Front List

Animal

By Alexandra Leggat

In a style reminiscent of Raymond Carver, the stories contained in Animal depict people on the brink of major life change. They stand at crossroads they are often oblivious to; they suck thick air in rooms filled with palpable tension. Leggat’s characters often seem captured in a cinematic slo-mo, teetering on the edge of something unknown, heroically resisting the ever-present pull of Fate. It matters little whether the characters take action or refuse to act; life acts for them. The reader is left to wonder: When does “meaning” cease to have meaning? Like travelling a mountain highway at night, what’s just around the next bend is never known. The stories in Animal never fail to deliver potent surprises.

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“I’m tempted to say it’s a slim, distilled masterpiece.”
– Michael Bryson, Underground Book Club

“these quickly unfolding stories are elliptically drawn, tense with action and dark humour. Leggat is a shape-shifting writer”
– Ibi Kaslik, The Globe and Mail

“this immensely rewarding collection is worth picking up”
– eye weekly

Frenzy

By Catherine Owen

In Greek mythology the Muses preside over the arts and inspire writers and artists to produce works of genius. In Frenzy, Catherine Owen pays homage to the muse in a six-part compilation of muse-quests, some the author’s, some those of others. These muses can be a person, a place, or even the absurdity itself of indefinitely seeking the muse.

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Inventory

By Marguerite Pigeon

With its accessible style, this collection should appeal to a broad readership. Anyone who’s tried to write a poem about an object will be able to relate to the impossibility (and undesirability) of evoking a ‘thing’ outside of their own subjective relation to it. Inventory will be of particular interest to those who are familiar with the long and broad history of object poetry, including works by Francis Ponge, Robert Bly, Zbigniew Herbert, and Jorge Luis Borges.

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Kaspoit!

By Dennis E. Bolen

PRAISE FOR KASPOIT!
“…Reminds me of Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange in its inventive language and insular
world of violence; also Beckett and Mamet in the lowlife characterizations, back-andforth dialogue, and the sheer absurdity.”
—Myna Wallin, A Thousand Profane Pieces

“…compelling, sickening, and, ultimately, hits what is most likely closest to the truth about what happened there than anything else that’ll get out in the world. Kaspoit! puts me in mind of A Clockwork Orange (the book), for its neologisms and violence/bleakness, and Pulp Fiction (the movie) for the unrelenting violence, so
much so that we become inured to it.”
—Janis Harper, Body Breakdowns

“…there is a well-executed gloom that maybe owes a tip of the hat to Harry Crews or
Flannery O’Connor, or maybe a drunken Hawthorne. The dialogue never grinds or
presents an obstacle—it runs smooth, which is a must considering its importance
to the story. In many ways it is the story.”
—Phillip D. Alexander, The Next Rainy Day

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Loop, Print, Fade + Flicker: David Rimmer's Moving Images

By Mike Hoolboom & Alex MacKenzie

Rimmer emerged as a young visionary in the late sixties with such startlingly original works as Square Inch Field and Migration. His films of the early seventies—Surfacing on the Thames, Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper, The Dance, and Seashore—drew much critical acclaim for taking structuralist film in new directions. After spending several years in New York city he returned to Vancouver in the mid-1970s and made Canadian Pacific and Canadian Pacific II, which helped establish him as one of the world’s most accomplished cinematic artists.

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