As a special feature, we welcome the phenomenal author and workshop facilitator Lauren Carter to our blog to talk about something many writers dream about often, and execute less: we’re talking about writer’s retreats—those elusively but oh-so beneficial companions to a healthy writing practice.

Lauren Carter is the award-winning author of five books, with news of the sixth coming soon. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a certificate in teaching and training adult learners and regularly teaches writing. From June 7-9, 2024, she will be co-leading Stillwater: A Trauma-Informed Writing Retreat at a gorgeous historic estate on Ontario’s Lake Simcoe. 

For this Power Q & A, we are delighted to welcome author Jade Wallace! Jade is known not only for their individual work—like their upcoming release, Amonia (Palimpsest Press, 2024) but also, for their incredible collaborations with other artists. Today, we want to know a little bit about what makes these collaborations work.

March is Epilepsy Month, and we are honoured to be featuring an excerpt from Nora Gold’s new novella, In Sickness and In Health, which is part of a set of novellas published earlier this month by Guernica Editions.

The narrative around epilepsy has been, historically, fraught with misinformation and prejudice, and Nora explores this stigma and shame in her writing.

Mere days from the official release of her glorious debut, we are delighted to have author Susan Wadds join us to answer a burning question about her much-anticipated, super salient novel, What the Living Do (Regal House Press, 2024).

We first came to admire the writing of Marion Agnew when we read her debut book, a memoir: Reverberations: A Daughter’s Mediations on Alzheimer’s. When her second book—the novel Making Up the Gods was published—we knew we had to invite her on our Power Q & A series. Even though the books are markedly different, in narrative approach as well as genre, there was a major similarity readers were picking up on, and we had a question.

We’re delighted to have Sahar Golshan, the author of SO LOUD! (Annick Press, 2024), join us for this Power Q & A. Sahar speaks about the power of reading and representation in childhood, and how this compelled her to tell this story of finding your voice in her new, incredibly fun, and touching children’s picture book.

Kate Rogers is the author of The Meaning of Leaving, a tender and unflinching collection of poems that strives to show society's thoughtless acceptance of violence towards the vulnerable: women, the natural world, and the unhoused who struggle with mental health and addiction issues. These are brave and tender poems that will ignite and unite.

These are also incredibly personal poems, many of which Rogers identifies as autobiographical. In this Power Q & A, we ask Kate about the impetus and challenges of this project.

Patrick Grace's collection of poetry, Deviant, is one of the most anticipated debuts of the year, tracing a tender and salient exploration of queer identity and belonging, as well as Patrick's personal experiences with the systemic dismissal of intimate partner violence that occurs in 2SLGBTQ+ relationships.

We're stoked to have him on this Power Q & A to ask one of our most pressing questions about the collection.

February 12-16 is 2024 Sexual Health Week here in Canada, and we’re always up for raising awareness about sexual health, education, and care—especially when we can do that through amazing CanLit. That’s why we’re almost inappropriately excited to be featuring an excerpt of award-winning author Susan Wadds’ upcoming novel, What the Living Do, due out with Regal House Publishing on March 18, 2024.

Our Power Q & A guest today is Carmela Circelli—a Toronto psychotherapist and philosophy professor at York University, and also the author of the novel, Love and Rain (Guernica Editions, 2023). Love and Rain is a stunning story that explores the human cost of political ideology against the backdrop of the FLQ movement in Quebec and the Red Brigades in Italy. Carmela's work resounds with the depth and immediacy of the human psyche, and shows, with painful clarity, how we flail and suffer in times of civil unrest.

Gail Kirkpatrick is our esteemed guest for this Power Q & A. Gail is the author of the beautiful novel, Sleepers and Ties (Now or Never Publications, 2023)—a story about the importance of rebuilding community and friendships, and how these connections are often missing from (but necessary to) our everyday lives. This lack of connectivity is something so many of us feel, despite our increasingly digitally-tethered productivity-obsessed existences. We had to ask Gail: how does she take it slow?

The incomparable Catherine Owen is our guest for this Power Q & A, and we are honoured to welcome her. Catherine is a vital member of the CanLit community and she has published 16 collections in four genres. Today, we wanted to ask Catherine about her upcoming poetry collection, Moving to Delilah, (Freehand Books, April 1, 2024). Having been on 12 cross-Canada book tours, she’s chosen a distinctly different approach to launching this most recent collection, hosting salon-like in-home performances and discussions. We were fascinated and we had to ask: why?

Zulaikha is the gripping and gorgeous debut novel by Iranian-Canadian author Niloufar-Lily Soltani (published by Inanna Publications). The novel takes place over a forty-year period of war and upheaval in the Middle East—specifically, in Zulaikha's home territory of Khuzestan, which boasts the bulk of Iran's oil reserves. We’re delighted to have Lily with us for this Power Q & A to talk about the inspiration for this book and her world-building through language.

Today we’re entering exciting new worlds on our Power Q & A! Join us in welcoming Canadian sci-fi author David Neil Lee to talk about his latest Hamilton, Ontario-based YA novel, The Great Outer Dark (published by Wolsak & Wynn, 2023).

It’s a first on our River Street Power Q & A series: we have a children’s book author joining us! In our experience, we’ve found writing children’s books quite challenging, but kidlit author Kate Jenks (Beatrice & Barb, Kid Can Press, 2023) is here to make an important distinction and dole out some advice for those of us who may struggle writing this genre.

Welcome Gary Barwin to our Power Q & A! Gary is, most recently, the author of Imagining Imagining: Essays on Language, Identity and Infinity (Wolsak & Wynn, 2023). This transfixing collection of personal essays offers a wide-eyed exploration of identity, language, belonging, and the unruly wonder of our existence. Gary’s writing is a timely and vital antidote to the desensitization of the news cycle, and a reminder of the importance of belonging—a topic as relevant now as ever.

Welcome to our Power Q & A with the amazing Gina Leola Woolsey, author of Fifteen Thousand Pieces: A Medical Examiner’s Journey Through Disaster, published by Guernica Editions. Fifteen Thousand Pieces is a moving and fast-paced biography intertwining the Swiss Air disaster that happened off the coast of Nova Scotia with the life of the province’s Medical Examiner at the time, Dr. John Butt—a closeted gay man who was coming to terms with his own sexuality at the same time this tragedy was unfolding.

In this interview, we ask Gina about the challenges of telling this story.

mel patchwork monoceros wrote one of our favourite poetry collections of the year, Remedies for Chiron (Radiant Press, 2023). Remedies for Chiron is told through the eyes of a queer, disabled, Black poet trying to navigate love and an often inaccessible and inhospitable world. mel is also an immensely talented visual artist (their book cover features their gorgeous work) and we’re stoked to have them join us for this Power Q & A to talk about their work.

rob mclennan is a CanLit institution and an iconic example of the power of good literary citizenship. In addition to being one of the most prolific writers we know, rob regularly amplifies the voices of other writers through his blogs. You can find more about rob below. For now, let’s get to the burning question!

On this Power Q & A, we are absolutely chuffed to welcome the wonderful Saskatchewan poet, gillian harding-russell, who answers our question about how her visually stunning poems take shape on the page. gillian’s 2018 poetry collection, In Another Air, was published by Radiant Press, and her 2020 collection, Uninterrupted, was published by Ekstasis Editions. Both were short-listed for Saskatchewan Book Awards.

Welcome, gillian!