreads Author) |
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“The Adventures of Izzy Adams” by award winning author, Jessica Lee Sheppard contains two, and soon to be three books in a series of five. “Descending into Darkness,” and “Bound by Darkness,” pull us into the life of Isabelle ‘Izzy’ Adams, a college
“The Adventures of Izzy Adams” by award winning author, Jessica Lee Sheppard contains two, and soon to be three books in a series of five. “Descending into Darkness,” and “Bound by Darkness,” pull us into the life of Isabelle ‘Izzy’ Adams, a college student on the brink of waking up to a supernatural existence layered with folklore and a compelling cast of dangerous characters. Izzy’s story begins in the pits of normalcy, she is torn between the obligation of carrying on a family business that her heart is not in, or, pursuing higher education against her domineering mother’s wishes. There is also the death of her father that haunts her and has left her vulnerable and obedient. Izzy’s life is thrown into a whirlwind of the supernatural when she astral projects one night into supernatural realms. She is stalked and attacked thereafter by these supernatural forces. With the state of her mental faculties in self-doubt, Sheppard carves out a character arc of a strong-spirited young woman coming into her own power and understanding of a world that was never as it appeared to be. Threaded through these trajectories of multi-dimensional existences and boundaries set in her mortal life, Sheppard also encapsulates romance and the type of love we crave, a soul-mate love that extends beyond time and the limitations of space. “Descending into Darkness” and “Bound by Darkness” exemplify a prowess in world-building and rich characterization that will appeal to readers who fell in love with Harry Potter. Amongst the shock and intrigue of mystical plot-elements, readers will fall in love with Izzy, her untamed hair and quirky idiosyncricities, and above all, they will root for her as she takes on more than what other college students go through. Published on November 26, 2023, “Descending into Darkness” was the Feathered Quill Book Awards finalist for 2024 for both Fantasy and Debut Author categories. “Descending into Darkness” also was a finalist for the American Fiction Awards for the Coming of Age Category. Lastly, the novel was a finalist for The Independent Author Network Book of the Year Awards in Fiction: New Adult Category. Readers will become invested in this Fantasy series with a rich protagonist and the promise of the potential of an up and coming Canadian author. Jessica Lee Sheppard is a multi-award-winning Canadian author, social worker and mother of four. Sheppard earned her Masters in social work and has worked in child protection and mental health. This career trajectory has shaped her and inspired her writing. Pulling in themes centred around trauma and societal issues, Sheppard’s narratives push readers through real-world challenges underlying Fantasy plot elements. Admirably, Sheppard is self-published and has created her own publishing platform, Sheplen Press. Stamping her thumbprint through marketing and her involvement in festivals, Sheppard is forging her place in the Canadian industry. Izzy took on a presence in my mind of a believable and relatable lead protagonist. I enjoyed witnessing her growth and rising to occasions in the midst of horror and suspense. Character pieces like twisting her blond curls around her finger and the dialogue with her family gave depth to Izzy and the supernatural world she would find herself immersed in. The plotline of “Descending into Darkness” is described by other reviewers as “a slow-burning ember, gradually intensifying into a magnificent inferno over time.” It is evident that much thought and planning has gone into the span of a five-book series, Sheppard has left Easter eggs throughout that ties the overarching plot together. A supernatural landscape embedded with the human world was pulled off seamlessly enriching the setting and character orientation within it. The blend of mystical and human was believable, while some scenes have stayed in my mind. Sheppard gives context to the creative and personal development of the spiritual on her website. The author explains that her “fascination with the afterlife began at our kitchen table, watching the women in my family get their tea leaves read. I was enthralled by the possibility that a spirit could be right there, whispering secrets from beyond.” She continues, “as I grew older, I found myself seeking out psychics, eagerly writing down the reading. Regardless of whether their predictions materialized, I persisted in exploring the world of spiritualism, desperately seeking some form of connection with “the other side.”” These encounters inspired Sheppard’s writing. “All of this gave me an idea for a novel about how a soul transforms. It would explore how a person’s choices across multiple lives could corrupt their soul, turning it from something pure into an irredeemable darkness.” Thus, “The Adventures of Izzy Adams” was born. “It was at this moment that my oldest daughter, Isabelle, otherwise known as “Izzy,” came to mind—a vibrant little prankster with blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes and a strong-willed spirit. Drawing from my daughter’s personality, as well as some of my own traits, the main character of my story came to life.” Blending real life and Fantasy, Sheppard has succeeded in creating a fictional world of intrigue. I didn’t always see what was coming, and the curve balls in the plotline deepened Izzy’s story. This series will appeal to YA and Fantasy readers alike. I look forward to Book Three, “Shattered by Darkness” and the remainder of “The Adventures of Izzy Adams.” https://www.sarahailstone.com/book-re...- ...more |
