Calgary authors and presses impress in 2009
It’s been a miserable few weeks for Calgarian commuters our foreheads pelted by snow our glasses blinded with fog and our road rage producing epic strings of expletives so harsh they could almost plow the streets. Why not avoid it all and travel from the comfort of your own home curled in an armchair with a hot drink and an open book? Talk about a really good reason to read more. Here are some of the local books that wowed us in 2009.
If University of Calgary professor Tom Wayman is really retiring 2009 suggests he’s not slowing down. Wayman’s novel Woodstock Rising (Dundurn Press) gives a Canadian perspective to the seasons surrounding that famous 1969 festival. Wayman also appeared in two anthologies this year: Leonard Cohen: You’re Our Man (Foundation for Public Poetry) which enjoyed a packed debut at Pages Books on Leonard Cohen’s 70th birthday and The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2009 (Tightrope Books).
Freehand Books re-released two Marina Endicott books in 2009: her first novel Open Arms (2001) and a new edition of Good to a Fault (clad in Giller and Commonwealth Prize gold seals). Other Freehand titles in 2009 were Buying Cigarettes for the Dog a hilarious collection of short stories by Toronto surrealist Stuart Ross; Joan Crate’s Suburban Legends (poetry); Jesse Patrick Ferguson’s Harmonics (poetry); and postcard & other stories by Anik See. The strong second catalogue from Calgary’s boutique-press-that-can proves that although original managing editor Melanie Little moved on Freehand Books continues to astound.
Calgary also got another great new press this past year. Recliner Books publishes neat little books that fit your busy life in pocketbook and ebook formats. Barb Howard’s Notes for Monday is the first offering set during the 1988 Calgary Olympics. Told from the perspective of a crotchety old lawyer and his wife Vera this quick read will quickly have you grinning.
Derek Beaulieu connected us with Chains (Paper Kite Press) a collection of visual poetry made with old school dry-transfer lettering. Unlike his 2008 release Flatland the poems are both avant-garde and visually appealing. Art Central’s Uppercase Gallery also showcased the work as an art installation as did the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival. Beaulieu’s work just keeps getting bigger and better.
Calgary Herald writers Robert Remington and Sherri Zickefoose co-authored Runaway Devil (McClelland & Stewart) a work of non-fiction examining the motives that drove the infamous 12-year-old Medicine Hat girl to orchestrate the murder of her entire family. Creepy? You bet. The sensationalist bloody typeface makes it clear before even cracking the book. What you wouldn’t guess however is the painful simplicity of the girl’s motives. Senseless death is what it is.
For a striking change of pace Michael Davie’s Fishing for Bacon (NeWest) is a charming and funny book about Bacon an optimistic teenaged spin-caster on a hero’s journey to the Crowsnest Pass. Encountering weird people discovering weirder places and getting weirded out all the way poor maple-sweet Bacon just keeps jumping out of the frying pan and into the well you know. This tasty book leaves you with a feeling in your chest that might be heartache or just some wayward cholesterol.
Former dandelion Magazine editor filmmaker teacher and poet Jonathan Ball recently retreated to Winnipeg. What a loss of great talent. We’ll miss Ball but at least he left us with a nice parting gift his very unique long poem Ex Machina exploring the interface between man and machine. The book fittingly appeared from Toronto’s hub for experimental literature Book Thug.
Here’s a list of other 2009 notable local releases we wish we had more time to talk about: multi-disciplinary poet and Golden Beret Award winner Sarah Murphy’s Last Taxi to Nutmeg Mews ; The Frontenac House 2009 Quartet featuring Pierrette Requier and Anna Marie Sewell’s poetry debuts plus new collections by Bob Stallworthy and Nancy Jo Cullen; the re-release of Eunoia by Christian Bök including new poems and Bök’s appearance in Regreen: New Canadian Ecological Poetry ; Cecilia Frey’s Under Nose Hill (fiction); Automaton Biographies by former Calgary resident Larissa Lai and Sybil Unrest; Letter Out/Letter In by Salimah Valiani; Calgary ex-pats Don LePan and Christopher Willard with Animals and Sundre respectively both works of fiction from Vehicule Press; Will Ferguson’s Beyond Belfast ; new local books from Oolichan by both Bruce Hunter and Calgary Public Library 2009 writer in residence Betty Jane Hegeret; Lori Hahnel’s new book of short fiction Nothing Sacred ; former U of C professor Nicole Markotic’s Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot (fiction); journalist Gordon Laird’s Price of a Bargain . Heck even hockey player Theo Fleury got into writing with his biography Playing with Fire . Better get reading.
