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BOOKS
READ A SAMPLE	The Cousin by John Calabro ISBN # 978-0-9810186-3-8 ~ 140 pages ~ $16.95 The Cousin is an extraordinary journey that evolves from going somewhere, in this case Sicily, to ending up somewhere else, in this case, inside the body of a transvestite named Simone. The Cousin deals as much with memory, violence and sexuality as it does with family, self and culture. ~ The Cousin is a delightful novella. Calabro’s style is gentle and effortless, his character creation so absorbing and so right on, and of course it is a great narrative, so surprising, so bizarre, and yet so honest. – Sky Gilbert, author of An English Gentleman and Brother Dumb Calabro’s work erases the line between the ordinary and the haunting, as if he has peeled back the skin of the real to make it ‘realer’. – Nino Ricci, author of Lives of the Saints and The Origin of Species “The Cousin is essentially a tale of unmasking the truth. The language is crisp and clear and the Sicilian setting is beautifully recreated in fresh realistic brushstrokes… The Cousin’s use of sexuality is an original look at finding the truth about your roots and identity… the book sizzles with erotic power.” – Prairie Fire
	Harbour View by Binnie Brennan ISBN # 978-0-9810186-4-5 ~ 128 pages ~ $16.95 Harbour View is the story of six people whose lives intersect in a nursing home overlooking Halifax Harbour. Memories draw the residents, staff, and family members from rich and diverse pasts to a present filled with grace and poignancy. Threaded with music and connected by themes of dislocation, family legend, and longing, Harbour View offers a glimpse of the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. ~ “This novella starts with a single, clear voice and then grows in complexity with the addition of several more distinctive characters until it achieves fine harmony and resonance. By the end of this short work, we have a choir depicting a broad range of human experience.” – Antanas Sileika, author of Woman in Bronze “Brennan’s writing is symphonic in nature and scope, her characters so fully human you may think you hear them whisper in your ear. Here is prose filled with surprising microscopic observation; sometimes funny, other times poignant, these details are heart-stopping in their truth and beauty. Structurally brilliant, Brennan’s layered, empathetic storytelling underscores the heart of this novella – we are given not just a view, but a vision of interconnectedness.” – Sheree Fitch, author of Kiss the Joy As It Flies
	A Pleasant Vertigo by Egidio Coccimiglio ISBN # 978-0-9810186-5-2 ~ 74 pages ~ $14.95 A Pleasant Vertigo follows Gerard Gordon, once a famous Manhattan artist who is desperately trying to stage a comeback. While battling the woes of a failed career, no income and a pregnant partner, Gerard finally gets a break, yet his need to have his ego stroked proves once more to be his downfall. A Pleasant Vertigo is funny, sexy, and quirky while moving at breakneck speed to a surprising conclusion. ~ "Since the age of 14, my mentor was Dizzy Gillespie and through him I became addicted to the music of Cuba way back in the '40's. This book [A Pleasant Vertigo] is an inventive and witty voice that cuts through like a slide trumpet.” - Quincy Jones "Definitely a page-turner, once I picked it up I couldn’t put it down. It reads more like a suspense thriller than an expose of the contemporary art world.” – Andy Moses "A disturbing and powerful journey into the heart of Art World darkness. Sexy, smart, and with a cutting satiric edge – a raw, real ride on a wave of champagne and mad ego, and at the same time a thoughtful meditation on art and life. ” – Michael Guinzburg
	Evidence by Samuel Andreyev ISBN # 978-0-9810186-8-3 ~ 80 pages ~$16.95 Tactility morphing into thought, thought into memory, memory calcifying into language: such are the ‘in-between’ states explored in Evidence. Resembling core samples of conscious experiences, these a-temporal, fragmentary poems explore memory, spatiality and the mechanics of thinking. In this unsteadily shifting landscape, a productive tension between hyperlucid recollection and total atomization is everywhere in evidence. ~ “What to say about this young poet that will make his work sound more interesting than it already is? Any lame explanations I might provide would leave Andreyev’s mystifying sense of balance in ruin. If you have ever wondered how many words a poet might place on the head of a pin before the angles start singing, this is a book for you.” – Jay MillAr "Max Ernst once said that an artist should keep one eye on the inner realm and one eye on the outside world. With this collection, Samuel Andreyev accomplishes that and more, casting a third eye onto a vivid poetic domain that lies distinctly elsewhere.” – Steve Venright “In Evidence, Samuel Andreyev’s visionary poems always know when to stop. They refute perfection but flirt with omniscience. He declares that one day he will escape the logs and bark of undivided attention and will eventually become made of time.” – David W. McFadden
	Of All the Ways To Die by Brenda Niskala ISBN # 978-0-9810186-6-9 ~ 128 pages ~ $16.95 In Of All the Ways To Die, by Brenda Niskala, Urma holds a pot luck for the people she has lost from her life. The invitation attracts the attention of loved ones, acquaintances and a few famous faces, including a bog mummy, St. Anthony, a Cree grandmother, and an eccentric prairie shipbuilder. Is it possible they can help her find Eileen,the missing teenager? Of course, everyone brings a dish, their favourite recipes, and their stories – how they lived and yes, how they died.. ~ “This offbeat little ghost story, short and sweet, from Brenda Niskala, over twenty-five years after her first book, is, as they say, worth the wait.” – Dave Margoshes “… a brilliant vehicle for a story that weaves together the lives of ordinary people teetering on the edge of hope with fascinating historical figures. Reader, be prepared for tears and laughter, and for many trips to the kitchen cupboard, for the food brought to this literary table will make you drool.” – Byrna Barclay “Of All the Ways to Die is literally a marvel; Brenda Niskala takes us on a journey into the underworld, the land of the dead, and does it here in the real live world of Saskatchewan. The book is also a marvelous collection of characters, a marvel of enchanting prose, a marvel of human compassion.” – Robert Kroetsch
	Ten Thousand Miles Between Us by Rocco de Giacomo ISBN # 978-0-9810186-7-6 ~ 80 pages ~ $16.95 “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” For its part, the book, Ten Thousand Miles Between Us, is a collection of poems about the love affair with movement. From the wide open Canadian prairies to the claustrophobic markets of Indonesia, Rocco de Giacomo’s poems explore the relationship between the delight of the exotic and the frightening sense of the other that exists in the heart of the modern-day traveller. ~ De Giacomo distils the existential horror and beauty (often at the same time) buried within the most seemingly mundane events. He does this with such effortlessness that I suspect he slips quite by accident beneath the surface of things, modestly and generously revealing to us what he has found there. … These poems are authentic, surprising and refreshingly relevant. – Jacob Scheier, author of the Governor General’s Award winning More To Keep Us Warm In our society, Commerce exalts the everyday and puts everything up for sale: There’s no room for grace, no respect for divinity. But Rocco de Giacomo dissents from our corrosive, abrasive modernity. His Christ sports a white hat and a Windsor knot; his Mary steps out – unhesitatingly – on Joseph for God; a lover, as inspired as Michelangelo, “shudders slightly into sleep / your one fingernail secretly / trying to chisel your name / across my chest….” De Giacomo combines the religiosity of Thomas Merton with the fleshy analyses of Alberto Moravia. The result is a transcendent lyricism that never loses touch with marble, paper, water, blood, smoke, clouds, bus stations, bars, Mr. Freezees, and pasta sauce, I mean, that never forgets where and how we live. – George Elliott Clarke, Laureate, 2001 Governor-General’s Award for Poetry

