our Catalogue as a PDF.

Transcription

our Catalogue as a PDF.
Inanna Publications and Education Inc.
Smart books for
people who want
to read and think
about real
women’s lives.
Celebrating 38 Years
of Feminist Publishing
Inanna Publications and Education Inc. is one of only a very few independent feminist presses in Canada committed to publishing fiction, poetry,
and creative non-fiction by and about women, and complementing this with
relevant non-fiction, that bring new, innovative and diverse perspectives with
the potential to change and enhance women’s lives everywhere. Our aim is
to conserve a publishing space dedicated to feminist voices that provoke
discussion, advance feminist thought, and speak to diverse lives of women.
Founded in 1978, and housed at York University since 1984, Inanna is the
proud publisher of one of Canada’s oldest feminist journals, Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme.
Our priorities are to publish literary books, particularly by fresh, new Canadian voices, that are intellectually rigorous, speak to women’s hearts, and
tell truths about the lives of the broad diversity of Canadian women—smart
books for people who want to read and think about real women’s lives.
Fall 2016
Inanna publications are important resources, widely used in university
courses across the country. Our books are essential for any curriculum and
are indispensable resources for the feminist reader.
Inanna Publications and Education Inc.
CONTENTS
fall 2016 frontlist: inanna poetry and fiction series 2
spring 2016 frontlist: inanna poetry and fiction series 12
inanna memoir series 18
recent poetry and fiction
recent non-fiction
20
30
inanna poetry and fiction series backlist 32
Inanna Publications and education inc. gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada council for the arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program, and
the financial assistance of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.
an Ontario government agency
un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario
Fall 2016
www.inanna.ca
2
INANNA POETRY AND FICTION SERIES
FALL 2016 FRONTLIST
GOOD GIRLS
ONE MAN DANCING
a novel by shalta dicaire fardin and sarah sahagian
a novel by patricia keeney
Fall 2016 Launch of Inanna Young Feminist Series
Good Girls is the story of Allie and Octavia, two young women trying to figure out who they
want to be. Welcome to Anne Bradstreet College, an all-girls prep school in Boston, where a
high SAT score is the ultimate status symbol, followed closely by a string of Tiffany pearls.
At ABC, as the school is affectionately known, high school isn’t just about shoes, boys and
weekend getaways; it’s about becoming more accomplished than Joan of Arc.
978-1-77133-345-0
$22.95 cdn
5.5" x 8.25" pb, 200 pages
ya fiction / october 2016
Good Girls follows the various personalities of the ABC Debate Team, a collection of
high-achieving young women who never break curfew, always do their homework, and all
have plans of attending Ivy League colleges. Perhaps the most over-achieving of all her friends
is Allie Denning, a tenth grader who is the youngest captain of the ABC Debate Team in
the school’s long history. Little does Allie know, her tidy life is about to change. Enter the
15 year-old Octavia Irving, a wild party girl from Montreal, and daughter to now-estranged
trust fund-baby parents, Sophie and Mordecai. Allie is the perfectly polished over-achiever;
Octavia is the consummate cool girl. After unexpectedly ending up as debate partners, these
very different young women must find a way to work together, while balancing school,
family conflict, and romance.
When Mordechai entered Octavia’s bedroom
without knocking, his volcano of anger officially
erupted. He was met with the site of his daughter,
in bed, with a guy. Upon seeing him, Octavia, shot
up in bed. She was horrified as she met her father’s
eyes. “What is the meaning of this, Octavia?” her father demanded, watching his daughter intently, her
mascara smeared across her eyes. She said nothing.
The boy next to her woke, and quickly realized
what was happening. “And who are you?!” screamed
her father.
“I’m gay. And I’m going,” said Octavia’s friend
David. He grabbed his pants and left the room,
giving Octavia a plaintive look.
Octavia hugged her knees and whispered a barely
audible “Hi, Daddy.”
Mordechai sighed, “You have no idea how hard
it was for me to get here, Octavia. I had to drive
here. I drove here,” he emphasized. “You know, on
the ground. I don’t do ‘the ground,’ Octavia.” This
was true. Mordechai usually flew the company jet
everywhere, but it had been too foggy that night in
Toronto to takeoff, so he was stuck being driven in
his Maybach the entire way. It was a true top one
percent of the first world problem.
Octavia still said nothing. She was still fixated
Marcus. Was this the end? Was he over her? Why
wasn’t he here to help her deal with this sticky
situation? When her father told her about the
vandalized house, she felt awful.… Octavia knew,
of course, who had done it.
Ultimately, Good Girls is a feminist coming-of-age story about two very different
young women. Allie is a consummate rule-follower, while Octavia loves to break
any rule she can for the sake of it. By getting to know each other, both girls
influence and change one another. Ultimately, each girl must decide whether
to embrace the life she’s been living, or rebel against her current reality.
Good Girls is the first book in a planned series of witty, daring and feminist-first YA novels that will follow Allie and Octavia throughout their
time as students at ABC.
Shalta Dicaire Fardin has a degree in Gender Studies from Queen’s University; her area of academic focus was primarily in constructing identity through
physical presentation. Shalta lives and works in Toronto, in advertising and
technology, and is passionate about promoting women in STEM fields. She
lives in Toronto, Ontario, and for her four-legged child Jasper.
Sarah Sahagian is a PhD Candidate in Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies
at York University in Toronto. In her academic writing career, she is the co-editor of Mother of Invention: How Our Mothers Influenced Us as Academics and
Activists (2013) and The Mother-Blame Game (2015). During her time off from
academia, Sarah is a regular contributor to the award-winning feminist blog
Gender Focus, writing feminist critiques of popular culture and meditations
on various feminist issues of the day. She moonlights as a comedy writer for the
Canadian satirical news magazine, The Beaverton. Good Girls is her first novel.
