The New Brunswick Literary Times

Reviewed by Chadwick Ginther

Waiting between Ether Frolic’s beautiful covers—and a dapper looking nine-tailed fox sporting a monocle—are nine tales by Paul Marlowe, featuring the adventures of the Etheric Explorers Club.

In Japan, the fox—or kitsune—was said to be a highly magical creature, capable of powerful illusions. It is quite appropriate, as the author states in his foreword before apologizing for the pun, “to have these nine talesrepresented by nine tails when they are the tails of so sorcerous a beast as thekitsune.” Ether Frolics uses sorcery as much as science for the MacGuffins of Marlowe’s steampunk collection, ably playing off the Victorian enthusiasm for the supernatural and spiritualism. 

“There Are Two Pools You May Drink From” is a quiet, powerful story full of dark nostalgia and observed in sharp, vivid prose. It’s a remembrance of the Moon family with their “big cat-killing dog that they had trained to sit upright on a chair at the table” which “they took turns feeding . . . buttered toast smeared with jam.” Congratulations to Kerry-Lee Powell, winner of the Aura Estrada Short Story contest.

Nathan Englander, contest judge

The story of a mother running out on her family is nothing new in CanLit, nor are portraits of a zany and off-kilter families. But Corinna Chong’s treatment of these archetypes has produced something as vibrant as it is original. In Belinda’s Rings, Chong marries the story of an impulsive mother who flees her family to study crop circles to the coming-of-age story of her lively daughter, Grace, who is obsessed with marine biology. These esoteric interests serve up richly rendered characters, and build the story’s authenticity and off-kilter edge. Wackiness aside, the story succeeds in capturing family tensions, and the bonds that trump those tensions. The cast and folly in Belinda’s Rings is a great recipe for an offbeat summer read.

While first-year university students quickly become immersed in required reading, it's not often than an award-winning novel finds its way into the pile of academic texts.

Growing up, I barely knew the Bible, but read / and reread the part when Cain drifted east / or was drawn that way, into a place of desolation, / the land of Nod, there to begin, with a wife

UNB’s Graduate Student-Run Literary Magazine

This is QWERTY’s 17th year in operation, and we’ve put out 28 issues of innovative poetry, fiction, and visual art from emerging and established artists alike. We’ve published the work of accomplished writers like Ross Leckie, Mark Anthony Jarman, Anne Simpson, Michael Crummey, Sue Sinclair, and Joel Katelnikoff, as well as the early works of emerging talents like Rebecca Rosenblum, Daryl Whetter, Shane Rhodes, Katia Grubisic, and Shane Neilson.

Spring 2013, Issue 29 Cover: "Untitled" by Adrian Williams Buy Q29 online here! Table of Contents POETRY Rebecca Geleyn Hendrik Slegtenhorst Morgan Hart Richard Kelly Kemick Jacob Oet Martin James ...

Danny Jacobs: I’ll begin by addressing the elephant in the room—the book’s lack of an introduction. Maybe I like to be coddled by my anthologists, but I’m a sucker for a hefty essay laying out why we need this particular collection of poets. In a recent CBC interview, Langer and Callanan told listeners that there were no back-door dealings or last minute trades when disagreements arose. Instead, they assured us, they simply made arguments, and the stronger argument for a poem or poet won out. What a tease

 Included among this year's instructors are two of The Fiddlehead's editors: fiction co-editorGerard Beirne is leading "The Long and Short of Fiction Writing" on July 10 and poetry co-editor Ian LeTourneau is offering "Approaches to Nature Poetry" on July 12.

Planning to tour Canada this summer? To help you plan your getaway, Globe Books asked some of the country’s finest writers to recommend the book they think best explains their home turf.

The Fiddlehead's poetry co-editor Ian LeTourneau was one of the invited guests of theWhitehorse Poetry Festival this past weekend, and he reports that it was a fabulous time reading poetry under the midnight sun. This year's festival had a publishing and editing theme, and in addition to reading his own work, LeTourneau was there to talk about his experiences editing for The Fiddlehead and Goose Lane Editions.

Deconstructing memories of a scandal-ridden theme park

HERE’S WHAT I cannot remember about the incident: the exact date, my hairstyle at the time, that summer’s hit song or the price of gas, whether the Jays were in the pennant race—those white noise details that form the background jibber-jabber of our lives.

Many of the more specific details elude me, too. What colour were the walls in the Barn?

Amphibien

Auteure : Carla Gunn

Éditions : Prise de parole

Phin a neuf ans et se passionne pour le règne animal et la nature. Il ne peut s'empêcher de s'inquiéter pour la faune, la flore et pose constamment des questions à son entourage...qui est souvent exaspéré par l'entêtement de l'enfant. Un enfant terriblement attachant, dont les propos angoissés nous émeuvent et nous font sourire tout à la fois. On suit son combat pour libérer la rainette d'Australie que la maîtresse a apportée en classe: comme si une telle grenouille pouvait vivre emprisonnée!!! Impossible de résister à la logique, aux arguments, au charme de Phin et au talent de l'auteure. C'est un exercice extrêmement périlleux que de prêter sa voix à un enfant: Carla Gunn réussit ce pari avec les honneurs !

On February 13, 1805, Amos Babcock, in a fit of religious frenzy, scalped and disembowelled his sister Mercy Hall, while his wife, their nine children and neighbours looked on in horror. Babcock was hanged for this outrage, becoming only the third convicted murderer in New Brunswick’s history. A subject of passing interest among historians and crime writers, Mercy Hall’s murder also inspired song-writer John Bottomley to write “The Ballad of Jacob Peck” in 1992, pointing to a shadowy figure deeply implicated in the crime and providing this publication with a catchy title.

T

Hello all,

Here's a link to a short story, "Firebugs," recently published in The Walrus. It'll be part of a story collection, untitled as yet, coming out on the heels of Cataract City. For those interested, I've got another story from the same collection in the current issue of Agni called "Medium Tough." And another one, "The Vanishing Twin," will be in the summer issue of The Fiddlehead. All set in Niagara Falls, aka Cataract City.

I'd like to thank Nick Mount for accepting Firebugs, and making some really excellent edits. Also thanks to Sven Birkerts and Bill Pierce at Agni, and Gerard Beirne and Mark Jarman at The Fiddlehead for the same help. Also thanks to all The Walrus's factcheckers (I've never had a piece of fiction fact-checked, but it was a pleasant experience) and the sundry copyeditors and proofers who helped round these stories into publishable form.

Sharon McCartney is the author of For and Against (2010, Goose Lane Editions),The Love Song of Laura Ingalls Wilder (2007, Nightwood Editions), Karenin Sings the Blues (2003, Goose Lane Editions), and Under the Abdominal Wall (1999, Anvil Press). The Love Song of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Karenin Sings the Blues feature characters and objects from the Little House on the Prairie book series and from Anna Karenina, and they include monologues by objects, characters, and body parts from the novels. Her other poetry draws on subject matter ranging from one-night stands to divorce, Caesarean sections to body-building. With her unflinching eye and masterful yet never flamboyant command of language, McCartney consistently distinguishes herself from her literary contemporaries.