Matthew Walsh: These are not the potatoes of my youth
In this confessional debut collection, Matthew Walsh meanders through their childhood in rural Nova Scotia, later roaming across the prairies and through the railway cafés of Alberta to the love letters and graffiti of Vancouver. In this nomadic journey, Walsh explores queer identity set against an ever-changing landscape of what we want, and who we are, were, and came to be.
Walsh is a storyteller in verse, his poems laced with catholic “sensibilities” and punctuated with Maritime vernacular. In These are not the potatoes of my youth, Walsh illuminates the complex choreography of family, the anxiety of individuality, and the ambiguous histories of stories erased, forgotten, or suppressed. Readers will find moments of humour, surprise, and a queer realization that all is not what it seems.
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Megan Gail Coles: Small Game Hunting
February in Newfoundland is the longest month of the year.
Another blizzard is threatening to tear a strip off downtown St. John’s, while inside The Hazel restaurant a storm system of sex, betrayal, addiction, and hurt is breaking overhead. Iris, a young hostess from around the bay, is forced to pull a double despite resolving to avoid the charming chef and his wealthy restaurateur wife. Just tables over, Damian, a hungover and self-loathing server, is trying to navigate a potential punch-up with a pair of lit customers who remain oblivious to the rising temperature in the dining room. Meanwhile Olive, a young woman far from her northern home, watches it all unfurl from the fast and frozen street. Through rolling blackouts, we glimpse the truth behind the shroud of scathing lies and unrelenting abuse, and discover that resilience proves most enduring in the dead of this winter’s tale.
By turns biting, funny, poetic, and heartbreaking, Megan Gail Coles’ debut novel rips into the inner lives of a wicked cast of characters, building towards a climax that will shred perceptions and force a reckoning. This is blistering Newfoundland Gothic for the twenty-first century, a wholly original, bracing, and timely portrait of a place in the throes of enormous change, where two women confront the traumas of their past in an attempt to overcome the present and to pick up a future.
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Joseph Hutchison, MFA 1974
Joseph Hutchison, Poet Laureate of Colorado (2014-2018), is the award-winning author of 15 poetry collections, including The World As Is: New & Selected Poems, 1972-2015; The Satire Lounge; Marked Men; Thread of the Real; and Bed of Coals. He has co-edited two poetry anthologies; ”The FutureCycle Press anthology Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai (all profits to the Malala Foundation) with Andrea Watson and, with Gary Schroeder, A Song for Occupations: Poems about the American Way of Work. At the University of Denver’s University College, he directs two programs for working adults, ”Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture” with courses both online and on campus. Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, he lives in the mountains southwest of the city with his wife, Iyengar yoga instructor Melody Madonna.
Website: www.jhwriter.com
Tara Gilboy, MFA 2014
Tara Gilboy holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia, where she specialized in writing for children and young adults. Her debut middle-grade novel, Unwritten, was published in October 2018 by Jolly Fish Press. She teaches creative writing for San Diego Community College District’s Continuing Education program and for the PEN Writers in Prisons program. Her short fiction and nonfiction have been published in the Beloit Fiction Journal, Cricket, Word Riot, and other publications.
Website: taragilboy.com