She lives in Toronto.
Promotional Plans
• Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver launches
• Promotional bookmarks
• Review copy mailing / submissions to reading series
• Ads in trade and literary magazines
One Man Dancing is based on the true story of a young Ugandan actor-dancer growing into
artistic maturity during the murderous regime of dictator Idi Amin. It follows Charles from
his youth in Uganda’s colonial villages, and through his work with artistic guru Robert Serumaga, which takes him on an eye-opening whirlwind international tour. Bounced from Africa
to Europe to Canada and back again, Charles experiences bizarre and dangerous encounters
with assassination, natural disaster, Idi Amin, and even the CIA.
Charles’ life revolves increasingly around his passion for dance and music. In Kampala,
Charles meets with the innovative and iconoclastic director-playwright Robert Serumaga who
has just begun an experimental troupe called Abafumi. Using image, music and dance, the
company operates as a kind of artistic commune. Charles travels with them into Ugandan
villages to hear stories and to learn the steps as well as the instruments that keep these tales
alive. Back in Kampala, under the surveillance of Amin’s soldiers, Abafumi launches into a
rigorous rehearsal regime, dramatizing the very material that serves as a call to revolution,
material that could also condemn them.
Based on the extraordinary life of a Ugandan actor, One Man Dancing is a political mystery,
a story of risk and freedom, a harrowing tale of theatre and personal belief.
Critical responses to Patricia Keeney’s writing:
“Full of grace and lyrical eloquence. A poet with courage, vision and an
authentic voice.” —ted plantos, Cross Canada Writer’s Quarterly
“Energy is the word that best defines the poetic personality of Patricia
Keeney, an energy that manifests itself both in its independence from the
conventions of being female and in the lyricism traditionally associated
with being female.”
—michele duclos, Poséie Première
Patricia Keeney is a widely published Canadian poet, novelist and critic
with translations of her work published in France, Mexico, China, Bulgaria,
South Africa and India among others. She is the author of ten books of poetry,
and a picaresque novel entitled The Incredible Shrinking Wife (1996). In
addition to her creative work, she is also a Professor of English and Creative
Writing at York University in Toronto where she offers courses on Canadian
Literature, Women in Literature and related subjects and conducts regular
workshops in poetry and mixed genre writing. She is currently working on
a new novel connected to the life of the Virgin Mary. She is married to the
theatre scholar Don Rubin, is mother to four children and six grandchildren.
She makes her home in a 150-year-old log house an hour north of Toronto.
Promotional Plans
• Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver launches
• Promotional bookmarks
• Review copy mailing / submissions to reading series
• Ads in trade and literary magazines
978-1-77133-273-6
$22.95 cdn
5.5" x 8.25" pb, 300 pages
fiction / october 2016
This is Charles’ story. The story of an African man told
by a North American woman. What he asked me to tell.
What he let me see. What I saw.
I don’t pretend to understand it all. Or know it all. I
cannot reveal its meaning in an easy phrase. As though any
phrase can express the meaning of a life.
Can explain why some of us are allowed health and good
fortune while others suffer every kind of physical and social
assault. Why some of us are spared. Why some of us are
singled out to be victims.
Like Job, tested again and again.
Why some of us keep struggling in the face of existential
indifference and caprice.
Like Charles. Always believing in some ultimate purpose.
***
He stands alone. A man marooned on a mountain.
Frozen in shock. Staring out. Swaying slightly.
Time is his god here, keeping him rigorously attentive
to the shifting of glacial moments. On top of this treacherous mountain Charles is a martyr to his own rigid limbs.
Extreme exertion put him here, outrunning fear. Every
morning he climbs the same mountain of ice, clawing at its
hard face, willing himself up, desperate not to fall down.
Again.
A small wheeled machine whirs below him in this cold,
impersonal meat-packing plant. It is fast, darting at the
great glinting rock, attacking it block by block, biting
off chunks, chewing, swallowing. Relentless. Shrinking
his mountain.
As he pounds and splinters with axe and spade at the
top of ice mountain, black against white, he dances and
slips, drops. His sleek dark body churning, frigid, hurtling
down a giant slide into frozen whiteness.
3
4
INANNA POETRY AND FICTION SERIES
FALL 2016 FRONTLIST
978-1-77133-325-2
$22.95 cdn
5.5" x 8.25" pb, 300 pages
fiction / october 2016
THE SECRET LIFE OF ROBERTA GREAVES
DAWNING OF A NEW GARDEN
a novel by ann birch
a novel by tara nanayakkara
Renowned classics professor Roberta Greaves finds her perfect life shattered by her husband’s
suicide and the huge gambling debts he has left behind. Grief-stricken and angry, Roberta
must find a way to pay those debts. Remembering a story by Ovid about intergenerational sex, she decides to write an erotic novel, using a penname because she is worried that
her career will suffer if her real identity is discovered. When her novel becomes a hit, she
worries about keeping its authorship secret. Drama critic John Schubert suspects the truth.
Eager to bring Roberta down in revenge for some comments she once made, he finds an
opportunity when he spots her with her publisher, who is well-known for the erotic literature he publishes. Meantime, Roberta hears some dirt about Schubert from the street kids
with whom she does poetry workshops at a drop-in centre. A girl confesses that Schubert
has sexually assaulted her. When Roberta confronts Schubert, he says, “I’ll keep your dirty
secret if you keep mine.”
