Tag: home

March 13, 2019

Decolonized Space

Decolonized Space A review of Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Lost in Space” in Take Us To Your Cheif (Douglas & McIntyre, 2016). By Derek Newman-Stille In “Lost in Space”, Drew Hayden Taylor explores the first Anishinabe man to travel into space. He is travelling as part of a mining operation set out amongst asteroids. Hayden Taylor uses the imagery of being...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

December 31, 2018

A Gingerbread House Waiting For An Old Lady

A Gingerbread House Waiting For An Old Lady A review of Kate Heartfield’s “Path Of White Stones” in Over The Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales From The Margins (Exile, 2018) By Derek Newman-Stille We like to assume that we own our houses – that we select them and buy them and that they become ours… but don’t we also become...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

December 22, 2018

Planted

Planted A review of Richard Keelan’s “The Waltzing Tree” in Over the Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales From The Margins” (Exile, 2018). By Derek Newman-Stille Richard Keelan’s “The Waltzing Tree” is a suburban fairy tale about loneliness and transformation. It is a tale about overcoming the distance that traditional modes of masculinity place between our bodies and the fear of...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

December 7, 2018

These Beans Lost Jack

These Beans Lost Jack A review of Ace Jordyn’s “The Story of the Three Magic Beans” in Over the Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales from the Margins (Exile Editions, 2018) By Derek Newman-Stille Do magic beans ever get tired of granting wishes? Do they ever get frustrated with having to fulfill everyone else’s dreams instead of their own? Do they...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comment: 1

February 10, 2018

Abuse and Ideas of Home

Abuse and Ideas of Home A review of Tonya Liburd’s “Superfreak” in Shades Within Us: Tales of Migrations and Fractured Borders Edited by Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law (Laksa Media Group, 2018). By Derek Newman-Stille Tonya Liburd’s “Superfreak” is an intensely powerful and intensely painful tale that examines ideas of safety, security, and home. I should start my review...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 2

October 20, 2017

Here Be Monsters

Here Be MonstersA review of Michal Wojcik’s “A New Bestiary” in Those Who Make Us: Canadian Creature, Myth, and Monster Stories edited by Kelsi Morris and Kaitlin Tremblay (Exile, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille Michal Wojcik’s “A New Bestiary” is a posthuman tale about body modification. In this near future fiction piece, Mojcik presents a world where people are remaking themselves...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

May 8, 2017

A Magnetic Environment

A review of Kate Story’s “Animate” in Cli Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change (Exile, 2017) By Derek Newman-Stille People and our landscapes are in a complicated relationship with each other, altering one another through our interactions. Our landscapes shape us as much as we shape them. In “Animate”, Kate Story explores a toxic landscape, yet one that is also...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 2

March 12, 2017

Small Town Ontario Bodies

A review of Jeff Lemire’s Essex County (Top Shelf Productions, 2009) By Derek Newman-Stille Jeff Lemire’s Essex County provides a fascinating look into small town Ontario life. Rather than just fixating on the lives of the young in this coming-of-age narrative, Lemire explores the multiple times in our lives that we come-of-age and expresses the idea that we are constantly...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

May 27, 2016

Home is Where the Chicken Legs Are

Home is Where the Chicken Legs Are A review of Marika McCoola and Emily Carroll’s Baba Yaga’s Assistant (Candlewick Press, 2015) By Derek Newman-Stille Masha’s tale begins with stories from her grandmother about the witch Baba Yaga. Her grandmother was once kidnapped by Baba Yaga and had to outwit the witch in order to gain her freedom. Masha, delighted by...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

January 21, 2016

Titanic Clashes

Clash   A review of Chadwick Ginther’s Too Far Gone (Ravenstone, 2015) By Derek Newman-Stille Too Far Gone, the final book in the Thunder Road Trilogy by Chadwick Ginther brings together the threads of transformation that have been woven throughout the trilogy. Ted Callan, body tattooed by Dwarves and inheriting the powers of several Norse gods, has straddled the border between...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0