Contemporary Canadian Literature with a Distinctly Urban Twist

Anvil Press

I Could Have Pretended to Be Better Than You

By Jay Millar

Spanning more than 25 years, I Could Have Pretended to Be Better Than You gathers work from three distinct eras of Jay Millar’s development as a poet.

  • canada orders $20
  • us $20
  • world (outside Canada/US) orders US $20

I Cut My Finger

By Stuart Ross

I Cut My Finger is Stuart Ross's first full-length poetry collection since his acclaimed Hey, Crumbling Balcony! Poems New & Selected (2003). The poems here show Ross's ever-expanding breadth, from his trademark humour and surrealism, to pointedly experimental works and poems of human anguish.

  • canada orders 15.00
  • us 13.00
  • world (outside Canada/US) orders US 13.00

I Heard Something

By Jaime Forsythe

The poems in I Heard Something comprise a surreal menagerie — funny, chilling, tender — of what it is to be a human at this very minute. Cup a hand around your ear as you read this book — it’ll enhance the experience.

  • canada orders $18
  • us $18
  • world (outside Canada/US) orders US $18

I'm Not Scared of You or Anything

By Jon Paul Fiorentino (Illustrated by Maryanna Hardy)

The characters in I’m not Scared of You or Anything are invigilators, fake martial arts experts, buskers, competitive pillow fighters, drug runners, and, of course, grad students. This collection of comedic short stories and exploratory texts is the ninth book by the critically acclaimed and award-winning author Jon Paul Fiorentino.

  • canada orders $20
  • us $20
  • world (outside Canada/US) orders US $20

I, Dr. Greenblatt, Orthodontist, 251-1457

By Gary Barwin

Ranging from short story to postcard fiction, Barwin’s stories are luminous, hilarious, and surprising. A billionaire falls in love with a kitchen appliance, a couple share a pair of legs, a pipeline-size hair is given the Nobel Prize only so that it can be taken away, a father remembers with tenderness the radiant happiness of his teenage child, trapped inside his body. As the Utne Reader said of his last collection, “what makes them so compelling is Barwin’s balance of melancholy with wide-eyed wonder.”

  • canada orders $18
  • us $18
  • world (outside Canada/US) orders US $18

Ignite

By Kevin Spenst

A finalist for the Alfred G. Bailey Prize and winner of the Lush Triumphant Award for Poetry, Ignite is a collection of elegiac and experimental poetry powder-kegged with questions about one man’s lifelong struggle with schizophrenia.

  • canada orders $18
  • us $18
  • world (outside Canada/US) orders US $18

il virus

By Lillian Necakov

il virus brings together 113 poems written over seventy-eight days during the spring 2020 pandemic lockdown in Toronto.

  • canada orders $18
  • us $15
  • world (outside Canada/US) orders US $15

Imagining British Columbia: Land, Memory & Place

By Daniel Francis, Editor

The twenty contemporary writers featured in this anthology have one thing in common: a connection to British Columbia, to a specific time, landscape, or community in BC.

  • canada orders 18.00
  • us 18.00
  • world (outside Canada/US) orders US 18.00
Winner of the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize (BC Book Prizes)

In the Slender Margin

By Eve Joseph

Originally published in 2014, In the Slender Margin was enthusiastically received and applauded for its respectful sensitivity in dealing with a subject that is still, to many, an avoidable topic of conversation: death and dying. Using her 20+ years’ experience working as a palliative care counsellor in a hospice as a springboard for exploration, Joseph probes our collective knowledge of that final life experience that we all must face.

  • canada orders $22
  • us $18
  • world (outside Canada/US) orders US $18

Intensive Care: A Memoir

By Alan Twigg

Intensive Care isn’t a medical survival story; it’s a yearlong reflection on how the imminence of death can enhance life. The grass gets greener. Confirmation that one is loved is exhilarating, more powerful than any drug.

  • canada orders 14.00
  • us 10.00
  • world (outside Canada/US) orders US 10.00