Confronted with the task of re-inventing her life, young widow Priya grieves by researching
spiritualism for a new age magazine and spending time in the garden her late husband, Gabe,
had tended. Human contact is limited to an elderly nursing home resident, Jeevan, who is
from her father’s native land of Sri Lanka. Soon Priya is drawn further into Jeevan’s world,
which includes a mysterious nephew, Suresh. Despite rigid religious views, Suresh takes
advantage of Priya’s vulnerability. Soon an isolated Priya finds herself facing the prospect of
either single motherhood or a loveless marriage. While her Canadian and Sri Lankan friends
Meg and Shobi conduct a tug of war over Priya’s destiny, Suresh’s jealous and coercive tactics
prevent her from exploring a third possibility, her kindly neighbour Ryan, the only person
whose presence gives Priya a genuine sense of solace.
Roberta’s life is now a mess of potential blackmail and intrigue. What’s more, she learns an
unpleasant truth about her “Daddy,” a doctor whose memory she has always revered. She
learns that he died having sex with a woman who still lives in Roberta’s hometown. Roberta’s
interactions with the street kids and the loyalty of her two sons and her friend Carl Talbot
enable her to face her bruised world, reveal her secret, and move forward.
Roberta puts the book back into its hiding place, but she can’t sleep for
thinking of the fascination the story once held for her. An idea slips into
her mind. It’s an absolutely crazy idea, but it stays with her nonetheless.…
She could rewrite the Myrrha story as an erotic novel, couldn’t she? Set it in
modern times? Make the father figure not a king––that wouldn’t work––but a
crusader, perhaps a man like Barack Obama, on whom the hopes of a nation
could rest. Or perhaps a lesser figure, a man who influences the people around
him. Her own Daddy had been a crusader. A village doctor, he’d fought for
the rights of women to birth control information and hospital abortions.
She remembers how she’d gone into Budge’s Pharmacy one day to get
something or other and seen her father deep in conversation with Mr. Budge.
“Look here,” she heard him say, “probably every teenaged boy in Summerton
is having sex in the front seat of his father’s Studebaker. Get those condoms
out from under the counter, damn it. Put them right out with the Listerine
mouthwash and the Vitalis. I thought we’d agreed on that.”
“I tried to oblige, Doc,” Mr. Budge said, “but the Eastern Star ladies gave
me a lot of flack. Not to mention the i.o.d.e. I got to think of my business.”
“You’ve got to think about what’s right, man, and…” He’d seen her then,
and stopped in mid-sentence.
Later, as they drove home together in the Oldsmobile, she’d asked, “What’s
a condom, Daddy?”
He’d thought for a moment, as he manoeuvred around a couple of corners.
Then he said, “It’s a rubber cover that slips over a boy’s penis and keeps him
from impregnating the girl he’s with.”
…When they got home, he’d taken a prescription form and drawn an
erect penis on it and explained how it got that way.
At that point she’d at last understood what Ovid meant when he said that
King Cinyras had filled Myrrha “with his seed.” And she’d gone upstairs and
reread the story with new insight.
…There might be a huge female readership for an erotic novel based on
“Myrrha.” …It might be a way, perhaps a sure-fire way, to cover some of
James’s debts.
From Gail Anderson-Dargatz, author of Turtle Valley,
who did an edit of The Secret Life of Roberta Greaves
and offered this blurb with her edit of the “Roberta”
novel: “Ann Birch has the talent, tenacity and rich
experience basethat are absolutely necessary to a fiction
writer. Her insights hit the target and her sharp wit
is evident on every page.”
An award-winning educator, Ann Birch was an associate professor in the teacher-training programs at
York University and the University of Toronto. She
was Head of English in several Toronto high schools,
and author of the best-selling text, Essay Writing Made
Easy. She holds a post-graduate degree in CanLit and
is currently a fiction writer and editor. Her first novel,
Settlement, was published in 2010.
Promotional Plans
• Toronto launch
• Promotional bookmarks
• Review copy mailing / submissions to reading series
• Ads in trade and literary magazines
In this sequel to the author’s earlier novel, Priya’s World, Priya life is mired in uncertainty,
but as spring begins to stir, the garden Gabe planted begins to speak to her of new life and
fresh possibilities.
Tara Nanayakkara was born in Sri Lanka and immigrated to
Canada with her family when she was three. She is the author
of three novels, To Wish Upon A Rainbow (1989); Picture Perfect
(2007); and Priya’s World (2012). A professional writer for the
past thirty years, her writing has appeared in the Toronto Star,
The Telegram and Canadian Living magazine, among others.
She lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland, with her husband and
two children.
The author is an active member of The Canadian National
Institute for the Blind; The Canadian Council of the Blind, and
formerly of The Mayor’s Advisory Committee for the Status
of Persons with Disabilities; and the Multicultural Women’s
Organization of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Promotional Plans
• Toronto, Halifax and St. John’s, NL, launches
• Promotional bookmarks
• Review copy mailing / submissions to
reading series
• Ads in trade and literary magazines
5
978-1-77133-317-7
$22.95 cdn
5.5" x 8.25" pb, 250 pages
fiction / SEPTEMBER 2016
There is a brief moment when the piercing brightness of an early
evening sun dissolves into a soft glow. It merges then into the horizon in a startling spectacle of colour. The day that started off new
and fresh is now old and tired just like grey haired Jeevan sitting in
the wheelchair. By contrast, Priya who was perched on the edge of
the green park bench mere inches from the old man, looked as if
she had enough energy to run a marathon. Yet every so often she
would glance at him, keeping a watchful eye on any potential need
he might have.
Jeevan stared towards the lake where a smattering of ducks beaked
around for any hint of breadcrumbs that littered the gravel that
fronted the water’s edge.