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Walking with Beth: Conversations with My Hundred-Year-Old Friend
by Merilyn Simonds (Goodreads Author) |
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“I used to look for love and happiness, understanding and security. What am I looking for now?" (xv) Merilyn Simonds asks so in her most current introspective novel, “Walking with Beth” released on September 23rd. Crafted with almost flash prose piec
“I used to look for love and happiness, understanding and security. What am I looking for now?" (xv) Merilyn Simonds asks so in her most current introspective novel, “Walking with Beth” released on September 23rd. Crafted with almost flash prose pieces, musings, the reader accompanies Simonds through her reflections and ruminations on life and health during her walks with centenarian friend, Beth Robinson. Spanning the timeframe of three years of weekly walks and the fabric of life during Covid, Simonds invites us into the intimacy of two aging women. Also, she takes hold of the reader’s imagination and propels them to confront death. Published by Random House Canada, “Walking with Beth,” is a poultice, a soothing balm for those seeking solace in the wake of illness and aging, as well, a gentle mentoring for those next in line. Organized into four sections titled, “One Hundred and One, Seventy-One,” “One Hundred and Two, Seventy-Two,” “One Hundred and Three, Seventy-Three,” and “And Counting…,” “Walking with Beth” is comprised of over 246 pieces of encounters and teachings between two women. Beth became an almost mythic figure to me throughout the reading, and yet, Simonds’ depiction of her friend grounded Beth in an immense glow of humanity and graceful mortality. “Beth is Elizabeth Pierce Robinson, born in Kingston, Ontario, on July 22, 1920, a child of the final year of the Spanish flu pandemic (xiii).” Beth had raised a family in Toronto and also had worked in Montreal as a professor of art therapy. She retired to Lower Beverly Lake in eastern Ontario where she had spent summers as a child and where she and her husband had built a house. After her husband died, she moved back to Kingston and resides there now. Simonds had just moved to Kington from North Bay in the trajectory of a second marriage. It does not fully matter when the two women met, only that the bond and friendship that has grown between them over the years has carried the two women into the older unknown stages of life. Beth has written two books, “My Journey to One Hundred” (2023) and “Please Write” (2015). What resounded with me was Simonds human portrayal of Beth grieving the loss of her daughter and the two women facing mortality and aging eloquently and honestly together. Merilyn Simonds has written twenty books. I first encountered Simonds in her novel, “The Holding” (2005). I was immediately drawn in to the plotline of “The Holding.” Margaret, her mysterious background and trajectory to reside in the Canadian wilderness stirred me in her connection to plants and her discovery of traces of Katharine, a settler woman who had lived on the same land a century earlier. In entering Katharine’s world through journals, I was further confronted with the hardship and adversity that Margaret faced and endured. Second, I encountered Simonds in “The Convict Lover,” a non-fiction text published in 1996 by Macfarlane, Walter & Ross about the true story of a young woman in early 20th-century Ontario who secretly corresponds through hidden letters with a prisoner in the nearby Kingston Penitentiary. “The Convict Lover” was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. It is compelling to me that in 2017, Project Bookmark Canada installed a plaque on the site of the former Kingston Penitentiary rock quarry to honour the place of “The Convict Lover” in Canada's literary landscape and the impact that Simonds has had on her community. Further, she is the founder and first artistic director of the Kingston WritersFest as well as being a juror for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize. Simonds literary legacy and community connections have deeply enriched the Canlit community and beyond. Simonds is poignant in articulating that Beth, her friend, is her “last guide into the future” (10). That phrase was how I was led into the depths of “Walking with Beth.” In sediments of thought that felt chipped away and laid out carefully for the reader, I walked also with Simonds and Beth in one of the most terrifying elements of a writer’s life, not being able to control the ending of your own story: “I am a writer. I’m used to determining the plot. What confounds me about dying is that I will have no say in the end of this story (162).” An important work for us in negotiating our own mortality, this text gives voice to aging and identity for women, a necessary voice for our Canlit community. In the text becoming an external voice and space for readers to congregate to, what we are guided to understand is not that we need to walk in another’s footsteps, but that we are not alone in life and these bodies. Thank you to Merilyn Simonds, Random House Canada and River Street Writing for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review! https://www.sarahailstone.com/book-re... ...more |
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Sep 24, 2025 01:55PM
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Walking with Beth: Conversations with My Hundred-Year-Old Friend
