Dr. Kathy Absolon will celebrate the launch of her most recent book, Kaandossiwin, February 15th in the Paul Martin Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University. Dr. Kim Anderson will also release her latest, Life Stages of Native Women. Please see the poster below for more information.
For more on Kaandossiwin, click here.
William Carroll, editor of Challenges and Perils, put together this video essay/collage/homage to jazz. Give it a spin to get your Monday morning started. Here’s William’s words on the video:
“ I am pleased to announce the posting on YouTube of Jazz Lives, my new music video paying homage to our era’s most innovative music genre. The five-minute production is a tribute to jazz — its vibrancy, hybridity, open aesthetic, political progressiveness, and communal spirit. It includes photos and footage of some of the greats, spanning a century, and tasty lead work by emerging jazz guitarist Wes Carroll.”
If you’re interested, you can also check out some of William’s more critical music video projects here.
Our first (of twenty!) Spring 2012 book is available to order now. The Ocean Ranger, by Susan Dodd, recounts the tragedy of the Ocean Ranger oil rig, which sank off the Newfoundland coast in 1982:
On February 15, 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland taking the entire crew of eighty-four men — including the author’s brother — down with it. It was the worst sea disaster in Canada since the Second World War, but the memory of this event gradually faded into a sad story about a bad storm — relegated to the “Extreme Weather” section of the CBC archives. Susan Dodd resurrects this disaster from the realm of “history” and maps the socio-political processes of its aftermath, when power, money and collective hopes for the future revised the story of corporate indifference and betrayal of public trust into a “lesson learned” by an heroic industry advancing technology in the face of a brutal environment. This book is a navigational resource for other disaster aftermaths, including that of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, and a call for vigilant government regulation of industry in all its forms.
“This is an extraordinary book. Much more than a personal narrative about the impact of an industrial disaster on a family, Dodd explores memory of industrial disasters as a complex and multi-layered project. Her reading of government reports, lawsuits and monetary settlements, songs and novels illuminate the different ways the past is commemorated and reconstructed and the implications for moving forward. Dodd’s discussion of personal injury litigation and the role of monetary compensation, or ‘blood money’, should be mandatory reading for all first-year law students.”
— Eric Tucker, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
To order your copy, click here.
Happy 2012 everybody! Hopefully everyone has survived the holiday season. We figured we were way past due to update this blog and let everyone know we’re still here. Plus, we have some pretty exciting news:
It’s our 20th anniversary! Needless to say, we’re all very honoured to be here because we wouldn’t be here, 20 years on, without you, our readers and supporters. So thank you! We’ve got a few surprises up our sleeves that we won’t reveal just yet. But keep an eye out on our blog, Facebook and our webpage for announcements and details.
Also, our newly revamped newsletter is in the works. In fact, this issue is going to be a 20th anniversary issue of sorts, so you’ll probably want to get it. How do you get it, you find yourself asking your computer screen. Well, click this link and sign up. We send out four newsletters a year. That’s it. We won’t sell your email address or start spamming you every two days. Promise.
The fine people at The Dominion and Media Co-op recently posted this terrific video interview with Joan Kuyek, where she talks about her latest book, Community Organizing. Watch the interview below. And be sure to check out The Dominion!
We just got word the Costas Panayotakis, author of Remaking Scarcity, will be interviewed on CBC’s The Current tomorrow morning. Be sure to tune in. We’ll post a link to the archived episode after the fact, just in case you missed it.
Fresh off her hugely successful launches in Nova Scotia, Chasing Freedom author Gloria Wesley will deliver a series of talks and reading in Winnipeg, beginning the week of Oct. 17. Gloria will also be signing copies of Chasing Freedom at McNally Robinson on Oct. 23 at 2pm. If that weren’t enough, she will also be speaking at several Winnipeg schools. So keep an eye out here for more information and don’t miss out!
Poet Gloria Wesley is back — this time with a young adult historical novel that tells the story of struggle of Black Loyalists and their arrival in Canada. Wesley holds the distinction of being the first published Black Nova Scotian poet (To My Someday Child, 1975).
Wesley, a retired school teacher, found a true lack of stories reflecting the history of African Canadians during her teaching career and hopes that the publishing of Chasing Freedom will help to fill the gaps. “We seldom get resources about the African Nova Scotian experience, by those of African Nova Scotian descent,” Wesley claimed when talking about her motivation for writing the novel, “I’m happy to be part of the move to change that.”
According to writer George Elliott Clarke, “Reading Wesley, you hear that sweet, special Africadian lingo, ‘right to the marrow in the bones.’ By the end, you understand why folks’d ‘rather be ruled by the king than a bunch of rebels with nothing to offer but gab and blood.’ But you can’t gain freedom without experiencing ‘a rough tussle and a good shake.’ Grab hold of this tale: It won’t let you go.”
Gloria Ann Wesley released her latest book for Roseway Publishing, Chasing Freedom, and we couldn’t be happier with the response from her launch. Check out the photos below. For more information on this stunning novel, click here.
Gloria also had a launch at the Yarmouth County Museum and Archives. More photos!
Peter Knegt’s new book, About Canada: Queer Rights, one of the latest in our About Canada series, launched last night in Montreal at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Bookstore to an enthusiastic crowd. Peter’s book is a primer on queer rights in Canada, the only of its kind in Canada, and we are very proud to have been able to work with Peter on this book! You can read more about the book here, and check out an interview with Peter here.
Dallas Curow was kind enough to share some of her photos of the night:
This past weekend was the fourth annual Radical Bookfair & DIY Fest in Winnipeg, held on Albert Street. It was a beautiful weekend for it – it was sunny and warm and perfect for perusing the tables of books, magazines, clothing, and pottery. The workshops – everything from DIY book making to information on social enterprises – were a success, and the banned book readings were a hit!
We’re looking forward to next year’s fest and hope to see you out!