“Nella was such a wonderful wife,” Jeevan mused, the laugh lines
on his bronzed face deepening in concentration as he recalled a fond
memory. “My word, could she ever cook!”
“I can imagine,” Priya said, fondly recalling all the great meals
she’d shared with Gabe during their eight-year marriage. “Does the
hurt ever go away, I wonder?”
“Can’t say,” Jeevan shook his head. “But for me it is so much
easier than for you. I am old now and in God’s good time, I will be
with Nella, but you… you are far too young to be a widow. You are
what, twenty-eight, twenty-nine now?”
Priya smiled sadly, “thirty-five. It’s been four months since Gabe
died but it still feels like ten minutes ago.”
“And even though you’ve been coming to the home to see me
for the past year,” he replied, “I feel as if we’ve known each other a
very long time.”
“I think that’s how it works when two people click,” Priya suggested.
“I’m glad that we can talk about our lives and share like this…”
His words drifted into a brief silence and then he picked up the
thread of his thought. “I say! What a thing! You find someone who
loves and looks after you and then,” he snapped his fingers, “Gone
just like that.”
6
INANNA POETRY AND FICTION SERIES
FALL 2016 FRONTLIST
HOLY RULE
THE NEARLY GIRL
a novel by mary frances coady
a novel by lisa de nikolits
Holy Rule takes place during three weeks in October, 1958, focusing on the lives of a group
of nuns who teach at St. Monica’s Girls’ School. During this time of high autumn, the pope
lies dying in Rome—and then finally dies while thousands of miles away life carries on
among the students and teaching nuns in St. Monica’s Girls’ School. The girls Gwen, J.J.,
Sally—are living in the adolescent space between childhood and adulthood and are testing
their limits with their nun-teachers. Meanwhile, those same nun-teachers—Sisters Zélie,
Martha, Beatrice—are living under a rule that to the outside world is regarded as “holy,”
but is more ambiguous to those on the inside.
Fans of A Prayer for Owen Meany and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest will love this clever,
fast-paced and enjoyable thriller. Like a modern-day Joan of Arc, Amelia Fisher attempts to
carve out a ‘normal life’, showing us how mythic the idea of ‘normal’ really is. With a poetic
genius for a father, an obsessed body builder for a mother, and an enchantingly eccentric
group seeking the help of an unorthodox therapist, what could possibly go wrong? A chance
discovery propels Amelia and fellow therapy attendee, Mike, with whom she is in love, into
a life-threatening situation instigated by the crazed doctor’s own dark secret but Amelia’s
psychosis saves the day.
As the Reverend Mother grieves the loss of the pope, she makes impossible demands upon
her charges. For the nuns teaching in the school, there is the added struggle of rebellious
teenagers. For those who remain in the convent all day — Sisters Kate, Clementia, Antonetta
and the housemaid Lizzie—various forms of subterfuge are used to cope with their lack of
978-1-77133-321-4
freedom. Some are able to choose their own inner path, others succumb to injustice and
$22.95 cdn
meanness. All of them are plod their way through cultural and spiritual terrain that is both
5.5" x 8.25" pb, 250 pages
fiction / september 2016
familiar and alien. They harbor regrets for the past as they negotiate their way through a
present that is shifting under their feet. Unknown to
all of them, their lives are spilling into a world on the
“You’ve been smoking in here, Lizzie.”
cusp of change.
“Sister, it was just a short break, to give me back and legs a rest. I know I
should have gone downstairs for me fag, but—”
“Lizzie.” Sister Antonetta looked again toward the door. “Do you suppose
I might try one?”
It was a moment before Lizzie replied. “Do … do you mean… a fag?”
Mary Frances Coady was born in Saskatchewan and
Sister Antonetta nodded. Her face brightened. “Just to try it. I’ve often
raised in Alberta. She now lives in Toronto. She is the
wondered what it’s like to smoke a cigarette.”
author of several biographies, young adult fiction,
Lizzie sat down at the table. “Only if you think it’s allowed, Sister.”
and a collection of linked short stories, The Practice of
“Allowed? And is it up to you to question me about what’s allowed?” Sister
Antonetta’s face began to gain color again. She stood straight, her face serene.
Perfection. Her short fiction has also appeared in The
“I’m simply asking you for a favour.”
Antigonish Review, The Dalhousie Review, The FiddleLizzie drew from her pocket a brown pouch, opened it and pulled out a thin
head, Whetstone, Commonweal, and other publications.
piece of cigarette paper. She reached into the pouch again, and looking up at
She has taught at Centennial College and Sheridan
the nun, said, “I rolls me own, d’you know that, Sister?”
College, and has also worked as an editor and creative
The nun pursed her lips.
writing instructor. She currently teaches professional
“I mean, I’ll have to roll you one too. This isn’t a bother to you, Sister? Me
licking the paper?”
communication at Ryerson University in Toronto.
A muscle flinched on Sister Antonetta’s face. “Do what you have to do. I
know nothing of these things.”
Lizzie plucked some stringy tobacco from the pouch and arranged it on
the paper, rolled the paper up and licked the edge. She tapped it on the table,
poked in a stray string of tobacco, and handed it to Sister Antonetta, who sat
down at the table across from her. The nun put the cigarette into her mouth.
It dangled in front of her chin.
Lizzie rolled one for herself and brought out a box of matches from her
pocket. Sister Antonetta thrust her head forward and raised the cigarette.
“You suck in on it, Sister.” Lizzie struck a match and held it out toward the
nun. A flame shot up from the end of the cigarette. She then lit her own. “Suck
Promotional Plans
in, Sister!” she said, waving away the smoke that had risen between them.