	The Extraordinary Event of Pia H. Nicola Vulpe 128 pages $18.95 ISBN 978-0-9810186-0-7 Nicola Vulpe is one of Canada's most intriguing and imaginative authors. The Extraordinary Event of Pia H. is a story of dark miracles, but the real miracle is the writing: dense, playful -- and utterly engaging. --Mark Frutkin, author of Fabrizio’s Return
	A River At Night Paul Zemokhol 80 pages $16.95 ISBN 978-0-9810186-1-4 An archaeologist of the human heart, Paul Zemokhol uncovers the memories of his Egyptian ancestors and their lost world by the Nile, and he starkly juxtaposes them with his own plain experiences of Canadian urban life in Toronto and Montreal. Writing in a style that is both lyrical and elegiac, Zemokhol yearns for a poetry that existed before him, finding remnants of it in his own memories, friendships, family relations, and heroes. This collection will seduce the reader with its lilting musicality, sincerity of feeling and richness of imagery. ~ All poets sing wisdom, but few do so as plainly and as poignantly as Paul Zemokhol. He shows some Beat bliss, he pursues folksong rhythms, and he expresses that Zen understanding that unifies God and ant, cloud and diamond, the Nile and traffic jams, and, especially, the head and the heart. I read him as combining William Carlos Williams and William Blake: he is both a friend happy with life and a visionary who sees beyond mortality. Zemokhol's River isn't ink; it is light. Its taste isn't brackish, but biblical: wine with honey, plus just a dash of vinegar for piquancy. – George Elliott Clarke

	The Hawk Rob Rolfe 80 pages $15.95 ISBN 978-0-9782806-7-3 The Hawk weaves together reflections on history with a deep sense of compassion for people whose voices are too little heard in today’s world. Economical, yet expressive, Rob Rolfe’s writing evokes with sparse imagery the harsh but beautiful space where nature and peoples of different parts of the Americas collide and interact. The poems are direct, accessible, and appeal to the reader’s emotions in confronting death, courage, love and injustice.

	Looking At Renaissance Paintings and Other Poems Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni 80 pages $15.95 ISBN 978-0-9782806-8-0 Looking at Renaissance Paintings and Other Poems is a first book by a mature poet with strong ties to Toronto ’s Italian-Canadian community. The first of its two parts is concerned with the heritage, both cultural and spiritual, which comes down to us from the Renaissance in Italy , and its relevance to contemporary life. The second part has portraits of modern-day personages, along with wide-ranging reflections on friendship and family, on the passage of time, on travel and the sense of geographical distance, and on the centrality of home. Affection, concern, admiration, and love infuse poems marked by a spareness of style, a subtle simplicity, and a radiant clarity.

