Tension, a graphic memoir by Afro-Asian artist Pearl Low, is about a woman learning to love and embrace her roots—literally. “I never used to mind my hair. . . until other people started to,” she writes in the opening strip, which depicts a younger Low who bemoans her...
Whatever, Iceberg chronicles an all-too-familiar queer romance interwoven with polyamory, single parenting, chronic pain, poverty, and aging. Despite the specificity of Ziniuk’s writing, the collection remains relatable for anyone who has ever been in a badly timed...
While reading GG’s new graphic novel, I’m Not Here, I was reminded of a short story by Delmore Schwartz, in which the narrator goes into a cinema and, much to their amazement and dismay, finds that the film being screened is of their parents’ first meeting. Knowing...
Each of the fifteen stories, mostly populated by female protagonists at less-than-perfect moments in their lives, show the work of a generous writer committed to creating characters unapologetically being themselves in all their flawed, misguided glory. In most books...
The essays in Where It Hurts are deeply felt, original, and a moving requiem for lives extinguished too early to have left a trace. De Leeuw writes with love and conviction while also asking important questions of the reader: how do we live with the empty spaces death...
Table Manners is an unsettling and deeply hilarious book of poetry that is best devoured like any good meal—slowly and with intention. Table Manners, the debut collection of poetry by Toronto writer, editor, and teacher Catriona Wright, is a bold exploration of food,...
Carleigh Baker’s debut collection of stories is a weird and wonderful frolic through the vagaries of relationships, especially their ends and mostly from the perspective of women. Bad Endings, Carleigh Baker’s debut collection of stories, is a weird and wonderful...
In a world not unimaginably different from our own, members of a religious cult wait out a civil war in an underground bunker. Tarry This Night, Kristyn Dunnion’s second novel, is an unsettling tale told in turns by five members of the Family, including Father Ernst,...
Bänoo Zan’s second book of poetry, Letters to My Father, opens with her rationale for seeking refuge in poetry, and fleeing from stories. Bänoo Zan’s second book of poetry, Letters to My Father, opens with her rationale for seeking refuge in poetry, and fleeing from...
Children Shouldn’t Use Knives and Other Tales shreds the yellow ribbons of childhood sentimentality and, instead, offers an exploration of what it feels like to be small and vulnerable in a stormy world. I’m not nostalgic for childhood. Childhood was terrifying—the...