‘ This surprisingly tender collection is for mothers missed, a call to “retaliation not reconciliation” for “sisters fallen not forgotten,” for those we honour “valentine day winter eve / time being always time immemorial.” ‘
—Mercedes Eng

Annharte’s fourth collection of poetry, her latest since 2012’s Indigena Awry, publishes today! Miskwagoode, taken from the Anishinaabe for “woman wearing red,” is an unsettling portrayal of unreconciled Indigenous experience under colonialism, past and present.

With an introduction from Annharte’s son and granddaughter, and featuring cover art from her grandchild, the intergenerational waves of Miskwagoode are felt throughout its pages. The woman in the red dress is Annharte, and she is Annharte’s mother, who disappeared when the poet was just a girl. This is a book about mother loss, “mothermiss,” about all the women “burried in common enough / cross-generational graves.”

Suffused with all of Annharte’s usual humour and hard-earned wisdom, the poems of Miskwagoode peek behind the “buckskin curtain” at the margins of settler society. Annharte tells us about granny circles, the horny old guys, and getting your hair done. But these poems about rez life and the community and belonging it offers are set against the background radiation of the poverty and the sicknesses, despair, violence, sexism, and sexual abuse, the legacies of unequal relations.

You’ll find copies of Miskwagoode at these local independent bookstores:

:: Massy Books – Vancouver, BC
:: Iron Dog Books – Vancouver, BC
:: Novel Idea – Kingston, ON
:: Another Story – Toronto, ON
:: Type Books – Toronto, ON
:: Book City – Toronto, ON (Bloor St, Danforth Ave, Queen St E)
:: The Book Keeper – Sarnia, ON 
:: Books on Beechwood – Ottawa, ON
:: Perfect Books – Ottawa, ON
:: The Bookshelf – Guelph, ON
:: The Printed Word – Dundas, ON
:: McNally Robinson – Winnipeg, MB & Saskatoon, SK
:: Librarie Moderne – Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC
:: Livres Lac-Brome – Knowlton, QC
:: Pages On Kensington – Calgary, AB
:: Shelf Life Books – Calgary, AB
:: Bookmark – Halifax, NS

Or snag a copy online:

:: New Star Books
:: Amazon.com
:: Amazon.ca
:: Chapters
:: UTP Distribution
:: Small Press Distribution

Missed the launch of Bird Arsonist this past weekend? You can watch the full event on YouTube or in the window below!
Hosted by the fantastic Elee Kraljii Gardiner and joined by guest reader Kathryn Mockler, Bird Arsonist launched live on Zoom on Saturday February 5. Check this news post to find out where you can pick up a copy of the book.

And for the highlight reel, here’s Barwin and Prime performing a uniquely auditory poem from the book.

We are excited to reveal the cover of Miskwagoode, the fifth collection from Anishinaabe poet Annharte. Available March 17. The cover features an illustration from, Madeline Terbasket, an artist, performer, and Annharte’s grandchild. Miskwagoode also opens with two introductions from Forrest and Soffia Funmaker, Annharte’s son and granddaughter.

Equal parts cheeky and clear-sighted, Miskwagoode sets playful scenes of rez life against a backdrop of unreconciled realities within Indigenous experience. Between botched haircuts and horny old guys, Annharte acts as “witness not survivor” to the poverty, sickness, despair, violence, sexism, and sexual abuse still flowing from the consequences of colonialism’s “swivelled meanings”

‘Granarchist coyotric Annharte’s Miskwagoode brings the anticolonial fire, critique, and medicine much needed in “Canadian Literature.” From pretendians to the Truth and Reconcilitation Commission to tokenism, Annharte’s legendary wry humour and biting commentary will delightbutwithguypunches both new readers and those familiar with Annharte’s germinal writing. This surprisingly tender collection is for mothers missed, a call to “retaliation not reconciliation” for “sisters fallen not forgotten,” for those we honour “valentine day winter eve / time being always time immemorial.”‘
– Mercedes Eng

ANNHARTE (Marie Baker) is Anishinaabe (Little Saskatchewan First Nation, Manitoba). She is the author of four previous books of poetry: Being On the Moon (1990), Columbus Coyote Cafe (1995), Exercises in Lip Pointing (2003), and Indigena Awry (2013). Her book of essays, a/k/a, was published in 2012 by Capilano University Editions. She lives in Gypsumville, Manitoba.

