Book Review: My Road From Damascus
Truth is strange and challenging in new memoir Truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction. Not since reading Tara Westover’s Educated in 2018, had I come across a book that drove this point home so very well. Until I read Jamal Saeed’s My Road from Damascus. Stories we hear about Syria in the media, […]
Book Review: When We Lost Our Heads
O’Neill’s newest novel sticks with you long after you’re done reading I mentioned to a friend that I was reading When We Lost Our Heads by Heather O’Neill and she told me she was jealous that I got to read it for the first time. Now, I get to be jealous of everyone who hasn’t […]
Book Review: Mansions of the Moon
600 BC brought to life in Mansions of the Moon Bestselling author of Funny Boy and The Hungry Ghosts, Shyam Selvadurai returns after more than a decade with Mansions of the Moon, an exploration of the early life of the man who would become the ‘Buddha’, as seen through the eyes of Yasodhara, the wife […]
Book Review: Our American Friend
No one can be trusted in Our American Friend by Anna Pitoniak Now, I’m not saying that author Anna Pitoniak borrowed and improved some family backstory from a notorious American political family, or looked to the latest news headlines for her latest novel, Our American Friend, but the book could be ripped from the headlines […]
Book review: Last One Alive
The bodies stack up in Last One Alive by Amber Cowie Amber Cowie had me at “witch” and “murder,” two keywords that capture my attention just fine on their own but together are an irresistible combination for a thriller. The Squamish writer’s newest book is Last One Alive and the bodies really pile up in […]
Book Review: In the Dark We Forget
Forget what you know in In the Dark We Forget by Sandra SG Wong I’m a sucker for amnesia as a plot device. It creates so much confusion and so many problems for so many people, as it does in In The Dark We Forget, a new psychological thriller by Sandra SG Wong. Cleo Li […]
Festival tickets on sale soon
2022 Whistler Writers Festival tickets go on sale August 31 Tickets for the Whistler Writers Festival (October 13-16) go on sale Aug. 31. This year’s festival is once again in-person and online, and features the best local, Canadian, and international writers. Tickets for the 21st edition of the Whistler Writers Festival go on sale August […]
Book Review: We Want What we Want by Alix Ohlin
Book Review by Kate Heskett Changing Track: Ohlin’s Tantalizing Tales We Want What We Want is a collection of short stories from two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist, Alix Ohlin. The thirteen discrete tales —there are no crossover characters — offer an experience akin to being thrown blindfolded from a plane and landing on a series […]
Picking up what was lost: Poetry Review
Poetry review of works by Steven Heighton, Canisia Lubrin, Arleen Paré, Yusuf Saadi and Terence Young by Mary MacDonald This year, the Whistler Writers Festival hosts five poets: Steven Heighton (Selected Poems 1983-2020), Canisia Lubrin (The Dyzgraphxst), Arleen Paré (First), Yusuf Saadi (Pluviophile), and Terence Young (Smithereens). Heighton is a master craftsman, equally at ease in fiction, non-fiction, and children’s literature. As a poet, his voice is […]
The warmth of the Whistler crowd
Photo: Joern Rohde/joernrohde.com My first time participating at the Whistler Writers Festival was in 2019. It was a chilly evening, but I remember the warmth of the crowd that attended for Stella’s launch of her latest novel at the time, Finding Callidora. Having been asked by Stella if I would be interested in preparing […]