Literary

This is a novel about truth-telling, fiction and the ever-blurring line in between. The story follows an unnamed protagonist as he tries to best his university writing mate and best friend, Julian, who reaches the pinnacle of success with his modern “masterpiece.” This is literary fiction in the most literal sense. An actively voyeuristic reading […]

“You won’t find her human moments on any roll of film or on a postcard….” In In Calamity’s Wake, author Natalee Caple tells her version of the story of infamous eighteenth-century Midwestern soldier Calamity Jane, in a manner equally fascinating, creative, and meticulously historically accurate. Written as Caple’s PhD thesis, the story is rife with […]

Stephen Kimber just wanted to write a novel. When the Halifax author and University of King’s College journalism professor travelled to Cuba a few years back, he did so in order to research locations for a love story. Once there, though, the novel was swiftly cast aside, as Kimber learned more about The Cuban Five […]

Like the main character in her first novel, The Family Took Shape, Shashi Bhat grew up in Richmond Hill, a suburb just outside of Toronto. After high school she headed a few hours south to Ithaca, New York, where she attended the illustrious Cornell, studying English and doing pre-med. Always a reader, Bhat got the […]

Rachel Lebowitz has been a writer on the east and west coasts and a few places in between. Now settled back in Halifax, she juggles her time between writing, raising a child and working at the Halifax North library coordinating adult literacy programs. She originally planned on a life in academia but after completing her […]

Fierce Ink’s Colleen McKie and Kimberly Walsh love books, quite clearly. The PEI-based McKie is a freelance writer and editor and Halifax-based Walsh is a freelance communications strategist who founded All Rights Reserved literary magazine and both women are currently involved with bringing BookCamp to Halifax (November 9). And in their unbridled love for literature, […]

Alison Smith’s poems evoke the feeling of a solitary weekend spent at the cottage in order to sort some things out. Bracing, overcast and contemplative, her work is distinct and resonates especially with Nova Scotians. “It’s been a good year for me. I decided to concentrate on my writing full-time in the spring and since […]

Nearly every article about Kris Bertin mentions that he’s a bouncer and a bartender (at Bearly’s House of Blues and Ribs, so go say hi). It’s somehow incongruous that a brawny dude slinging beers writes imaginative and insightful fiction when he’s not serving up a round of shots or helping someone who’s had one too […]

“I struggled through writing Homing trying to figure out how to write a book,” admits author Stephanie Domet, humbly referring to her award-winning 2007 novel. A journalist by trade—you may know her as host of CBC Radio One’s Mainstreet— two books under her belt and a brand new novel, Fallsy Downsies, released by Invisible Publishing this […]

They’re calling her the next J.K. Rowling–and though that might be an overstatement (ditto to the Hunger Games comparisons) what Samantha Shannon crafts in her hugely hyped first book of a planned trilogy, The Bone Season, is a rich, immersive fantasy world with the language, culture and political issues to go with it. It’s 2059 […]

It’s not easy to make botany exciting, but somehow Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) manages it. Her sprawling new novel follows the life and family history of the equal parts blessed and cursed Alma Whittaker in the 1800s. Blessed because she’s born to the richest family in Philadelphia, educated within an inch of her life […]

With delicate brush strokes and crooked-branch hand lettering, Sarah Burwash is creating a new Canadian folklore. In her beautiful first watercolour collection, The Far Woods, she draws upon the earth as muse, the collection largely a reflection of time the young artist spent in the Canadian northwest. Flesh and earth tones are accentuated by the […]