	This Is How I Love You Barbara Landry 80 pages $15.95 ISBN 978-0-9782806-9-7 The poems in This is How I Love You are about the deep familial and spiritual bonds that exist at a visceral level. The inner dialogue surrounding these bonds is the raw material Landry draws from. She writes about losing a beloved sister, a God who whispers in her ear, a solitary afternoon in a Cuban café. Landry doesn’t shy away from the big questions and tackles them with courage and humour. With a language that is easily accessible, one containing a distinct musicality and rhythm, these poems leave an imprint on both the ear and the heart.

	Wit in Love Sky Gilbert 90 pages $16.95 ISBN 978-0-9782806-6-6 or 0978280660 Wit in Love is the story of a philosopher who falls in love. The narrator lives so much in his head that he has an extraordinarily strained relationship with reality. Written in the form of a journal, Wit in Love chronicles the day-to-day existence of a man who is struck - anything but - dumb, by romance. There are three young men in his life -- a shabby graduate student, a sexy train attendant, and the living memory of a past love. Wit in Love is loosely based on the life and loves of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
	Mic Check David Silverberg, Editor 94 pages $16.95 ISBN 978-0-9782806-5-9 or 0978280652 Mic Check is Canada’s first ever anthology of Canadian spoken word poetry, featuring the top performance poets in the country. From Halifax to Montreal to Toronto to Vancouver, Mic Check compiles the spoken word poetry that has been rocking poetry slam stages all over Canada. The poems are gritty, raw, powerful and uncensored. Featuring young poets from a variety of backgrounds, Mic Check is a primer for anyone curious about spoken word, and an ideal anthology to get a taste of what the strong Canadian spoken word scene has to offer.

	The Adventures of Micah Mushmelon, Boy Talmudist Michael Wex 90 pages $16.95 ISBN 978-0-9782806-2-8 or 0978280628 Heir to the Hipster line of rabbinical leaders and sages, eleven year old Micah Mushmelon enlists Shraga Potasznik, the comic-book-addicted protagonist of this novella to make good of all things worthwhile in this world. An heir to the rich modern Yiddish literary tradition, Michael Wex paints a vivid, hilarious picture of the hasidic demimonde. His is a view into Yiddish culture at once erudite and super hip, and always true to the cadences of a language that informs so much of modern North American culture.

	My Etruscan Face by Gianna Patriarca 105 pages $16.95 ISBN 978-0-9782806-35 or 0978280636 My Etruscan Face is Gianna Patriarca’s sixth book of poetry. Patriarca is a poet whose voice has not strayed from her first book, the awardwinning Italian Women and Other Tragedies: still direct, honest and lyrical. In this collection she takes us on an extraordinary quest for self and home as she encounters a myriad of characters with uniquely mysterious faces. Gianna takes the contradictions of human existence, the ordinary acts of living, and spins them into a startling prayer of redemption. She is pure feeling, and her poems are fully mortal, completely compassionate. This collection is a passionate woman’s voracious embrace of the pleasures and the fears of life. She aims for the heart.

	Garden Variety by Lily Contento, Editor 90 pages $16.95 ISBN 978-0-9782806-42 or 0978280644 Lively and full of surprises, this anthology is bursting with unusual treatments of flowers familiar as tulips and rarer than orchids. From hothouse to backyard plot to the ends of the globe, in elegant solitude or aromatic profusion, flowers are contemplated on these pages, and mourned, admired, and thoroughly savoured by an abundant variety of gifted poets, both established and from the grass roots. A book for everyone who has ever stopped a moment to smell the roses.

	Interstellar Allan Briesmaster 87 pages $16.95 ISBN 978-0-9782806-0-4 or 0978280601 Allan Briesmaster's 9th collection of poetry extends and deepens some of the main themes of his previous work: the ongoing relationship to the natural world, despite the evident degradation; the media that filter and re-present one's experiences as a 21st-century urbanized being; and the larger cosmos, surveyed in both scientific and imaginative terms, in an outward sweep, past other planets and moons, toward the mysterious “dark energy” at the frontiers of thought.

	Room Tone Gale Zoë Garnett 84 pages $16.95 ISBN 978-0-9782806-1-1 or 097828061X Room Tone is an affectionately intimate behind-the-scenes look at filmmakers and filmmaking, through the eyes of Nica Lind, the gifted and photogenic daughter of a French Nouvelle Vague actress and a Swedish Cinematographer. Film-addicted at age 10, Nica enters “the family business” in her teens. When her success in Europe draws the notice of a powerful Hollywood agent, she goes to California and becomes a star in a hit TV series. Grateful for recognition, “insane amounts of money” and talented colleagues, Nica nonetheless feels out of place. Needing to be where the work she loves lives and where she is at home, both professionally and personally, she returns to Europe and to the new post-national cinema. Gale Zoë Garnett invests this character-rich homage to film life and art with clear-eyed love, wicked wit, and an insider's understanding.