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“I used to look for love and happiness, understanding and security. What am I looking for now?" (xv) Merilyn Simonds asks so in her most current introspective novel, “Walking with Beth” released on September 23rd. Crafted with almost flash prose piec
“I used to look for love and happiness, understanding and security. What am I looking for now?" (xv) Merilyn Simonds asks so in her most current introspective novel, “Walking with Beth” released on September 23rd. Crafted with almost flash prose pieces, musings, the reader accompanies Simonds through her reflections and ruminations on life and health during her walks with centenarian friend, Beth Robinson. Spanning the timeframe of three years of weekly walks and the fabric of life during Covid, Simonds invites us into the intimacy of two aging women. Also, she takes hold of the reader’s imagination and propels them to confront death. Published by Random House Canada, “Walking with Beth,” is a poultice, a soothing balm for those seeking solace in the wake of illness and aging, as well, a gentle mentoring for those next in line. Organized into four sections titled, “One Hundred and One, Seventy-One,” “One Hundred and Two, Seventy-Two,” “One Hundred and Three, Seventy-Three,” and “And Counting…,” “Walking with Beth” is comprised of over 246 pieces of encounters and teachings between two women. Beth became an almost mythic figure to me throughout the reading, and yet, Simonds’ depiction of her friend grounded Beth in an immense glow of humanity and graceful mortality. “Beth is Elizabeth Pierce Robinson, born in Kingston, Ontario, on July 22, 1920, a child of the final year of the Spanish flu pandemic (xiii).” Beth had raised a family in Toronto and also had worked in Montreal as a professor of art therapy. She retired to Lower Beverly Lake in eastern Ontario where she had spent summers as a child and where she and her husband had built a house. After her husband died, she moved back to Kingston and resides there now. Simonds had just moved to Kington from North Bay in the trajectory of a second marriage. It does not fully matter when the two women met, only that the bond and friendship that has grown between them over the years has carried the two women into the older unknown stages of life. Beth has written two books, “My Journey to One Hundred” (2023) and “Please Write” (2015). What resounded with me was Simonds human portrayal of Beth grieving the loss of her daughter and the two women facing mortality and aging eloquently and honestly together. Merilyn Simonds has written twenty books. I first encountered Simonds in her novel, “The Holding” (2005). I was immediately drawn in to the plotline of “The Holding.” Margaret, her mysterious background and trajectory to reside in the Canadian wilderness stirred me in her connection to plants and her discovery of traces of Katharine, a settler woman who had lived on the same land a century earlier. In entering Katharine’s world through journals, I was further confronted with the hardship and adversity that Margaret faced and endured. Second, I encountered Simonds in “The Convict Lover,” a non-fiction text published in 1996 by Macfarlane, Walter & Ross about the true story of a young woman in early 20th-century Ontario who secretly corresponds through hidden letters with a prisoner in the nearby Kingston Penitentiary. “The Convict Lover” was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. It is compelling to me that in 2017, Project Bookmark Canada installed a plaque on the site of the former Kingston Penitentiary rock quarry to honour the place of “The Convict Lover” in Canada's literary landscape and the impact that Simonds has had on her community. Further, she is the founder and first artistic director of the Kingston WritersFest as well as being a juror for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize. Simonds literary legacy and community connections have deeply enriched the Canlit community and beyond. Simonds is poignant in articulating that Beth, her friend, is her “last guide into the future” (10). That phrase was how I was led into the depths of “Walking with Beth.” In sediments of thought that felt chipped away and laid out carefully for the reader, I walked also with Simonds and Beth in one of the most terrifying elements of a writer’s life, not being able to control the ending of your own story: “I am a writer. I’m used to determining the plot. What confounds me about dying is that I will have no say in the end of this story (162).” An important work for us in negotiating our own mortality, this text gives voice to aging and identity for women, a necessary voice for our Canlit community. In the text becoming an external voice and space for readers to congregate to, what we are guided to understand is not that we need to walk in another’s footsteps, but that we are not alone in life and these bodies. Thank you to Merilyn Simonds, Random House Canada and River Street Writing for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review! https://www.sarahailstone.com/book-re... ...more |
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Sep 24, 2025 01:54PM
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Sara Hailstone
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Tolo Oloruntoba’s collection of poetry, “Unravel” is an ambitious range of allusion and theme executed with success and mastery of literary prowess. This collection would serve a University syllabus well in a space of literary study and collective cl
