Off the Page
A blog on Canadian writing, reading, and everything in between

Small Courage: Parenting Memoirs
A recommended reading list by Jane Byers, whose new queer parenting memoir is out now.

The Chat with Kimiko Tobimatsu
Author Kimiko Tobimatsu and illustrator Keet Geniza have teamed up to create Kimiko Does Cancer, a timely graphic memoir …

A Record of Literary History: Best Canadian Poetry 2020
An excerpt from Marilyn Dumont's introduction to BEST CANADIAN POETRY 2020.

The Donair: Canada's Official Food?
Excerpt from BOOK OF DONAIR explores how a bitter rivalry between Halifax and Edmonton helped propel the donair to be de …

Notes From a Children's Librarian: Questions, Questions
Great picture books that engage with questions and encourage readers to think about answers.

Most Anticipated: Our 2021 Spring Fiction Preview
Exciting debuts, and new releases by Christy Ann Conlin, Pasha Malla, Eva Stachniak, Jael Richardson, and more.

Patriarchy Lies: Women Are Funny
A funny woman reading list by the author of new novel Better Luck Next Time.

The Chat with Eve Lazarus
Eve Lazarus has drawn back the curtain on some of Vancouver’s secret places. Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City …

Canadian Books of the Year: Chosen by Educators and Librarians
We asked educators and librarians to share their favourite Canadian books of 2020.
Results for keyword: “Dionne Brand”
The Recommend: September 2017
Research shows that most of the books we read are the result of one thing: someone we know, trust, and/or admire tells us it's great. That's why we run this series, The Recommend, where writers, reviewers, bloggers, and others tell us about a book they'd recommend to a good friend ... and why.
This month we're pleased to present the picks of Greg Rhyno (To Me You Seem Giant), Pamela Mordecai (Red Jacket), Alix Hawley (All True Not a Lie In It), and Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer (All the Broken Things).
**
Greg Rhyno recommends Andrew Hood's The Cloaca
Andrew Hood has written a pile of great stuff including book reviews, essays, and a biography on Guelph lo-fi legend Jim Guthrie. But for my money, Hood’s primary talent lies within his ability to birth a killer short story. His second collection of these slimy diamonds is The Cloaca, appropriately named after the orifice where everything bad comes out of a bird. The stories in this book are messy, cathartic, and hilarious.
The narrator in “Manning” spars with a deformed man-child over a rookie baseball card. In “Beginners,” a woman’s martial arts dreams are dashed when her sensei keeps looking down her karategi. The smell of a used diaper in “I’m Sorry and Thank You” reminds the main character of things he …
Continue reading >
Shelf Talkers: Mid-Summer 2018
Summer.
The very word sends a shiver down the spine, carrying with it memories and echoes of those glorious months from our younger days when the world seemed limitless, and full of potential.
For readers, the summer months have a special connotation. We remember not family trips, per se, but those books we read wedged in the back seat. We remember not pick-up games in the yard, but library reading programs and the stacks of books we devoured, heedless of the outside world. (Did you cross an ocean, measuring the nautical miles in page counts? Or did your reading stats take you on an epic walk? Did you get stickers, or bookmarks, or was the reading simply for its own sake, with no thought of prizes?) We remember all that time we had to read what we wanted, not what we had to read for school. Summer is when we made some of the reading discoveries that have lasted for a lifetime, books and authors who would shape us, in ways we may not even really understand.
As exciting as summer is for adults, it’s never quite so wondrous as those we remember.
But as readers, we can recapture a bit of that magic, whether we’re travelling the world, or sipping coffee on our tiny deck.
This month, the booksellers of the Shelf Talkers column pull back the curtain a little to describe …
Continue reading >
The Chat: 2019 Griffin Poetry Prize Roundtable
We’re thrilled to once again work in partnership with our friends at the Griffin Poetry Prize to bring you a special roundtable edition of The Chat with all three 2019 Canadian Griffin Prize finalists.
Dionne Brand is a finalist for The Blue Clerk (McClelland & Stewart). The jury citation reads: “Dionne Brand’s The Blue Clerk is many things at once: a book-length ars poetica; an act of memo
