Tantor Media has acquired audio book rights to Misguided: My Jesus Freak Life in a Doomsday Cult, by Port Alberni author Perry Bulwer, published in September 2023 by New Star Books.

Tantor Media is a division of RBMedia, one of the largest audio book publishers in North America. Misguided is set to release in late August, check out their website for more details.

The acquisition was facilitated by The Rights Factory‘s Trisha Telep.

Today we welcome two new poetry collections to the New Star shelves!

Join us for launch celebrations at the People’s Co-op Bookstore (1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver) on Friday April 12 at 7PM!

The Goldberg Variations by Clint Burnham

The Goldberg Variations takes as its organizing principle the idea of contingency – the world thrown into Being that the poet encounters – and variation, or Bach’s looping, recombinant system, as a way to turn into verse what shows up in the Notes app. And varied these poems are: appearing on the page as sonnets and columns, big and small, wide at the bottom and skinny on top (like Vancouver condos). Made of jargon, of slang or invective, pop culture or politics, sampling the overheard, the raw material of language organized anew and composed for a different kind of keyboard.

CLINT BURNHAM is a poet and academic from Comox, British Columbia. His recent books include Pound @ Guantanamo, and White Lie. Burnham’s writing has appeared in The Capilano Review, Artforum, The Globe and Mail, and The Vancouver Sun.

Tomorrow is a Holiday by Hamish Ballantyne

These poems sit as much on the mountainside as they do on city streets. Resisting the urge of revelation in favour of idiomatic observation, Tomorrow is a Holiday brims with restless curiosity, trees felled or still standing, electricity in the streets, mossy chainlink fences, sea dwellers and city figures in lowercase, and Hamish Ballantyne serves as a witness at the margins of it all.

HAMISH BALLANTYNE is a poet and translator based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver, Canada). He works in the Downtown Eastside and as a commercial mushroom picker. Ballantyne has published two chapbooks, Imitation Crab and Blue Knight. Tomorrow is a Holiday is his first full length collection.

Lokator Media of Krakow will be publishing a Polish language translation of The Weather, by Lisa Robertson, originally published in 1999 by New Star Books.

Pogoda, its Polish title, is translated by Małgorzata Myk, and will be published in May. Lisa Robertson will visit Poland later in May for events in Krakow and Warsaw.

The Weather has previously been translated into French (Editions Nous, 2017) and Swedish (Ramus Vorlag, 2016).

LISA ROBERTSON is the author of many books of poetry and essays, including, most recently, Boat and The Baudelaire Fractal. She lived in Vancouver for many years, where she was a member of the Kootenay Writing Collective, and now lives in France.

MAŁGORZATA MYK is a Polish literary scholar and translator. She teaches at the University of Łódź in the Department of North American Literature and Culture. Author of the monograph Upping the Ante of the Real: Speculative Poetics of Leslie Scalapino (Peter Lang, 2019). The Kościuszko Foundation Fellow in 2017/18 (UCSD) and the Fulbright Senior Award recipient in 2024/25 (University of Utah). She lives in Warsaw.

Attentive New Star readers may have noticed a certain duck circling overhead in our forthcoming section this year. We are thrilled to be releasing Steve Weiner’s much anticipated novel, Duck Island, just in time for the holidays!

Duck Island updates the story of the prodigal son, returning, in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, to the midwestern American town where he grew up. In Steve Weiner’s retelling, the father is no longer alive, and his ghost is unforgiving.
Unable to rekindle a high school flame, Cal Bedrick, who is Jewish, soon meets a very nice Catholic girl, Frannie Sinkiewicz, who falls hard for the troubled young man. Their courtship leads quickly to a marriage that fills their acquaintances with doubts.

Like a David Lynch film, Duck Island vividly contrasts a society whose liberal surface conceals a troubled soul, which is revealed as the novel’s events unfold.

You can find Duck Island in all the usual places, but we recommend checking out your local independent bookstore for a copy (or ask them to order in for you!)
Ebooks available from Kindle and Kobo.

STEVE WEINER draws on his own mid-western roots in telling this tale of a deeply fractured, confused society. The author of Sweet England (2010), The Yellow Sailor (2001), and The Museum of Love (1993; finalist for the Giller Prize), Steve Weiner lives in London, UK.

Male Pregnancy in Reverse by TOM PRIME is available now!

Tom Prime is, as described by Daniel Harris, author of The Posthuman Series, “at the forefront of a new generation of avant-gardists.” His latest work is a long poem “in 5 Acts” that transmutes a disturbing and sometimes horrifying experience—albeit one which is only ever obliquely and allegorically described—into a dazzling and heady literary puzzle.

You can visit the ShopLocal website below to find Male Pregnancy in Reverse at an independent bookstore near you.

Come join us for the launch for Male Pregnancy in Reverse in Vancouver!

WHERE: Cross and Crows Books
2836 Commercial Dr,  Vancouver
WHEN: Wednesday October 18th, 7 PM

Alongside Tom we are excited to announce guest readings from Mark Laba and Warren Dean Fulton.

Preorder your copy with our friends at Cross & Crows and receive 20% off!

