Off the Page
A blog on Canadian writing, reading, and everything in between
Her Turn: A Conversation With Katherine Ashenburg
"I think as I wrote Her Turn I wanted to combine Shields’ dry wit and a certain ironic distance from her characters wi …
Islands: Perfect Settings for Stories
An exploration of literary islands by author of Complicated Simplicity: Island Life in the Pacific Northwest.
Notes from a Children’s Librarian: Satisfying Endings
How do you create a sense of satisfaction in a story’s finale? The following books pull it off!
Introducing the 49th Shelf Summer Books List: Part 2
Our summer reads extravaganza continues with PART 2 of our Summer Books List, and once again, each and every title is up …
Inclusive Learning, Diverse Books: Introducing Top Grade 2021
Welcome to the Association for Canadian publisher’s Top Grade: CanLit for the Classroom, a blog and preview video seri …
Most Anticipated: Our Fall 2021 Nonfiction Preview
New books about everything, including food, beauty, art, travel, singing, healing, grieving, shopping, aging, and so muc …
CanLit Yearning
"At the heart of my novella and in each book on this CanLit list is a sense of desire or a yearning (for belonging, iden …
The Chat with Rev. Dr. Cheri DiNovo
This week we’re in conversation with political trailblazer Rev. Dr. Cheri DiNovo, whose memoir, The Queer Evangelist, …
Most Anticipated: Our 2021 Fall Fiction Preview
With new books by Miriam Toews, Dawn Dumont, Douglas Coupland, Marie-Renee Lavoie, Omar El Akkad, Zoe Whittall, Trudy Mo …
Speculative Fiction: Vast and Thrilling
"As a reader and a lightly superstitious human, I can’t deny the pull of the unusual, the not-quite-real. I love books …
Results for keyword: “49thShelfLAUNCHPAD”
Launchpad: Junebat, by John Elizabeth Stintzi
This spring we've made it our mission (even more than usual) to celebrate new releases in the wake of cancelled launch parties, book festivals, and reading series. With 49th Shelf Launchpad, we're holding virtual launch parties here on our platform complete with witty banter, great insight, and short and snappy readings to give you a taste of the books on offer. You can request these books from your local library, get them as e-books or audio books, order them from your local indie bookseller if they're delivering, buy them direct from the publisher or from online retailers.
First up is John Elizabeth Stintzi, whose poetry has been awarded the 2019 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and the Long Poem Prize from the Malahat Review. Their debut poety collection is Junebat, of which Billy Ray Belcourt has written, "To the poetics of the queer everyday Stintzi adds their ‘Junebat,’ a multitudinous concept of such explanatory power I’m certain it’ll endure in the collective memory of Canadian writing."
*****
The Elevator Pitch. Tell us …
Continue reading >
Launchpad: The Union of Smokers, by Paddy Scott
This spring we've made it our mission (even more than usual) to celebrate new releases in the wake of cancelled launch parties, book festivals, and reading series. With 49th Shelf Launchpad, we're holding virtual launch parties here on our platform complete with witty banter, great insight, and short and snappy readings to give you a taste of the books on offer. You can request these books from your local library, get them as e-books or audio books, order them from your local indie bookseller if they're delivering, buy them direct from the publisher or from online retailers.
Today we're featuring Paddy Scott, whose debut novel is The Union of Smokers, described as "an entirely new kind of story told by a gutter-mouthed, chain-smoking twelve year old, who announces in the opening paragraph that he’s going to die today."
***
The Elevator Pitch. Tell us about your book in a sentence.
The Union of Smokers is a day in the life and a life in the final day of narrator Kaspar Pine, a young man who takes it upon himself to use his last hours on earth to educat …
Continue reading >
Launchpad: Polar Vortex, by Shani Mootoo
This spring we've made it our mission (even more than usual) to celebrate new releases in the wake of cancelled launch parties, book festivals, and reading series. With 49th Shelf Launchpad, we're holding virtual launch parties here on our platform complete with witty banter, great insight, and short and snappy readings to give you a taste of the books on offer. You can request these books from your local library, get them as e-books or audio books, order them from your local indie bookseller if they're delivering, buy them direct from the publisher or from online retailers.
Today we're featuring award-winning writer Shani Mootoo whose new release is Polar Vortex, an intense, propulsive read about a love triangle that turns out to be even more complicated than that, a novel that's gorgeously wrought and excruciatingly (in the best way!) unputdownable.
******
The Elevator Pitch. Tell us about your book in a sentence.
Priya has not come clean with her partner Alexandra about her old university friend Prakash, with whom she had a long push-and-pull relat …
Continue reading >
Launchpad: The Swan Suit, by Katherine Fawcett
This spring we've made it our mission (even more than usual) to celebrate new releases in the wake of cancelled launch parties, book festivals, and reading series. With 49th Shelf Launchpad, we're holding virtual launch parties here on our platform complete with witty banter and great insight to give you a taste of the books on offer. You can request these books from your local library, get them as e-books or audio books, order them from your local indie bookseller if they're delivering, buy them direct from the publisher or from online retailers.
Today we're launching The Swan Suit, Katherine Fawcett's follow-up to Little Washer of Sorrows, which was shortlisted for the ReLit Short Fiction Award and for a Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.
Lisa Moore declares this latest collection "Wicked and charming by turns...nothing short of magical.”