ry and reconfiguration; an extended meditation (one that moves at times directly, at others by a kind of philosophical osmosis) touching on the realms of history, politics, race and gender; an internal, consciously curated and interrogated dialogue that manages to create a space for all of these. Expansive, beautifully written, structurally compelling, and above all moving, The Blue Clerk is a book to be read (and re-read), not just for the pleasures of its language, but for the breadth of its vision, and the capaciousness of its thinking.”
Eve Joseph’s collection Quarrels (Anvil) is also a finalist. The jury citation reads: “In Quarrels, Eve Joseph’s …
Continue reading >
The Recommend: September 2017
Research shows that most of the books we read are the result of one thing: someone we know, trust, and/or admire tells us it's great. That's why we run this series, The Recommend, where writers, reviewers, bloggers, and others tell us about a book they'd recommend to a good friend ... and why.
This month we're pleased to present the picks of Greg Rhyno (To Me You Seem Giant), Pamela Mordecai (Red Jacket), Alix Hawley (All True Not a Lie In It), and Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer (All the Broken Things).
**
Greg Rhyno recommends Andrew Hood's The Cloaca
Andrew Hood has written a pile of great stuff including book reviews, essays, and a biography on Guelph lo-fi legend Jim Guthrie. But for my money, Hood’s primary talent lies within his ability to birth a killer short story. His second collection of these slimy diamonds is The Cloaca, appropriately named after the orifice where everything bad comes out of a bird. The stories in this book are messy, cathartic, and hilarious.
The narrator in “Manning” spars with a deformed man-child over a rookie baseball card. In “Beginners,” a woman’s martial arts dreams are dashed when her sensei keeps looking down her karategi. The smell of a used diaper in “I’m Sorry and Thank You” reminds the main character of things he …
Shelf Talkers: Mid-Summer 2018
Summer.
The very word sends a shiver down the spine, carrying with it memories and echoes of those glorious months from our younger days when the world seemed limitless, and full of potential.
For readers, the summer months have a special connotation. We remember not family trips, per se, but those books we read wedged in the back seat. We remember not pick-up games in the yard, but library reading programs and the stacks of books we devoured, heedless of the outside world. (Did you cross an ocean, measuring the nautical miles in page counts? Or did your reading stats take you on an epic walk? Did you get stickers, or bookmarks, or was the reading simply for its own sake, with no thought of prizes?) We remember all that time we had to read what we wanted, not what we had to read for school. Summer is when we made some of the reading discoveries that have lasted for a lifetime, books and authors who would shape us, in ways we may not even really understand.
As exciting as summer is for adults, it’s never quite so wondrous as those we remember.
But as readers, we can recapture a bit of that magic, whether we’re travelling the world, or sipping coffee on our tiny deck.
This month, the booksellers of the Shelf Talkers column pull back the curtain a little to describe …
The Chat: 2019 Griffin Poetry Prize Roundtable
We’re thrilled to once again work in partnership with our friends at the Griffin Poetry Prize to bring you a special roundtable edition of The Chat with all three 2019 Canadian Griffin Prize finalists.
Dionne Brand is a finalist for The Blue Clerk (McClelland & Stewart). The jury citation reads: “Dionne Brand’s The Blue Clerk is many things at once: a book-length ars poetica; an act of memo
ry and reconfiguration; an extended meditation (one that moves at times directly, at others by a kind of philosophical osmosis) touching on the realms of history, politics, race and gender; an internal, consciously curated and interrogated dialogue that manages to create a space for all of these. Expansive, beautifully written, structurally compelling, and above all moving, The Blue Clerk is a book to be read (and re-read), not just for the pleasures of its language, but for the breadth of its vision, and the capaciousness of its thinking.”
Eve Joseph’s collection Quarrels (Anvil) is also a finalist. The jury citation reads: “In Quarrels, Eve Joseph’s …