TOM PRIME is a PhD candidate at Western University (specializing in 17th century female prophesy). His solo debut collection of poetry Mouthfuls of Space (Anvil) was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial prize. He has published 2 collaboratively written collections of poetry with Gary Barwin (Bird Arsonist with New Star and A Cemetery for Holes with Gordon Hill Press). He lives in London, ON.

We are excited to announce that Perry Bulwer’s memoir Misguided: My Jesus Freak Life In a Doomsday Cult publishes today!
Described by Don Lattin as a “detailed, heart-felt look inside the most notorious Christian sect to emerge from the spiritual counterculture of the 1970s” this gripping account details Bulwer’s time with the infamous Children of God cult.

Bulwer takes the reader on an extraordinary trip through the world of biblical literalism, fundamentalist endtime fantasies, paranormal spirituality, evangelical extremism, ritual abuse, and liberally interpreted biblical teachings that were used to justify licentious sexual doctrines, evangelical prostitution, and child sexual abuse.

You can buy a copy here on the New Star site or at Chapters or Amazon!
eBook versions also available on Kindle or Kobo.

You can also find the book at your local friendly independent bookstore. Check out the Shop Local tool by Bookmanager to find a copy close to you.

LAUNCH EVENTS FOR MISGUIDED

The very first launch event for Misguided is set for Perry’s hometown of Port Alberni, down at the wonderful Möbius Books. 

WHERE: Möbius Books
5016 Argyle St, Port Alberni
WHEN: Saturday September 16th, 11 AM

Here on the mainland? You can join us for a Vancouver event in October with our friends at Iron Dog Books! 

WHERE: Iron Dog Books
2671 East Hastings Street
WHEN: Thursday October 12th, 7 PM

Come join us for a book launch event in Perry Bulwer’s hometown of Port Alberni, where the gripping tale told in Misguided began.

WHERE: Möbius Books
5016 Argyle St, Port Alberni
WHEN: Saturday September 16th, 11 AM

Described by Don Lattin as a “detailed, heart-felt look inside the most notorious Christian sect to emerge from the spiritual counterculture of the 1970s  Misguided: My Jesus Freak Life In a Doomsday Cult is a unique first-hand account of a life spent in the Children of God, a/k/a The Family, a millenarian doomsday sex cult under the sway of a charismatic leader, David Berg.

Perry will also be reading from his memoir in Vancouver in October. Be sure to join us:

WHERE: Iron Dog Books
2671 E Hastings St
WHEN: Thursday October 12th, 7 PM

Out in Toronto you can catch Tom Prime joining the line up of fantastic poets in the Art Bar Poetry Series! He will be reading from his forthcoming collection, Male Pregnancy in Reverse, releasing on September 30th! Also reading on the evening are George Elliot Clarke and Jovan Shadd.

WHERE: Free Times Cafe
320 College St, Toronto
WHEN: Monday September 18th, 7 PM

Tom Prime is, as described by Daniel Harris, author of The Posthuman Series, “at the forefront of a new generation of avant-gardists.” His latest work is a long poem “in 5 Acts” that transmutes a disturbing and sometimes horrifying experience—albeit one which is only ever obliquely and allegorically described—into a dazzling and heady literary puzzle.

Tom will also be reading with Mark Laba in Vancouver in October:

WHERE: Cross and Crows Books, 2836 Commercial Drive
WHEN: Wednesday October 18th, 7-8.30 PM

Please note that if you wish to reserve a seat at the event, you may add the FREE ticket below to your cart when purchasing your book at the Cross and Crows website. All Preorders (not-yet-published books) are 20% off, taken at checkout. Preorders must be prepaid to receive the discount.

Misguided: My Jesus Freak Life in a Doomsday Cult :: Perry Bulwer

Misguided is a unique first-hand account of a life spent in the Children of God, a/k/a The Family, a millenarian doomsday sex cult under the sway of a charismatic leader, David Berg.  Perry Bulwer takes the reader on an extraordinary trip through the world of biblical literalism, fundamentalist endtime fantasies, paranormal spirituality, evangelical extremism, ritual abuse, and liberally interpreted biblical teachings that were used to justify licentious sexual doctrines, evangelical prostitution, and child sexual abuse.

PERRY BULWER graduated from the University of British Columbia with a law degree in 2002, after two decades in the Children of God, a doomsday sex cult. After a 2004 diagnosis of PTSD and fibromyalgia, Bulwer retired from the practice of law (though he remains registered with the Law Society of BC). Back home in Port Alberni, Perry Bulwer advocates for second-generation cult survivors, continuing to shed light on the Children of God, a/k/a The Family.

Male Pregnancy in Reverse :: Tom Prime

Wielding a rich and suggestive vocabulary largely drawn from Elizabethan literary texts, but working within a tradition that includes Rimbaud and Mallarme, Tom Prime’s Male Pregnancy in Reverse revels in a lexigraphic bubblebath that combines visual poetry, typographic moves, fragments of a play, a cast of characters that include Brayne-worme, Volpone, Baby and Mother, and uneasy-laughter-inducing silliness.

TOM PRIME is a PhD candidate at Western University (specializing in 17th century female prophesy). His solo debut collection of poetry Mouthfuls of Space (Anvil, 2021) was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial prize. He has published 2 collaboratively written collections of poetry with Gary Barwin (Bird Arsonist with New Star Books 2022 and A Cemetery for Holes with Gordon Hill Press, 2019).