Gary Barwin & Tom Prime’s Bird Arsonist has flown the nest, and is available today!

Compressed to the point of implosion, the poems that make up this volume are contorted descendants of Dadaism, Surrealism, and every other -ism. Prime and Barwin confront poetry’s contemporary preference for confession and today’s digitization of reality not only by — as they are two — using a doubled “I,” but also by letting language elide the human-all-too-human hand of authorship tout court. The author of Bird Arsonist is language itself, sonorous and fragmentary. Prime and Barwin have merely done the job of giving it the room to speak, of keeping it infected, of making visible the outline of its splinters and its cuts.

Check your local independent bookseller for a copy:
:: Munro’s Books – Victoria, BC
:: Mobius Books – Port Alberni, BC
:: Bookingham Palace – Salmon Arm, BC
:: Novel Idea – Kingston, ON
:: Another Story – Toronto, ON
:: Type Books – Toronto, ON
:: Book City – Toronto, ON (Bloor St, Danforth Ave, Queen St E, Beaches)
:: Perfect Books – Ottawa, ON
:: Blue Heron Books – Uxbridge, ON
:: Mixed Media – Hamilton, ON
:: Epic Books – Hamilton, ON
:: The Printed Word – Hamilton, ON
:: Fanfare Books – Stratford, ON
:: The Book Keeper – Sarnia, ON 
:: The Bookshelf – Guelph, ON
:: McNally Robinson – Saskatoon, SK
:: Owl’s Nest Books – Calgary, AB
:: Shelf Life Books – Calgary, AB

Online you can find the book at:
:: New Star Books
:: Amazon.com
:: Amazon.ca
:: Chapters
:: UTP Distribution
:: Small Press Distribution

Bird Arsonist, the latest collaboration from Gary Barwin and Tom Prime, is nearly here. Publishing in just two short weeks on February 2, this twin-penned implosion of poetry does away with easy, lawful language in favour of “mangled and botched experimental and algorithmic procedures” (in the words of artist, author, and critic Felix Bernstein). In face, the author of Bird Arsonist is language itself, sonorous and fragmentary. Prime and Barwin have merely done the job of giving it the room to speak, of keeping it infected, of making visible the outline of its splinters and its cuts.

In the first review of Bird Arsonist, rob mclennan says the collection “displays a language of sound poetry shaped to the page, writing poems that play with the distortions of meaning, image and sound.” This is a book that is bound to ruffle your feathers in one way or another, and you can pre-order online it right now on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, or directly from us here at New Star.

Once you’ve snagged a copy, be sure to join us live on Zoom for the launch of Bird Arsonist, with host Elee Kraljii Gardiner.

Saturday, February

4:30 PT / 7:30 ET

Click here to register

Check out the excerpt video below for a taste of what you’re in for:

You’ll also find Gary Barwin at the Jewish Book Festival on February 6 with his recent, award winning novel Nothing The Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl the Cowboy.

GARY BARWIN is a writer, composer, musician, and multidisciplinary artist and has published 25 books of fiction, poetry, and numerous chapbooks. His latest books include For It Is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe, ed. Alessandro Porco, and Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl the Cowboy.

TOM PRIME is the author and co-author of several poetry chapbooks, including A Cemetery for Holes with Gary Barwin. His debut solo collection, Mouthfuls of Space, was published in the fall of 2021.