• Toronto, Ottawa and Edmonton launches
Sister Antonetta drew in, and immediately the cigarette flew out of her
• Promotional bookmarks
• Review copy mailing / submissions to
mouth onto the table. She doubled over, her body wracked with coughing. A
reading series
smell of scorched cloth rose between them.
Told with warmth, humor and populated with vividly original characters, this sprint-paced
novel has it all, from restraining orders to sex in office bathrooms, and a nail-biting ending.
A novel about an unusual family, expected social norms and the twists and turns of getting
it all slightly wrong, the consequences of which prove fatal for some.
• Ads in trade and literary magazines
“The story builds with cinematic suspense and surprises, but one thing is for sure: The only crazy
thing in this world is trying to be normal.” – Jill Buchner, Canadian Living Magazine
Lisa de Nikolits is the award-winning
author of five novels. Her first novel, The
Hungry Mirror won a 2011 ippy Awards
Gold Medal and was long-listed for a ReLit
Award. West of Wawa won the 2012 ippy
Silver Medal and was a Chatelaine Editor’s
Pick. A Glittering Chaos won the 2014 Silver
ippy Silver Medal. The Witchdoctor’s Bones
was published in 2014, Between The Cracks
She Fell in 2015. Canadian Living magazine
declared Between The Cracks She Fell “a mustread book of 2015.” Her short fiction has
also been published in various anthologies
and magazines including Thirteen O’Clock;
Reworking a Life; Postscripts To Darkness;
Maud.Lin House; and on Lynn Crosbie’s
website, Hood and the Jellyfish Review. Lisa is a
member of the Mesdames of Mayhem as well
as a member of the Crime Writers of Canada,
the Sisters in Crime, Toronto Chapter and
the International Thriller Writers. She lives
and works in Toronto.
Promotional Plans
• Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary launches
• Promotional bookmarks
• Review copy mailing / submissions to
reading series
• Ads in trade and literary magazines
•Author blog tour
978-1-77133-313-9
$22.95 cdn
5.5" x 8.25" pb, 300 pages
fiction / september 2016
I pushed my way into the café, cursing the November rain, cursing my glasses for
steaming up, cursing my umbrella for showering my legs with icy droplets and cursing
the client who had moved our meeting back by two hours.
“Here, we’re over here,” one of my colleagues called out and she waved. I recognized
her more by her voice than her vaselined outline and I stumbled towards their table.
“I hate this month,” I grumbled, trying to balance my umbrella against the wall
but it stubbornly fell against me, making sure it transferred all its residual water onto
my kneecaps.
Spencer, my boss, handed me a paper napkin and I dried my glasses. “I got you your
usual,” he said, pointing at a teapot.
“That’s black tea,” I said, sniffing the tea. “I drink green tea. And when have you
ever seen me eat a chocolate chip cookie? You know gluten makes me ill. How many
years have we worked together? You can’t remember green tea and gluten free?”
“You’re so grumpy,” Spencer noted. “I nearly got it right.” He leaned over and took
my cookie.
“You just wanted it for yourself,” I accused him and he laughed.
I took his latte and put the tea in front of him. “Here you go, Mr. Nearly,” I said and
then I stopped as something occurred to me and I could vaguely hear Spencer objecting
to the exchange but I was trying to bring a distant memory to the forefront of my mind.
“Earth to Jen, earth to Jen,” Spencer repeated, and he snapped his fingers in front
of my face, a habit he knows I hate.
“I’m trying to remember something,” I said. “The nearly girl, that’s what they called
her. The nearly girl. I went to university with her. She had this weird disorder and they
made all kind of allowances for her because of it. She was doing her thesis on Joan of
Arc, I remember that too. Whoa, I haven’t thought about her in years.”
I took a satisfying slug of Spencer’s latte and sat back. “She would have loved this
weather,” I said. “She used to go the beach on days like this. In a t-shirt. She didn’t
feel the cold and she never got sick either. I liked her but it was hard to be friends with
her because she was so unreliable. Like you’d try to make a plan and then she would
get on the wrong bus at the right station, and she’d never show up. Or she’d take the
right bus but she’d show up on the wrong day.”
“Was she an anarchist?” Ana, the sales rep on our team asked and I shook my head.
“No, it was a real psychological disorder. She had been diagnosed
7
8
INANNA POETRY AND FICTION SERIES
FALL 2016 FRONTLIST
THE EFFECTS OF ISOLATION ON THE BRAIN
LEAVE-TAKING
a novel by erika rummel
poems by marilyn potter
There are many forms of isolation, and Ellie is becoming an expert on them: unloved and
ignored as a child in Vienna, up against cultural barriers in Canada, holed up in a cabin in
the north. What are the effects of isolation on the brain? Is it loneliness and boredom that
makes Ellie take risks and say yes to Vera, her glamorous but deeply disturbed friend? Vera
has been abused as a child and is now putting her trust in a charlatan healer. Together they
entangle Ellie in a murderous game of fantasy and revenge.
Leave-Taking moves through stages of grief — the reckoning, the remembering, the rituals
— after the sudden death of a spouse. The poems trace reflections on a long marriage, and
what it is like to be left behind. By highlighting the complex emotions inherent in loss, the
poet explores the theme that grief is often different than expected and leads in directions not
anticipated. Above all, Leave-Taking is a tender love elegy; one that connects with anyone
who has experienced deep loss.
Marooned on the shores of a frozen lake, Ellie must make her way out of the Canadian bush
and the wilderness of her own soul. It is a journey through hostile territory – neglect, deceit,
confusion, betrayal – but Ellie is a fighter. All she needs to survive is a soulmate. Don’t we all?
