A once regional, blue-collar town, Peacefield has surrendered its soul to the illusion of affluence. But for some, ideological differences still simmer, and losing streaks have become expected. Tension and division are a way of life. Then, one night, the otherwise bucolic town explodes with gunfire. Hostages are taken and the local police departmen …

Through the filter of the human condition, Strange Bedfellows – a new anthology from Thistledown Press – examines relationships at every stage, in stories and essays filled with humour, grace, and occasionally complete irreverence. The difficulties common to romantic relationships are brought to the forefront in this collection about courtship, …

With careful research and imagination, author Linda Goyette has created a collection of 25 stories based on the true stories of named children of the past and present.

Too often the youngest Canadians are erased from our historical memory. Rocky Mountain Kids provides firstperson creative non-fiction narratives from the region's children, many of wh …

The selections in this survey of the narrative and lyric poets of Confederation and the later nineteenth century have been chosen to remind readers of the distances and diversities involved as Canadians struggled toward nationhood. Along with essays on Sangster and Mair, the first poets consciously writing of the Canadian scene and the Canadian ide …

Victoria’s Chinatown is Canada’s oldest Chinese neighbourhood and has a lineage unbroken since 1858. With large-format colour photos and photocollages, Robert Amos and Kileasa Wong take you behind the doors of the 29 private clubs that make up the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, where you’ll see the gilded altars, antique art an …

In the new knowledge-based economy, information technology is a major field of employment. However, the fast pace of technological innovation, globalization, and the volatile stock market have made IT an increasingly risky business — for some employees more than for others. This volume examines how women and older workers in small IT companies ar …

When the Franklin Motor Expedition set out across the Canadian Prairies to collect First Nations artifacts, brutal assimilation policies threatened to decimate these cultures and extensive programs of ethnographic salvage were in place. Despite having only three members, the expedition amassed the largest single collection of Prairie heritage items …

“Believing Cedric is a marvelously strange novel that explores a marvelously normal phenomenon: everyone in our lives has a story. Mark Lavorato writes with great humanity, compassion and curiosity.” —Todd Babiak, author of Toby: A Man

Cedric Johnson is a middle-aged insurance broker with an unusual problem. He seems to be physically flashing …

Wild Talent tells the strange tale of Jeannie Guthrie, a sixteen-year-old Scottish farm worker, who possesses a frightening talent. Believing that she has unintentionally killed her ne’er-do-well cousin, and fearing that she will be sentenced as a witch, she flees to London. There, she is befriended by the free-spirited and adventurous Alexandra …

An actress visits a bishop she knew in her college years and gives him the kiss he didn't have the nerve to ask for fifty years ago; a retired diplomat encounters a female colleague he served with years ago in Cambodia and learns an unsuspected secret; an aspiring skater is taken up by a former Canadian champion and has to decide what price he is p …

Meet Tyrone Lock: born of farmers' stock; overeducated, underemployed. An inveterate pick-nose and clandestine squeezer of Revels in the supermarket. Disaffected in a way that Adrian Mole would recognize (though as Tyrone takes pains to point out, he's hardly a tortured artist; his BA was in Economics). Inexplicably involved with the lovely, pamper …

Rona Altrows’ short stories go to the core of what it is to be human — to cherish a departed mate beyond reason, to love a child to distraction, to keep the faith with a friend no matter what, to laugh in the face of self-doubt. This collection delivers a humorous yet poignant series of tales told from the perspectives of women.

Resilience is an important aspect of mental well-being. Tatyana Barankin and Nazilla Khanlou draw from the latest research and theoretical developments on resilience in children and youth and present it in a way that is relevant for a diverse audience, including parents, educators, health care providers, daycare workers, coaches, social service pro …

ReLit Long Shortlist, 2015

Finalist, Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction

Winner, National Magazine Award, Silver Medal for Humour, for the story "It Seems Like Sex is a Weird Thing That Used to Happen to Me," from I'm Not Scared of You or Anything

The characters in I’m not Scared of You or Anything are invigilators, fake martial arts experts, buskers, …

In this poignant meditation on the uneasy relationship between science and the human spirit, a group of women aged nineteen to sixty-three with HER2-related breast cancer are recruited for a clinical drug trial. For some of them the trial is renewed hope; others feel it’s a weary last resort. For Dr. Danielle Pearce, the research scientist in cha …

At 4:00 a.m. on a secluded farm, a woman fights to take her life back from a serial killer as her desperate sister and a haunted police officer reach across time and distance in an attempt to rescue her.

