Krause experiments with poetic forms, line endings, and imagery. The words and images in Mongrel Love are chosen to take the reader along on the journey. “We are all wounded/& beautiful” says the title poem, as we travel “the fruitless/ quest for the familiar.”...

Landmarks: The Art of Dorothy Knowles Text by Terry Fenton, Art by Dorothy Knowles Published by Hagios Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $25.95 ISBN 978-0-9783440-2-3 If members of the general public were asked to name a prominent Canadian landscape painter, I’d guess that they might identify a member of the Group of Seven or Emily Carr, but here in Saskatchewan we also have a number of landscape painters of prominence, and high ...

Like numerous other professional writers', Heidi Garnett's work had appeared in reputable literary journals and chapbooks, was broadcast on CBC, and earned her awards. She had honed her craft at the renowned Banff Centre, and participated in other creative writing programs. In short, the poet had an impressive curriculum vitae before her first book, "Phosphorus," was ever published, and the proof of her apprenticeship is in the quality ...

Tuck and Kayuk’s Adventure by Robert W. Friedrich Published by Last Mountain Publishers Review by Shelley A. Leedahl In my career as a writer, I’ve often met people who say they have an idea for a novel or a children’s story and are going to write a book one day. I expect that “one day” never arrives for most of these would-be authors, nor do they realize how difficult and time-consuming it is to acquire a ...

Current Greystone Theatre director, Dwayne Brenna – known to many as a writer, actor, and "Eddie Gustafson" on CBC SK Radio -- has orchestrated a history of Greystone with essays and black and white archival photographs that reveal the theatre's finest hours -- and some of its darkest – in "Emrys' Dream: Greystone Theatre in Photographs and Words."...

The Red River Flood of 1997 swallowed a large portion of southern Manitoba, leaving in its wake stories of tragedy and heroism. The wall of water that crawled toward Winnipeg caused the evacuation of more than twenty-five thousand people, two thousand head of cattle and forty-five thousand chickens. Tens of thousands more were evacuated in the United States, including forty-six thousand residents of Grand Forks, North Dakota. For most, ...

First Mountain by Paulette Dubé Published by Thistledown Press Review by Sharon Adam $15.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-33-1 This volume of poetry is thin, but the contents are definitely not. Ms Dubé layers her writer’s voice with a variety of subjects, all of which populate her life in the mountains. Time and space revolve around images that are both familiar and spiritual. Her sharp observations and specific recollections engage the re...

In this 469-page novel, Nolan Taylor, a Canadian women’s wheelchair basketball Olympic champion, searches for a new identity after hip-replacement surgery. The title has multiple meanings, referring to her position on the team as well as her post-operative angst: “I was an elite wheelchair basketball player. The centre for Team Canada. The Big Girl. The Post. Now, I am a… former elite wheelchair basketball player: the post-Post.�...

Svoboda by Bill Stenson Published by Thistledown Press Review by Chris Istace $ 18.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-30-0 Svoboda, by Victoria, B.C. author Bill Stenson, is a story of assimilation, providing a strong overview of how one Doukhobor family came to be as Canadian as their neighbours. Vasili Saprikin grew up in the midst of the tumultuous early history of the Doukhobor’s struggle to maintain the way of life they wanted to bring to ...

Interwoven Wild: An Ecologist Loose in the Garden by Don Gayton Published by Thistledown Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $15.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-35-5 When one considers gardening books, “coffee table” books containing sumptuous photographs might spring to mind, but BC writer and nationally-known ecologist Don Gayton has written a gardening book of another nature, and for this gardener’s money, it’s far more s...