In these 12 short stories, scurrying insects and luminous jellyfish reveal a predatory world of childhood fairy tales, lurking shadows, and unrelenting fevers. Individuals are swallowed up by cities and bogs in a celebration of nature and humanity, in all their terrifying glory. Throughout, Clerson draws—and blurs—the lines between man and beast, life and death,… Read more »

“Burning the cabin was about enforcing some futile law. Its purpose was to put you in your place. The wreckage would never leave the bush. The remnants would be left to rust and degrade, but the structure was gone, as though all they wanted was to destroy the roof over your head, prove that the vast crown land belonged to them and not you. They wanted to take away your sense of security. This was the attitude that my father and grandfather had rallied against their whole lives. The unseen turn of the Toronto machine. Listen close, my father would say, and you can hear their arrogance blowing across the land, threatening your livelihood. To them, we’re nothing but a pile of moose shit scraped off a boot. Remember this when they come to you smiling, full of promises, asking for your vote.”

“If the Americans have John Irving and the Colombians Gabriel García Márquez, we have Eric Dupont. And he’s every bit as good as them.” (Voir) A yarn to rival the best of them, a big fat whopper of a tall tale that bounces around from provincial Rivière-du-Loup in 1919 to Nagasaki, 1990s Berlin, Rome, and… Read more »

“Carolyn Marie Souaid has a brave honest voice and a love for northern Canada and its people that is genuinely moving to read about.” —Tomson Highway A young woman enters a whole new world of attraction in a community struggling with generations of loss of land and culture. Yasmeen’s tradition-bound mother wants her to stay… Read more »