Tag: urban

January 1, 2015

Cityscapes

A Review of Lisa Poh’s “Graffiti Borealis” in Tesseracts Seventeen: Speculating Canada From Coast to Coast (Edge, 2013) By Derek Newman-Stille Our urban environments are places of identity, places where one can find oneself, but they are also places of loss. Lisa Poh’s Graffiti Borealis is about the notion of finding a voice and finding a place in the city....

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May 21, 2014

Speculating Canada on Trent Radio Episode 4: An Interview with Kate Story

Local Peterborough author and native Newfoundlander Kate Story was able to visit Speculating Canada on Trent Radio to talk about Newfoundland’s fairy tale tradition and how she incorporated it into her novel Blasted as well as exploring her own experiences as a Newfoundlander growing up surrounded by these tales and traditions. In this episode of Speculating Canada on Trent Radio,...

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November 3, 2013

Rabbi Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Excessive Greenery

A review of Kim Goldberg’s “Neither Slumber Nor Sleep” in Urban Green Man (Edge, 2013) By Derek Newman-Stille A rabbi loses his position at the Beth Shalom Congregation when he becomes interested in a new supernatural phenomenon that appears in Nanaimo. Called in to investigate a series of strange events regarding the sighting of a huge Green Goddess figure and...

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July 29, 2013

Penning the Subtle Murmur of Death and Splash of Blood

A review of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s This Strange Way of Dying (Forthcoming 2013, Exile Editions) By Derek Newman-Stille Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s This Strange Way of Dying is just one step abstracted from reality, with one foot in The Weird. Populated with monsters, magic, and folklore, her work is fundamentally about the human outsider experience, the deeper engagement with the world that comes...

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July 22, 2013

Coyotes in Urban Turf Wars

A review of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “Nahaules” (in This Strange Way of Dying, Exile Editions, 2013) By Derek Newman-Stille As in many of her works, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s short story “Nahaules” makes the urban space strange, exploring the intrusion of the folkloric into the cityscape. Nahaules, coyote shapeshifters, old stories, have come into the city, changing the city gradually as scents of...

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June 7, 2013

The Absurd Undercurrent to Rationality.

A review of Cory Doctorow’s Shannon’s Law (in Welcome to Bordertown: New Stories and Poems of the Borderlands Ed. Holly Black and Ellen Kushner, Random House, 2011) By Derek Newman-Stille Borderland is a place that exists between the Elfland and mundane reality. It is a strange blend of the fantastic and the urban, a city that is invested and embodied...

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February 3, 2013

Oracular Warnings

A Review of Joseph Macchiusi’s The Betelgeuse Oracle (2009) By Derek Newman-Stille Joseph Macchiusi’s The Betelgeuse Oracle straddles the line between science fiction and fantasy, presenting an apocalyptic present that is partially scientific and partially supernatural, challenging the firm boundaries that are often placed between them. Macchiusi’s protagonist, James, is a security guard at York University who has always had...

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January 26, 2013

Speculating Canada ON AIR – A Radio Interview with Ian Rogers on Trent Radio

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January 24, 2013

Upcoming Radio Interview With Ian Rogers

This Saturday, January 26th, I will be posting an interview on Speculating Canada that I conducted with local Peterborough horror author Ian Rogers that I conducted on air at Trent Radio. Mr. Rogers is the author of the supernatural noir Felix Renn series, weird westerns, and general horror literature. He has published novels such as SuperNOIRtural Tales, Deadstock, and Every...

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December 12, 2012

Little Tremours of the Weird to Shake Up the Mundane

A Review of Postscripts to Darkness 2 edited by Sean Moreland and Aalya Ahmad (Ex Hubris Imprints, 2012). By Derek Newman-Stille Postscripts to Darkness 2 is a fantastic sequel to the first volume, continuing the trend of infusing the familiar with the odd. The contributors to this volume illustrate an incredible ability to condense narratives to their bare essentials, creating...

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