Leave-Taking displays a vivid sense of time and place. The poems travel from Haida Gwaii
on the west coast of Canada, across the mountains and into the prairie city of Winnipeg, to
the beaches of Cape Cod; however, they stop often to rest in the quiet spaces found inside
Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto. Through these interspersed cemetery poems and epitaphs — mini-stories in stone — grief unfolds from many perspectives: praise and lament,
love and disenchantment, hope and pain, faith and doubt.
About Head Games: “A fast-paced page turner. A suspenseful, thrilling roller coaster ride
with lots of twisty, loopy sections.” —www.joystory.blogspot.ca
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About Playing Naomi: “Erika Rummel’s meta-textual legerdemain, strange characters and
twisted plot make for a bracing read.” —Globe and Mail
I’m holed up here in the “Near North” — tourist speak for a place that’s unbearable
for nine months out of twelve. Right now, the cold is stinging my nostrils and bating
my breath. In the spring, the blackflies — but never mind the blackflies, I’ll be gone
by then. It’s all arranged. Vera will pick me up and take me across the lake. “Don’t
worry, Ellie,” she said. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
Vera’s car will be waiting at the marina. We’ll drive away, through blighted mining
towns, past houses with car wrecks in the driveway and old beer fridges on the porch,
speeding up as we reach the open highway, going past tar-papered shacks and wretched
diners. No time for regrets until we reach the airfield at Timmins and say good-bye.
It’ll be quick. They don’t ask a lot of questions in Timmins. It’s bush pilot country.
Vera said she’d pick me up, but I’m still here. Maybe she has changed her mind
and doesn’t want me to get away. Maybe she’s praying for a snowstorm to take out
the power lines, hoping I’ll freeze to death. I depend on baseboard heaters to keep
me warm. There’s a fieldstone fireplace as well, but it hasn’t been used “in donkeys’
years,” Vera said. The flue is plugged with soot. “Don’t try to light a fire, Ellie,” she
said. “You’ll die of carbon monoxide poisoning.”
It’s the middle of November, and I’m bored out of my mind. The ground is covered
with an inch of snow. The lake has a glassy-looking crust of ice. It’s no longer navigable.
No getting away by boat now. The cottagers have gone home. They’ve switched off the
power, drained the toilets, pulled up the dry docks, and put their boats into storage.
I’m cut off from the rest of the world unless I want to walk out to Logham, “home to
the world’s largest white-tailed deer herd” according to the tourist brochure. It would
mean slogging through the bush for thirty miles. Into the arms of the waiting cops.
No way. I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to run the risk. The bush in back of the cabin
is impenetrable, a tangled mess of underbrush, a cat’s cradle of rotten tree trunks and
bogs where the beavers have been at work. A short month ago it smelled musky, and
a gamy heat rose from the ground. Now the cold has dried up every scent. My hiking
boots, it turns out, aren’t really water-proof, and the rubber boots aren’t warm enough,
even if I wear two pairs of socks. So I don’t go outside much. I stay in the cabin and
think about this country, Canada, but nothing profound like: How did I end up here?
What is the essential national characteristic of Canadians? No, more like: why can’t
they come up with decent lyrics for their national anthem? The same words over and
over. We stand on guard for thee. We stand on guard for thee. We stand on guard for
thee. Just thinking about that bloody anthem makes me die of boredom.
“Playing Naomi is a wry comedy whose
self-knowing irony is reminiscent of the
corrosive but jovial cynicism of such comic
media satire as The Larry Sanders Show and The
Newsroom.”—University of Toronto Quarterly
Erika Rummel has taught history at University
of Toronto and Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo. She divides her time between Toronto
and Los Angeles and has lived in villages in
Argentina, Romania, and Bulgaria. The author
of more than a dozen books of non-fiction, she
has written extensively on social history. She is
also the author of two novels, Playing Naomi
(2009). and Head Games (2013). She was
awarded the Random House Creative Writing
Award, 2011, for an excerpt of The Effects of
Isolation on the Brain.
Mt. Pleasant becomes a place of sanctuary where the poet searches for the mystery of life in
the midst of death. Her elegiac poems open a door between the two worlds—a way to keep
alive the love once felt.
What I Tell My Cousin on the Telephone
Marilyn Potter is an award-winning poet and writer living
in Toronto. Her poems have appeared in both Canadian and
international literary journals and anthologies, been translated into Japanese, and carved into stone in Vancouver’s Van
Dusen Garden. Leave-Taking is her first poetry collection.
How is it
a robin, its feet freezing,
stays behind in our prairie winter
reaches for the hardness
that always out-of-reach-ness
of a dried mountain ash
as if the orange berries were
mere baby sugar pumpkins
warmed by an autumn sun.
Yet when he tries to hang
upside-down
another flock descends
cedar waxwings—acrobats
in black masks
and soft pale yellow underbellies
dipping
hovering
plucking before my eyes
swallowing whole
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his every berry. I want
to help. Once again, don’t know how.
The soundless echo of his fall.
9
10
INANNA POETRY AND FICTION SERIES
FALL 2016 FRONTLIST
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QUESTIONS FOR VIRGINIA
Virginia—
if you had not walked
into water
laden with stones
would your hips
have given out
like mine
would you have
looked into mirrors
loose skin
disappearing eyebrows
loping gait
yellow teeth some kind
of zombie apocalypse refugee
were you thinking:
best to skip this stage
the weight of those stones
unbearable
leaving Leonard
to face that reflection
all of us wondering
if only...
you shouldn’t have...
there was more, Virginia
much more
not all of it
weight bearing
some lightness
of being
still purpose
laughter
HEARING ECHOES
UKRAINIAN DAUGHTER’S DANCE
poems by RENEE NORMAN AND CARL LEGGO
poems by marion mutala
This collection of both narrative and lyrical poetry moves between two strong voices that
resonate with and against one another, a woman and a man, focusing on family relationships
in all their intersections and differences. The poems are about daughters, granddaughters,
sons, mothers, spouses, and deal with love, sorrow, joy, loss, redemption: the stuff of living.