ELEE KRALJII GARDINER is the author of two poetry books Trauma Head, winner of the Fred Cogswell Poetry Prize, and serpentine loop, shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award. An experienced mentor, Elee is the founding director of Thursdays Writing Collective, which supported emerging writers from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

The winners of the 2021 Vine Awards, presented by the Koffler Centre for the Arts, were announced live last night on November 23 and we were thrilled to watch along here at New Star Books as Sharon Kirsch’s memoir, The Smallest Obejctive took home the prize in the History category. Watch the full awards ceremony.

The Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature is an annual national awards program that honours both the best Canadian Jewish writers and non-Jewish Canadian authors who deal with Jewish subjects in Fiction, History, Non-Fiction, Young Adult/Children’s literature, and Poetry.

Here’s what the jury had to say about The Smallest Objective:

“In the wake of her mother’s illness, and driven by lore of hidden treasure, Kirsch excavates history from ephemera found in her parent’s home; she follows clues to wherever they lead in a meandering path along different research trajectories that unearth mysteries and figures from her family tree. With poetic prose, and a proclivity for listings of things, Kirsch has a microscopic attention to detail that matches the theme of objects put under scrutiny to divine secrets. This writing has a way of hinting at the ineffable and drawing synaptic connections that reveal a real playfulness and love of words. This listing is stylistic, but also a method for coping with grief. There are themes of memory and forgetting, loss and lost things, and of course the search for treasure, where things — letters, postcards, photographs, slides, seashells, and rocks — become archival documents.”

We would like to extend our congratulations to the shortlsited authors in all categories and especially to Paul Roberts Bentley and Celia Rabinovitch, whose books it was an honour to be shortlisted alongside! Our gratitude also to the Koffler Centre, the Lillian and Norman Glowinsky Family Foundation, and the 2021 jurors, Zelda Abramson, Nathan Adler and Naomi K. Lewis.

Sharon also participated in a virtual panel on November 18 with fellow shortlisted authors, Rachel Matlow, Myriam Steinberg, and illustrator, Christache on the themes of memoir, motherhood, and lived experience – you can watch that panel right here on YouTube.

Poetry in Transit, an initiative featuring poems on buses and SkyTrains across the TransLink system here in British Columbia, celebrates its 25th anniversary!

Read Local BC and The Association of Book Publishers of BC have marked this occassion with the publication of an anthology of 40 selected poems from the PiT archives, edited and introduced by poet Evelyn Lau.

George Stanley’s poem ‘waiting’ from the 2013 collection After Desire has been included in this wonderful anniversary edition. Check out the anthology at poetryintransit25.ca or keep your eyes peeled around BC transit for copies hidded around the TransLink system.

We are thrilled to share that The Smallest Objective has been shortlisted for the Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature in the History category. Presented by the Koffler Centre of the Arts, each year the Vine Awards honour the best Canadian Jewish writers and non-Jewish Canadian authors who deal with Jewish subjects.

This year’s jury consisted of Zelda Abramson, Nathan Adler and Naomi K. Lewis, here’s some of what they had to say about The Smallest Objective:

“With poetic prose, and a proclivity for listings of things, Kirsch has a microscopic attention to detail that matches the theme of objects put under scrutiny to divine secrets. This writing has a way of hinting at the ineffable and drawing synaptic connections that reveal a real playfulness and love of words.”

Winners will be announced on November 23 at an online awards ceremony! Find all the details on the Koffler Centre’s website.

Ahead of the awards ceremony, Kirsch will be joining fellow shortlisted authors, Rachel Matlow and Myriam Steinberg, as well as illustrator Christache, with juror Zelda Abramson for a special virtual panel on the themes of memoir and motherhood. The panel, also online, will be live on November 18. Details and registration here.
Both of these events are free and open to the public!

A fantastic review appeared in Canada’s History in which Sharon Hanna calls The Smallest Objective “…an unexpectedly relevant book for our time, when we’ve been confined to our homes like never before.” You can read the entire review right here.

Also in November, Kirsch will be discussing the book for the Atwater Library Lunchtime Series, a fantastic weekly series featuring presentations from various experts from writers and artists, to scientists and intellectuals – these events are still running online so be sure to check out the full program and register for Sharon’s event on November 25th.

