The East Side of It All, written from the perspective of a drug user and single-room occupant in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, explores the ongoing process of healing through reconnection with family, the natural world and traditional Indigenous (Kwantlen) storytelling. Dandurand’s voice is lyrical yet intimate, obscured yet sitting with you a …

There are too many stories about Indigenous women who go missing or are murdered, and it doesn’t seem as though official sources such as government, police or the courts respond in a way that works toward finding justice or even solutions. At least that is the way Wren StrongEagle sees it.

Wren is devastated when her twin sister, Raven, mysterious …

Outside, America criss-crosses the Canadian–American border to understand dilemmas that occur across a variety of scales, from global spheres to the most intimate domestic spaces. Sarah de Leeuw digs through grief, loss, aging, technological frustration, environmental degradation, nationalism and confusion to grasp the state of the world. These p …

Witness, I Am is divided into three gripping sections of new poetry from one of Canada's most recognized poets. The first part of the book, "Dangerous Sound," contains contemporary themed poems about identity and belonging, undone and rendered into modern sound poetry. "Muskrat Woman," the middle part of the book, is a breathtaking epic poem that c …

Raw and honest, Bearskin Diary gives voice to a generation of First Nations women who have always been silenced, at a time when movements like Idle No More call for a national inquiry into the missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Carol Daniels adds an important perspective to the Canadian literary landscape.

Taken from the arms of her mother as s …

In her lyrical memoir The Death of Small Creatures, Trisha Cull lays bare her struggles with bulimia, bipolar disorder and substance abuse. Interspersing snatches of conversations, letters, blog entries and clinical notes with intimate poetic narrative, Cull evokes an accessible experience of mental illness.

In The Death of Small Creatures, Cull str …

In this unsettling collection, Vancouver singer/songwriter Rodney DeCroo delivers raw footage of a childhood marred by violence, sudden uprootings, and abuse. Allegheny, BC is a candid, gritty tour through DeCroo's troubled past in a small coal town outside of Pittsburgh, PA, the bush of northern BC, and his young adult years in Vancouver. Scenes o …

"Later we will laugh; shake moonlight
off our clothes like ash.

For now we stare at the clock. The
day wears, tired as mechanism."
--from Undark

Undark: An Oratorio is the highly anticipated second collection from Sandy Pool, whose debut book of poetry Exploding into Night (Guernica, 2009) was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for poetry i …

It's lucky 13 for the latest instalment of the bestselling O Canada Crosswords series. This volume features 100 puzzles for solvers from coast to coast, including 67 with full-on national content. Solvers can take a trip to the nation's capital with Destination: Ottawa. Savour true Canadian flavour with For the Foodies and Eponymous Edibles. Test y …

Winner of the 2008 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize
Finalist for the 2008 Asian American Literary Award

Rita Wong's new collection of poems explores how ecological crises relate to the injustices of our international political landscape. Querying the relations between writing and other forms of action, Wong seeks a shift in consciousness through poems t …

Shortlisted for the 2007 Governor General's Award for Poetry
Shortlisted for the 21st Annual Trillium Book Award for Poetry in English
Finalist for an Ottawa Book Award

Part history, part invention, Muybridge's Horse is a sensual biographical long poem that follows the career of Eadweard Muybridge, a nineteenth-century British-born photographer whos …

In his debut poetry collection, A.J. Levin presents a world in which the past overlays our modern existence, where classical allusions and philosophical observation are married to slapstick humour and carnival: Plato is a blues singer, Tantalus is a prospector in BC, and Descartes wanders around a Montreal amusement park. Monks' Fruit is above all …

City of Vancouver's Poet Laureate for 2009-2011

In 1999 Brad Cran exploded onto the Canadian literary scene with the release of Hammer & Tongs, a milestone anthology of the country's newest generation of poets. It became the bestselling book in the history of the Vancouver International Writers Festival and was followed by a cross-Canada tour with s …

In Salmon Boy: A Legend of the Sechelt People, a young boy is captured by a Chum salmon and brought to the country of the salmon people-a dry land beneath water where "the salmon people walked about the same as people do above the sea." The boy lived with them for one year, and his captivity becomes a source of learning that will ensure the surviva …

These traditional teaching legends come straight from the oral traditions of the Sechelt Nation. Simple enough to be understood by young children, yet compelling enough for adults, they are gentle, beautifully presented cautionary tales. You'll want to read them again and again - and you'll learn a few words of the Shishalh language while you're at …

These traditional teaching legends come straight from the oral traditions of the Sechelt Nation. Simple enough to be understood by young children, yet compelling enough for adults, they are gentle, beautifully presented cautionary tales. You'll want to read them again and again - and you'll learn a few words of the Shishalh language while you're at …