Weaving through the collection are the words and spirit of Virginia Woolf, who has affected
and inspired both poets over the course of their writing, parenting, teaching, and being.
The rich and varied poems in Ukrainian Daughter’s Dance speak to the heart as they document a woman’s life journey, as a Ukrainian-Canadian, and as a prairie woman, and her
voyage of self-discovery. Her story can be anyone’s story. Poems explore issues of immigrant
identity and voice in the prairies, and celebrate a cultural heritage expressed through song,
dance, art, work and life.
The first section of the book focuses on family relationships in the context of daughters,
granddaughters, and sons. The second section delves into mothers, ageing, loss, and how the
passage of time affects us all. The third and fourth sections complicate our relationships by
dwelling with what it means to be human, with all the challenges that entails. The fifth and
final short section pays final homage to Virginia Woolf, whose words continue to inspire
and sustain the poets.
Marion Mutala has a master’s degree in education administration and taught for 30 years.
With a mad passion for the arts she loves to write, sing, folkdance, play guitar, garden, travel,
and read. She is the author of the bestselling and award-winning children’s book trilogy, Baba’s
Babushka: A Magical Ukrainian Christmas, Baba’s Babushka: A Magical Ukrainian Easter, and
Baba’s Babushka: A Magical Ukrainian Wedding. Her fourth book, Grateful, was published
in 2014 and another children’s book, Kohkom’s Babushka: A Magical Ukrainian/Aboriginal
Legend, is forthcoming in 2016. Ukrainian Daughter’s Dance is her debut poetry collection.
Renee Norman is an award-winning poet, writer, and retired educator. Her poetry
book, True Confessions, was awarded the Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book
Award for poetry in 2006. She is also the author of two other volumes of poetry,
Backhand Through the Mother (2007), and Martha in the Mirror (2010). She received
the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies Distinguished Dissertation Award
for House of Mirrors, published in 2001. Previously she worked as a classroom teacher, university professor, and school board consultant. She lives in Coquitlam, BC.
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Memories
Carl Leggo is a poet and professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia where he has been happily researching,
writing and teaching since 1990. His essays, poetry and fiction have been published
in journals across North America. His most recent book, a sequence of short fiction
and poetry, is Sailing in a Concrete Boat: A Teacher’s Journey (2012). His earlier poetry
collections include Come-By-Chance (2006); View From My Mother’s House (1999)
and Growing Up Perpendicular on the Side of a Hill (1994). He lives and works in
Vancouver, BC.
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11
Visiting the old farm house, a flashbackTubs of peas shelled during Matinees
Stealing eggs, making soft, squishy mud pies
Eaton’s cut-outs
Flying paper dolls, changing bed sheets
Picking rocks
Swinging water pails
Playing in the old grey caboose
Jumping in bales
Riding pigs
Waiting by the screen door exasperated, I take a chance
Running scared to the outhouse
Tormented by turkeys and chickens
Sleeping three to a bed
Feet hanging through a hole in the ceiling; listening
Thunderstorms, cracks of lightning
Hiding under bedcovers
Waking, eyes glued shut from pink eye
12
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INANNA POETRY AND FICTION SERIES
THE DEAD MAN
SHADE
a novel by nora gold
a novel by mia herrera
The Dead Man is a compelling novel about a woman who is obsessed. Eve, a composer of
sacred music and a music therapist — a sensible, intelligent professional — can’t recover
from a brief relationship she had five years ago with a world-famous music critic named
Jake. This obsession with Jake is a mystery to Eve’s friends, and also to her. In an attempt to
solve this mystery, she “returns to the scene of the crime”: Israel, where Jake still lives, and
where they first fell in love. There she revisits all their old haunts and struggles to complete
the song cycle she started composing five years ago about Jake but hasn’t been able to finish.
Gradually the dark mystery behind their complex relationship begins to unravel. This novel,
filled with music, dealing with themes of love, grief, early loss, and the power of art, will
resonate deeply with anyone who has ever loved and lost, and will continue to resound and
echo for a long time afterward.
After her plans for the future are disrupted by an unexpected breakup, Benni, born and
raised in northern Ontario, seeks escape from her everyday routine by visiting her father in
the Philippines – the fantastical land of ghosts and glamour that her parents described to
her as a child. In the Philippines, Benni discovers that the father she adores is an alcoholic
whose health is endangered by his alcoholism, and she is captivated by the luxurious lifestyle
of the wealthy members of her mother’s family. Canada, in comparison, is a bleak world of
work, work, and more work, and Benni cannot understand why her parents ever left. Over
two weeks, Benni finds much more than she bargained for: she discovers a world of poverty
that supports the rich and the social restrictions that even the rich experience; she learns to
value the honest, human relationships that come from seeking and reconnecting with family;
and she comes to understand the importance of the stories we tell ourselves to construct and
maintain our identity and that home is dictated by far more than location; it is rooted in
family – an even greater factor than nationality.