Philip Resnick’s Footsteps of the Past constitutes a powerful set of reflections on the modern human condition. The book contains poems dealing with memory, recognition, and the slow passage of time, while others meditate on the deep wounds that chronic illness and disability instill. Some of the poems have a critical political edge, while others …

A vividly wrought memoir, Last Dance in Shediac is a collection of the author’s personal memories of her mother—celebrated Canadian artist Molly Lamb Bobak—and a tender meditation on life and death.

Molly Lamb Bobak (1922–2014) was the first woman to travel overseas as an official Canadian war artist. She was also the daughter of famous Cana …

At turns heartbreaking and hilarious, BOOBS is a diverse collection of stories about the burdens, expectations and pleasures of having breasts. From the agony of puberty and angst of adolescence to the anxiety of aging, these stories and poems go beyond the usual images of breasts found in fashion magazines and movie posters, instead offering dynam …

Hugh Garner’s Best Stories received the Governor General’s Literary Award for English-language fiction in 1963. The collection consists of twenty-four stories composed between the late 1930s and the early 1960s and reflects the immense flux of the mid-century, from the Great Depression to the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Civil Rights mo …

Established under late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, Misión Barrio Adentro (MBA) — Venezuela’s adaptation of the Cuban social medical model — utilizes a free, universal health care system to serve and educate rural, poor and marginalized populations and to broaden the very praxis and ideology of what health means in a true Latin America …

Most people accessing mental health and addiction services have experienced trauma. For those working in community services, treatment agencies and hospitals, providing "trauma-informed care" requires an understanding of the effects of trauma, and of how to create programs, spaces and policies that place priority on trauma survivors' safety, choice …

First there was the Arab Spring, then the Indignados, then Occupy Wall Street. And then there was the Printemps érable — the Maple Spring. In 2011, proclaiming the need for austerity, Québec’s governing Liberal Party announced a draconian increase in tuition fees. Enraged that the government would destroy a legacy of public education, so har …

June’s strength of character was forged by living in the wilderness west of Turner Valley as a young girl with her mother and her stepfather, Tip Johnson, a renowned cowboy and horse trainer. She learned early to live in harmony with her environment and became a strongly determined woman capable of meeting the challenges of being an artist, horse …

In this terrible new COVID-19 world, the University of Ottawa is doing its part by offering a 50% discount on this very important book. We decided not to rewrite the witty book description, though we realize it is tone-deaf at the present moment, as we wanted to give readers a sense of the tone of this title. But don’t be deceived: while a fun re …

Double-Voicing the Canadian Short Story is the first comparative study of eight internationally and nationally acclaimed writers of short fiction: Sandra Birdsell, Timothy Findley, Jack Hodgins, Thomas King, Alistair MacLeod, Olive Senior, Carol Shields and Guy Vanderhaeghe. With the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature going to Alice Munro, the “mast …

From the Canadian Short Story Library, twelve stories from Desmond Pacey, a major figure in Canadian Literature and criticism. The twelve stories are typical of Pacey's story-telling technique and what emerges from them is a distinctive, even powerful optimism, charity, tolerance and deep understanding of human nature. The sombre side of life is ho …

This is a collection of the published and previously unpublished short stories by Thomas Murtha, a Canadian writer born and raised in Ontario. Murtha was one of the notable experimental writers of the 1920s, but his work has been largely ignored by literary historians. Thomas Murtha was a classmate and colleague of other notable Canadians including …

Margaret Atwood enjoys a unique prominence in Canadian letters. With over thirty books to her credit, in genres ranging from children's writing to dystopic novels, she is as creatively diverse as she is internationally acclaimed. Her success, however, has been double-edged: the very popularity that makes her such a prominent figure in the literary …

Family members can play a significant role in helping to identify early signs of psychosis, in seeking prompt and appropriate treatment for their relative, and in promoting the recovery process. Promoting Recovery from First Episode Psychosis is based on research, practice guidelines and the authors’ own experience working with clients and their …

Working with Immigrant Women addresses the gap between the needs of newcomer women and established structures and practices in Canada’s mental health care system.

With an interest in changing paradigms in mental health practice, the multidisciplinary group of authors—including researchers, mental health practitioners, health promoters, community …

In the winter of 1874–75, Edward Worrell Jarvis (1846 –1894) and Charles Francis Hanington (1848–1930) took part in an expedition on behalf of the Canadian Pacific Survey from Quesnel, British Columbia, to Winnipeg, Manitoba. It led them over the northern Rocky Mountains through what would come to be known as Jarvis Pass (Kakwa Provincial Par …

Death may seem a grim subject matter but, in the capable hands of Suzanne Myre, nothing is beyond humour. Though at times sincere, sorrowful, and even a tad gruesome, Death Sentences is also wry, mordant, and amusingly ironic.