Looking for even more?
You can also listen to a podcast episode from the Côte Saint-Luc library featuring The Smallest Objective. Read a new flash non-fiction story over on the Jewish Women of Words site. Or take a look behind the scenes in this fantastic interview with Gila Green.

Screen Captures: Film in the Age of Emergency is out and about in your local bookstores, and you can read an excerpt from the book right here on our website.

We’re also excited to bring you a handful of short podcast episodes, with author Stephen Lee Naish diving into some of our favourite chapters from the book. If Screen Captures was a movie, these podcasts would live in the DVD bonus features menu. We’re not the only ones who remember those…right?

Three episodes are live on SoundCloud right now, you can listen along as Naish ponders the way characters made of circuit boards and wires manage to hack their way into our hearts in the chapter ‘Crying At Robots’
In episode two, from ‘The Middle Word in Life’, we take a look at Dennis Hopper’s on-stage interpretation of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” – a moving and creative re-imagination from the iconic actor and filmmaker.
And finally Hunter S. Thompson’s iconic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and its 1998 film adaptation from Terry Gilliam starring Johnny Depp take the stage in the final episode on ‘The Opening Line’

Click here or listen below!

Join us on Zoom for another virtual book launch. Tamas Dobozy’s Ghost Geographies launches next weekend, with host Matt Rader.

A polyphonic descendant of Kadare, Bolaño, and Sebald, Tamas Dobozy masterfully traces and thwarts the porous borders between fact, fiction, ideology, history, and humor. The stories that make up Ghost Geographies, including “Krasnogorsk-2” (National Magazine Awards 2014 Gold Medal for Fiction), and “Crosswords” (Previously titled “No. 10” Best Canadian Short Stories 2017), constitute a collection that “isn’t for the faint of heart” according to Brett Josef Grusibic in The Star “Its rewards, however, are ample, its craft impeccable.”

Check our previous news post for a preview of the book and to find out where you can pick up a copy of Ghost Geographies.

Saturday, October 23
4:30 Pacific | 7:30 Eastern
Live on Zoom – Register here!

TAMAS DOBOZY is the author of three previous collections of short fiction and novellas: When X Equals Marylou (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2003), Last Notes and Other Stories (HarperCollins Canada / Arcade (US), 2005), and the Governor General’s Award finalist and Writers’ Trust Award winner, Siege 13 (Thomas Allen / Milkweed (US), 2012). 5 Mishaps, a limited edition collection of five new stories, was published in early 2021 by School Gallery, London, UK. Dobozy lives in Kitchener, ON.

MATT RADER is the author of five volumes of poetry, a collection of stories and a book of non-fiction. Rader teaches writing at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. He lives in Kelowna, BC. His latest book is the collection of poems, Ghosthawk.

You can find Ghost Geographies at these local bookstores:
:: Munro’s Books – Victoria, BC
:: Iron Dog Books – Vancouver, BC
:: Hager Books – Vancouver, BC
:: Black Bond Books – Surrey, BC
:: Huckleberry Books – Cranbrook, BC
:: Sea & Summit Bookshop – Parksville, BC
:: Laughing Oyster Bookshop – Courtenay, BC
:: Book City – Toronto, ON (Queen St E, Danforth Ave, Bloor St W, & Yonge St)
:: Type Books – Toronto, ON
:: Queen Books – Toronto, ON
:: Another Story – Toronto, ON
:: Words Worth Books – Waterloo, ON
:: Novel Idea – Kingston, ON
:: Perfect Books – Ottawa, ON
:: Singing Pebble Books – Ottawa, ON
:: Sleuth of Baker Street – East York, ON
:: Someday Books – St. Catharines, ON
:: The Bookshelf – Guelph, ON
:: Manticore Books – Orillia, ON
:: McNally Robinson – Winnipeg, MB, Saskatoon, SK
:: The Next Page – Calgary, AB