Tolo Oloruntoba’s collection of poetry, “Unravel” is an ambitious range of allusion and theme executed with success and mastery of literary prowess. This collection would serve a University syllabus well in a space of literary study and collective close readings. I know, each time this collection is picked up, a new understanding can be gleaned from carefully layered details and play on language. With a rich range of topics, organized into two parts and professing 93 poems in prose pieces, concrete poetry and stanza, “Unravel” is bound to achieve success and respect amongst the Canlit canon. Forms of poetry like the cento and found poem further exemplify the writer’s ability in deconstructing and crafting meaning in a recombination of depth and capacity. Published in the spring of 2025 by McClelland & Stewart, “Unravel” has presented as a rich and complex text to reviewers. One reviewer commented that “Tolu Oloruntoba appears to be writing an exegesis of everything in one hundred pages of poems in two equivalent sections.” Another reviewer states, “It’s a dynamic collection impossible to pin down but about which I can provide some descriptions that hopefully point to certain forces of a ground-breaking work.” Lastly, “I cannot say I unraveled all of its depths, I really admire the poet’s ambition as if self identity was a city “falling into a sea”, and still there are acolytes and myriad allusions singing in the vaulted cathedrals we try to build of our poems.” In contributing to these conversations, I too felt the layers and depths of the collection that I could not fully unpack everything. At first, I was intimidated to write a proper review on this work, until I sat with the collection more and looked in places that had not yet been analyzed by other reviewers. Tolo Oloruntoba is a writer from Ibadan, Nigeria who now resides in Alberta. In Nigeria he studied and practiced medicine, describing himself on his website as a lapsed physician. He is the author of two poetry collections, “The Junta of Happentance,” which was the winner of the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize and the 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award. His second collection, “Each One a Furnace” was a Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize finalist. Oloruntoba is the founder of the literary magazine Klorofyl and author of the chapbook, “Manubrium,” which was shortlisted for the 2020 bpNichol Chapbook Award. Oloruntoba infuses his collection with theoretical frameworks of decentring, drawing on Derrida’s concept of destabilizing established linguistic and intellectual hierarchies by foregrounding marginalized perspectives and opening space for what Derrida described as the “infinite play of signification.” This strategy not only challenges dominant cultural narratives but also positions Oloruntoba’s work within a dynamic interpretive field where meaning remains fluid and constantly renegotiated. Unravelling as a process, “I have raveled; have unraveled./ Have done and been undone.” And yet, in that fluidity of change between coming undone and rebuilding, Oloruntoba retains a core of being. “Pit: a hollow, or solid,/ at the center, or the membrane between village and villain.” Simultaneously, he is solid and severed: “why the earthworm,/ exiled from its other half,/ never stops reaching.” And what resonated with me, as I have called upon this imagery in my own writing, “I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain.” My character became Sisyphus, a father figure, forever pushing the stone of inter-generational trauma uphill, not Oloruntoba. Many reviewers have felt that they will not fully unpack “Unravel.” One review stuck with me that Oloruntoba had created a ‘personal myth’ of himself with this collection. “Unravel is a book I had to read multiple times, and I’m not sure I understand everything the poet Oloruntoba is saying in this book, but Oloruntoba has written an ambitious collection in terms of wordplay, and how the individual poems dissect his personal identity as poet, father, immigrant; and at least for me, the real gift of this collection is its wealth of history and allusions and old stories. I think Tolu Oloruntoba in Unravel is constructing his own personal myth–one he can live with.” To negotiate self within the placement of the world. Oloruntoba writes: “This work is to re-pare, make ready with the knife again. Cruel man that I am, I prefer my singers/ broken. No worse than those who like their poets/ fragile, scared, thrumming with the terror of being/ alive. Disentangle my self concept. The earth will/ wear out like a garment and of my body, not one/ stone will be left upon another.” Unravel, as in fully destroy. As in, after we are gone, we risk loss of greatness anyways. That understanding brought me to the analysis of the cover of the collection. Created by [name of person who designed the cover], “Unravel” is embossed with a picture of the broken nose statue of Amenemhat III. An Egyptian ruler of the golden age who’s legacy and deterioration of power after death embodies unraveling. His reign is remembered for this unravelling, a slow unravelling of the Middle Kingdom after his death. His pyramids collapsed, his dynasty weakened. A writer could call upon Amenemhat III’s legacy of domination and a dynasty coming apart. The embossed image of a museum artifact, once a whole statue, now, we receive this image as broken, incomplete and literally unravelled through time. How would Amenemhat III feel, greeting us with a broken nose? A pharaoh pushing for immortality, a stone statue, the monument of legacy, like poetry, what we leave behind when we are gone. Thank you to Tolu Oloruntoba, McClelland & Stewart and River Street Writing for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review! https://www.sarahailstone.com/book-re... ...more |