Death Sentences features 13 unique short stories, thematically united by death, sex, and existential angst. Solitary and dej …

"With his novel Grey Eyes, Frank Busch taps into the traditional in a way I've not seen before. At once historical and fantastical, Grey Eyes reclaims some of our most powerful stories with authenticity and with heart and with that bit of magic that brings all of it to such beautiful life. Busch is amongst the new generation of voices so vital to o …

The current political climate of confrontation between Islamist regimes and Western governments has resulted in the proliferation of essentialist perceptions of Iran and Iranians in the West. Such perceptions do not reflect the complex evolution of Iranian identity that occurred in the years following the Constitutional Revolution (1906–11) and t …

Dr. Erica Merrill, a young vet trying to establish her veterinary practice in her hometown, a small Northern Idaho county seat, gets involved in a murder investigation when a drug she has dispensed for a family dog is used to poison a wealthy widow. A battle over inheritance means that everyone involved with the household has a motive. But only the …

The fifth volume of The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology includes selections from the books shortlisted for the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize, chosen by the jurors: UK poet Simon Armitage, Governor General's Award winner Erin Moure, and Slovenian poet Tomaz Salamun.

Royalties from the anthology are donated to UNESCO's World Poetry Day.

The Little Washer of Sorrows is a collection of short stories that explores what happens when the expected and usual are replaced with elements of the rare and strange. The book’s emotional impact is created with strong, richly drawn characters facing universal issues in unusual settings. The collection is both dark and comical with engaging plot …

Astatine is an Italian girl, who like Dante's Beatrice, haunts the narrator of Michael Kenyon's incandescent fourth book of poetry. Named after a radioactive element whose isotopes endure half-lives of mere seconds, she is simultaneously a disappearing and abiding presence who cajoles and comforts, who questions and points, who often leaves the poe …

The best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured each year with the Griffin Poetry Prize. The 2008 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology includes poems from the exceptional books shortlisted by judges George Bowering, James Lasdun, and Pura Lopez Colome. The poems in the 2008 anthology are selected and introduced by …

Two Tragedies in 429 Breaths is a book-length series of poems written from the perspective of a daughter who reads Chekhov obsessively while spending a spring and summer caring for her mother, who is dying from pulmonary fibrosis. Through the prism of the relationships in Chekho's work and life emerges an honest, intimate, and even occasionally hum …

In her first collection of short fiction, dee Hobsbawn-Smith creates protagonists struggling to navigate the troubles common to life everywhere, including children attempting to make their parents proud, the collapse of romantic relationships, and dealing with death and loss. Her stories are rife with the disasters of homelessness, domestic violenc …

The best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured in June of each year with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world's richest and most prestigious literary prizes.

The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology 2006: A Selection of the Shortlist includes poems from the seven exceptional books shortlisted for the 2006 pr …

House Dreams, Deanna Young's haunted and haunting third collection, is at once a core sample of the life we all live underground, and a view beneath the foundations of the various eras and places that make up one woman's life story. These poems have the plainspoken power, surreal shifting, uncanny logic and transformed everyday imagery of our most …

Experience all the thrills and suspense of chasing down the world’s highest-profile criminals.

What does it take to catch a criminal? Not just any criminal, but one of the world’s most wanted? In Outlaws, Spies, and Gangsters, Laura Scandiffo chronicles eight of history’s most famous manhunts, from searches for drug dealers to dictators, hacke …

The best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured annually with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world's richest and most prestigious literary awards. The 2010 edition of the anthology includes poems from all the books to be shortlisted this year by judges Anne Carson, Kathleen Jamie, and Carl Phillips. Th …

These urban, commuter-friendly stories capture quirky events in satisfying ways. Their dark undertones and sharp-witted ironies employ familiar settings such as apartments, lofts, studios and city streets , but use unusual and unexpected urban moments as backdrops to outré characters and their given idiosyncrasies. Some of Hayes’ characters are …

Kate Cayley’s is a mind both studious and curious, deeply attuned to the question “what if?” What if Nick Drake and Emily Dickinson met in the afterlife? What if a respected physician suddenly shrank to the size of a pea? What if the blind twins in a Victorian photograph could speak to us? What if we found another Earth orbiting another sun?

C …

A man seeking the high life realizes too late that he has destroyed his possibilities for happiness. Four junkies wait anxiously for a drug dealer who seems to have forgotten their existence. A gang leader attempts to navigate racism, greed, and mutiny within the ranks. An aspiring writer assesses and obsesses over a crime close to home as a young …

Provisional, roaming, obsessed with remnants and deferrals, the poems in Charmaine Cadeau’s second collection navigate flexible and shifting terrains where the speaker’s emotional directness tethers us as we dare to read on. Though Cadeau is capable of some stunning acrobatics—somersaulting mid-line, the imagery defying gravity, the language …