There are few filmmakers as prolific – and varied in the subjects they cover – as Barry Avrich. Consider that since 2020 alone, the 62-year-old Montreal native has released documentaries about dictatorship in Turkey (Reversal of Fortune: Turkey’s Unraveling Democracy, 2020), comedian Howie Mandel (Howie Mandel: But, Enough About Me, 2020), jazz great Oscar Peterson […]
From her 375-year-old farmhouse in Dorset, England, author Clare Leslie Hall (a.k.a Clare Empson and Clare Hall) and I are about to discover we have a whole lot in common: romantic reading material, juicy love triangles, defiant lane straying, lacklustre farming skills and a deep loathing of difficult edits. Broken Country, her third novel as […]
A “deep cut,” for non-musicians in the house, is a band or artist’s lesser-known non-hits that only true fans know and appreciate. In Deep Cuts, the buzz-worthy debut novel from Canadian author Holly Brickley, they’re a metaphor for many things: nostalgia for LP lingo lost to the digital age, the particular pain of being romantically […]
Proof for would-be authors that publishing dreams come true: In 2007, neuroscientist-turned-writer Lisa Genova – after a painful year of endless rejections from agents and traditional publishers who said a book about Alzheimer’s would never sell – committed a so-called writerly sin and self-published her first novel, Still Alice. Despite warnings it was a waste […]
With the release of Presumed Guilty, we’ve allegedly come to the end of the Rusty Sabich ride. Considering how Scott Turow’s famous fictional prosecutor – however problematic and philandering and immoral – has proven irresistible to the Wisconsin-based crime writer, it seems fair to ask, is this third novel really it? Turow laughs when I […]
Like a million other young girls, Judith Graves has known Anne Shirley seemingly forever, especially since she hails from Prince Edward Island. “She’s almost embedded in my psyche,” says the Summerside author, screenwriter and illustrator. It’s a big year for fans celebrating the 150th birthday of Anne of Green Gables writer Lucy Maud Montgomery, who […]
Shy Creatures, Clare Chambers’ 10th novel, was inspired by a news story that kicked her imagination into gear. The British author came across an online account about Harry Tucker, a 47-year-old schizophrenic who had been hidden away in a Bristol house by three elderly aunts. For more than a decade he didn’t go beyond his […]
From the opening line, “Fog coils over Conception Bay,” False Bodies pulls you in with an inky stare and never lets go. Both chilling and droll, the supernatural tale with an eco-slant opens with the mass death of rig workers on the Harvey Queen, an offshore-oil platform in Newfoundland. The bodies are whisked away to […]
If you’re grappling with a thorny issue in your life, there’s a good chance Daniel Lavery has wrestled with it, too. The Brooklyn-based author spent six years writing Slate magazine’s popular Dear Prudence advice column, untangling knotty questions like: Should I leave my alcoholic boyfriend? (probably); Is it okay to call my co-workers “dear”? (nope); […]
If music is a religion, fans are the acolytes. Some of the most fervent followers are teenagers on the cusp of adulthood, waiting for life to hurry up and start already. They worship at the altar of their favourite bands and commit lyrics to memory like lines from a bible. In Marissa Stapley’s new novel, […]