*****
The Elevator Pitch. Tell us about your book in a sentence:
The Swan Suit is a collection of twisted, layered tales that examine what it's like to inhabit a body that betrays …
Continue reading >
Launchpad: Dead Mom Walking, by Rachel Matlow
This spring we've made it our mission (even more than usual) to celebrate new releases in the wake of cancelled launch parties, book festivals, and reading series. With 49th Shelf Launchpad, we're holding virtual launch parties here on our platform complete with witty banter and great insight to give you a taste of the books on offer. You can request these books from your local library, get them as e-books or audio books, order them from your local indie bookseller if they're delivering, buy them direct from the publisher or from online retailers.
Today we're launching Rachel Matlow's memoir Dead Mom Walking, which we're particularly excited about after reading their recommended reading list of queer memoirs.
Zoe Whittall writes, “This book is perfect. Dead Mom Walking is a deeply funny, incredibly smart, and moving page-turner...I just can’t get over what a stunning achievement it is.”
*****
The Elevator Pitch. Tell us about your book in a sentence.
Dead Mom Walking is about how my amazing/beloved/hilarious mother tried to cure herself of cancer …
Continue reading >
Launchpad: Junebat, by John Elizabeth Stintzi
This spring we've made it our mission (even more than usual) to celebrate new releases in the wake of cancelled launch parties, book festivals, and reading series. With 49th Shelf Launchpad, we're holding virtual launch parties here on our platform complete with witty banter, great insight, and short and snappy readings to give you a taste of the books on offer. You can request these books from your local library, get them as e-books or audio books, order them from your local indie bookseller if they're delivering, buy them direct from the publisher or from online retailers.
First up is John Elizabeth Stintzi, whose poetry has been awarded the 2019 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and the Long Poem Prize from the Malahat Review. Their debut poety collection is Junebat, of which Billy Ray Belcourt has written, "To the poetics of the queer everyday Stintzi adds their ‘Junebat,’ a multitudinous concept of such explanatory power I’m certain it’ll endure in the collective memory of Canadian writing."
*****
The Elevator Pitch. Tell us …
Launchpad: The Union of Smokers, by Paddy Scott
This spring we've made it our mission (even more than usual) to celebrate new releases in the wake of cancelled launch parties, book festivals, and reading series. With 49th Shelf Launchpad, we're holding virtual launch parties here on our platform complete with witty banter, great insight, and short and snappy readings to give you a taste of the books on offer. You can request these books from your local library, get them as e-books or audio books, order them from your local indie bookseller if they're delivering, buy them direct from the publisher or from online retailers.
Today we're featuring Paddy Scott, whose debut novel is The Union of Smokers, described as "an entirely new kind of story told by a gutter-mouthed, chain-smoking twelve year old, who announces in the opening paragraph that he’s going to die today."
***
The Elevator Pitch. Tell us about your book in a sentence.
The Union of Smokers is a day in the life and a life in the final day of narrator Kaspar Pine, a young man who takes it upon himself to use his last hours on earth to educat …
Launchpad: Polar Vortex, by Shani Mootoo
This spring we've made it our mission (even more than usual) to celebrate new releases in the wake of cancelled launch parties, book festivals, and reading series. With 49th Shelf Launchpad, we're holding virtual launch parties here on our platform complete with witty banter, great insight, and short and snappy readings to give you a taste of the books on offer. You can request these books from your local library, get them as e-books or audio books, order them from your local indie bookseller if they're delivering, buy them direct from the publisher or from online retailers.
Today we're featuring award-winning writer Shani Mootoo whose new release is Polar Vortex, an intense, propulsive read about a love triangle that turns out to be even more complicated than that, a novel that's gorgeously wrought and excruciatingly (in the best way!) unputdownable.
******
The Elevator Pitch. Tell us about your book in a sentence.
Priya has not come clean with her partner Alexandra about her old university friend Prakash, with whom she had a long push-and-pull relat …
Launchpad: The Swan Suit, by Katherine Fawcett
This spring we've made it our mission (even more than usual) to celebrate new releases in the wake of cancelled launch parties, book festivals, and reading series. With 49th Shelf Launchpad, we're holding virtual launch parties here on our platform complete with witty banter and great insight to give you a taste of the books on offer. You can request these books from your local library, get them as e-books or audio books, order them from your local indie bookseller if they're delivering, buy them direct from the publisher or from online retailers.
Today we're launching The Swan Suit, Katherine Fawcett's follow-up to Little Washer of Sorrows, which was shortlisted for the ReLit Short Fiction Award and for a Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.
Lisa Moore declares this latest collection "Wicked and charming by turns...nothing short of magical.”
*****
The Elevator Pitch. Tell us about your book in a sentence:
The Swan Suit is a collection of twisted, layered tales that examine what it's like to inhabit a body that betrays …
Launchpad: Dead Mom Walking, by Rachel Matlow
This spring we've made it our mission (even more than usual) to celebrate new releases in the wake of cancelled launch parties, book festivals, and reading series. With 49th Shelf Launchpad, we're holding virtual launch parties here on our platform complete with witty banter and great insight to give you a taste of the books on offer. You can request these books from your local library, get them as e-books or audio books, order them from your local indie bookseller if they're delivering, buy them direct from the publisher or from online retailers.
Today we're launching Rachel Matlow's memoir Dead Mom Walking, which we're particularly excited about after reading their recommended reading list of queer memoirs.
Zoe Whittall writes, “This book is perfect. Dead Mom Walking is a deeply funny, incredibly smart, and moving page-turner...I just can’t get over what a stunning achievement it is.”
*****
The Elevator Pitch. Tell us about your book in a sentence.
Dead Mom Walking is about how my amazing/beloved/hilarious mother tried to cure herself of cancer …