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Aug 31, 2025 09:19AM
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Rebecca Salazar’s second body of poetry, “antibody,” is the first collection of poetry that has left a feeling for me after reading of the sheer rage and pain extrapolated through the work that is haunting. I cannot shake the rawness and pure emotion
Rebecca Salazar’s second body of poetry, “antibody,” is the first collection of poetry that has left a feeling for me after reading of the sheer rage and pain extrapolated through the work that is haunting. I cannot shake the rawness and pure emotions of the confrontations to sexual violence the author cracked open with this writing. “[I] am terrified [I] built my poetry on the backs of violent men,” a line that stayed with me after reading. The fear of the construction of identity from perpetration, a violent and all-consuming tethering that offers an honest testimony to the sheer human messiness of processing pain and atrocity. “[If] there is swelling, pain, contain thy filthy self.” Contain, the forceful control and intricate behavioural patterns of the abuser and how they manipulate to want you to act after atrocity, Salazar exposes this perpetration. When in reality, what is not said is that the abuse should not occur to begin with, and yet, the pattern of violence and sexual assault continues, for many women. Salazar’s “antibody” is a feminist body of work that refuses to be contained, ‘thy filthy self’ is carved out in actuation and in this carving, with the feeling of a machete or dull butter-knife as the tone held to our throats throughout the collection, the horrors of what a woman goes through after sexual assault resists silencing. “[W]hat happens after the scene is as important as the scene itself.” ‘antibody’ is resistance, victimhood is not massacred to become palpable, or digestible to ‘polite society,’ enduring trauma coated in rage, so powerfully transmitted, it will become an extension of you as a reader. Be warned. And, you are warned, this connection with the reader by the author has been made. In the very dedication of the collection, Salazar writes, “To fellow survivors, this offering: these poems relive in graphic detail the experience of sexual violence, silencing, pregnancy loss, chronic illness, and suicidality. What matters more than this book is your consent, your agency in choosing whether or how much of it you read. If this is as far as you read, thank you.” Contain evolves to, ‘consent’ a fluid state of being, the lack thereof historically, for the author, they gesture to their reader in a way they should have been treated. Rebecca Salazar has written two volumes of poetry. Their first collection, ‘sulphurtongue,’ by McClelland & Stewart was a finalist for the Governor Generals Award for Poetry, the New Brunswick Book Awards, the Atlantic Book Awards, and the League of Canadian Poets’ Pat Lowther Memorial Award. She/they is a queer, disabled, and racialized Latinx writer currently living on the unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik people. ‘antibody,’ is also published by McClelland & Stewart. Connections made and charged emotions striking from each page, Salazar does not sugar-coat or gloss over the pain and transformation of body, mind and spirit from assault. The spells cast ‘against women like us,’ Salsazar is not alone, or singular, and the sheer reality of women who have experienced similar, who are experiencing similar and who will experience similar, should be more shocking than the anger emoted from the text. “[W]hite nights, i’m striking eyelashes for match-light, itching to burn your afterimage from my insides.” A haunched and waiting woman, baring teeth vehement to strike true. She threatens, “wake me, i dare you. watch me wax ravenous as hot slivers of moon, and watch me wolf down, guzzling the dark to staunch the ache.” She has become or she has reclaimed something wild and untamed, something painstakingly unbroken from the atrocities committed against her. “[W]hen you foamed me at the mouths and left me feral to the woods, you split my hydra tongue to shreds.” Forked tongue, clefted and feral, a beast will emerge and take their abusers down with the act of writing and endurance of testimony. “[W]e’ll multiply what you cut off. we’ll weave a tapestry of cries binding your name.” There is hope, something of art and something that could be beautiful pushes through. But, this journey with the author does not accumulate in closure. The final poem almost breaks down, leaves much unsaid, and what is left unsaid haunts too. And still, something bleeding and beating waits beyond. “[W]e have reconnected since you left us less than corpse. our preternatural growth makes us the larger organism in this earth, our haunting larger than your violations. we grow hungry.” Something threatening breadth and space that is building capacity and power to rise up and take hold. Sadly, breadth enough for a community, a collective, alive and breathing, bleeding and beating. Those who perished, they remain silenced, and, for them, for those in the future who will become mortally silenced, this text is necessary. Thank you to Rebecca Salazar, McClelland & Stewart and River Street Writing for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review! https://www.sarahailstone.com/book-re... ...more |
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Aug 31, 2025 07:57AM
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