campfire notebook.

Book Reviews

Currently, with The Seaboard Review:

Poetry

  • (NEW) A Current Through the Flesh by Richard-Yves Sitoski: “[the poems] move beyond the compulsion to which we all easily submit – that the people in our lives who impacted us the most, and then who we impact, can be easily distilled into primary colours.“
  • Off the Map: Vancouver Writers with Lived Experience of Mental Health Issues, edited by Betsy Warland, Seema Shah, Kate Bird: “…[the anthology] reminds the reader: that, buried under the weight of the grey, is hunger and light in each of us…you will find a satisfying and eye-opening foray into others’ truths that will nurture your humanity.”
  • No One Knows Us There by Jessica Bebenek: “…[she] captures [it] exquisitely, it’s because it is honest – because that is grief: A constant refrain, a tidal wave, in which love that no longer has a home but cont to look for new place to rest while changing shape of person holding it.“
  • North of Middle Island by D.A. Lockhart: “It is better to dream than to face the darkness.”
  • What Kind of Daughter? by Rayanne Haines

Fiction

  • Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura: “…about what it means to love and the memories we hold of them before they died – and how it all can change if we get just one more meeting.”
  • Shanghailanders by Juli Min: “a lush, tight tale…”
  • The First Thousand Trees by Premee Mohammed: “…Is there any value to resuming the trajectory of “before times”? Can we (or should we) ever truly “let go” of the past?”

Short Stories

Colouring Books

  • Inspired: A Roy Henry Vickers Colouring Book by Roy Henry Vickers

Previously, with The Miramichi Reader:

Poetry

  • The Last to the Party by Chuqiao Yang: “A beautifully bittersweet ode to the many layers that compound over time to make up ourselves.”
  • Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi
  • Michael and Me by Merle Nudelman: “[the author] uses the natural world’s wonder as a gateway to consider the passage and illusion of time and space.“
  • Moving to Delilah by Catherine Owens
  • Tumbling for Amateurs by Matthew Gwathmey
  • You Break It You Buy It by Lynn Tait: “the images that she uses are simple on the surface, but burst out of the page, uncovering complex lived experiences that uncover what it already in front of us in a new light – a kaleidoscope of wit, wisdom, pain, and hope.”
  • Indie Rock by Joe Bishop
  • Discipline N.V. by Concetta Principe
  • Archipelago by Laila Malik
  • Circle Tour by Eva Tihanyi: “It reads like the wisdom of a person who has a healthy respect for painful experiences, but who is strengthened, not discoloured, by it…[she] sews each poem together with her calls for mindfulness and promises of a better tomorrow, without being achingly saccharine or disingenuous in its hopes…”
  • Cradle and Spoon: Poems by Kate Spencer
  • Casting Out by Rocco de Giacomo

Fiction

  • Dayspring by Anthony Oliveira: “Oliveira’s beautifully messy and, at times, irreverent mixture of prose and poetry…retells the story of Christ through a queer lens….[Dayspring is] lush…raw, and turbulent.”
  • Fit to Die by Daniel Kalla

Short Stories

  • Last Woman: Stories by Carleigh Baker: “Sharp, irreverent writing”
  • Peacocks of Instagram by Deepa Rajagopalan: “[the author] shares her wit and appreciation for the beauty around us with warmth, even when talking about the real drama and tragedy perfusing these stories of displacement, class difference, and privilege.”

Non-Fiction