The Dead Man is a wonderfully affecting, memorable, and original tale. Nora Gold is a natural
storyteller, and her ability to make us understand the shimmering and complex landscape of love
has its haunting echoes in the Israeli landscape. This is an ingeniously and gorgeously crafted
story, radiantly musical in its rich textures. —jay neugeboren, author of Imagining
Robert and Max Baer and the Star of David
Nora Gold is a writer, activist, and the creator and editor of the prestigious online literary
journal, Jewish Fiction.net. Her first book, Marrow and Other Stories, won the Canadian
Jewish Book Award (1999) and was also shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Award (1999). Her
most recent novel, Fields of Exile (2014), was awarded the 2015 Canadian Jewish Literary
Award. She lives in Toronto.
ALL MY FALLEN ANGELAS
ASPECTS OF NATURE
short fiction by gianna patriarca
short fiction by rhoda rabinowitz green
All My Fallen Angelas is a collection of stories inspired by the lives of Italian-Canadian women
living in Toronto from the 1960s to the present. The stories document their strength and
resilience, their power and vulnerability as the women move in community that allowed
their presence in shops, factories, and churches, but offered them little else for entertainment
and self-exploration outside of their families.
Like the many surfaces of a gemstone, the varied aspects of human experience link the short
stories in this collection, titled Aspects of Nature. Themes of finding one’s identity; conflicts
of family, career and romance; loneliness, death, loss, and feelings of displacement; youth and
aging; courage and fear; human frailty; spirituality; compassion and manifestations of evil,
all are at the heart of this collection. Of the eleven stories, the one bearing the collection’s
name presents a satirical microcosm of our fragmented contemporary society, a candle-lit
dinner party of six disparate guests at a Canadian cottage on an isolated island in the middle
of a lake at the height of a Gothic storm. The remaining stories show aspects of nature in
their diverse guises: a brilliant concert pianist courageously asserts life over evil; in a satirical
affirmation of self, a middle-aged woman confronts a plastic surgeon urging a face lift; an
elderly woman, trapped in her role as a mother and grandmother, offers an amusing, account
of her inability to assert to her family what it is she desires; and a seventy-year-old woman
on her death bed makes plans for her next dinner party.
All My Fallen Angelas is symphony of female voices of all ages, weaving an intricate web of
stories around Canadian girls and women of Italian origin living in Toronto. The narrative I,
belonging to different characters, explores a memory a moment of revelation, a traumatic event.
Gianna Patriarca’s short stories are threads of a larger texture, probing, with subtlety and irony,
the nuances and the intricacies of the mind of women who bear in their very names their family
history. —Oriana Palusci, University of Naples, Orientale
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Mia Herrera’s short stories, feature articles, and reviews have appeared in various online and
print publications like C&G Monthly, Live in Limbo, Side Street Review, Hart House Review,
and tok: Writing the New Toronto, Book 7. She is a recipient of the Youth Scholarship Award
from the Tatamagouche Centre and Writers’ Trust Fund Scholarship. She graduated from
the University of Toronto with an Honours Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, Book and
Media Studies, and Cinema Studies in 2009, and in 2011, she obtained a Certificate in Creative Writing from Humber College. She lives in Bradford, Ontario. Shade is her debut novel.
Gianna Patriarca’s publications include seven books of poetry and one children’s book.
Her first collection, Italian Women and Other Tragedies, was runner-up to the Milton Acorn
People’s Poetry Award and in 2009 was translated into Italian and launched at the university
of Bologna and Naples. My Etruscan Face was shortlisted for the Bressani Literary Award in
2009. Her work is extensively anthologized in many Canadian, American and Italian publications, and is on university course lists in all three countries. She lives and works in Toronto.
Rhoda Rabinowitz Green is the author of two novels, Slowly I Turn and Moon Over Mandalay. Her short fiction has been published in magazines and journals across North America,
including The Fiddlehead, The Louisville Review, Dandelion, Fireweed, Parchment, Sistersong,
and Jewish Currents. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart prize and was a finalist in
the Canadian Writers Union Short Prose Competition. She lives in Toronto.
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fiction / may 2016
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fiction / may 2016
13
14
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INANNA POETRY AND FICTION SERIES
AFTER DROWNING
IN THE LAND OF TWO-LEGGED WOMEN
a novel by valerie mills-milde
a novel by huey hélene alcaro
After Drowning is set in a small fishing town on the shores of Lake Erie and concerns the
volatile fortunes of a fishing family. At one time, Lake Erie was the home of a thriving fishing
industry but the sad fortunes of the lake have limited the industry, forcing those who live
near it to adapt. A drowning, a tragedy witnessed by Penelope Beau and her four-year-old
daughter, Maddy, brings back memories of Pen’s childhood: the death of her father Rod
in a boating accident, which may or may not have been an accident, and the subsequent
disappearance of her brother Keaton who fled town after an act of arson. Also on the beach
on the day of the drowning is Tom Valentine, a member of the Bandido biker gang, who is
inexorably involved with a club-sanctioned bloody showdown. Now, abandoned and betrayed,
a solitary Tom must contemplate the true nature of his relationships. Pen and Tom’s lives
intersect, both outliers who must find a way to reconcile the various threads of their lives.
At the onset of puberty girls’ right legs are sawed off in Ramprend’s Beautification Ritual.
In this dystopian novel, female stumps are desirable to men. Solanj’l — ’l denoting one-leg
— hates her inability to move freely and makes a wooden leg to enable her to walk, or stepdrag, rather than be rolled in a chair or swing along on props. It is an extraordinary thing to
do because no artificial limbs exist in Ramprend. Her husband sees commercial possibilities
in his wife’s invention and begins producing Glom’s Glamor Legs.
Valerie Mills-Milde lives, works and writes in London, Ontario. Her short fiction has
appeared in Canadian literary journals across the country. When she is not writing, she is a
clinical social worker in private practice. After Drowning is her debut novel.
WHAT HAPPENED TO TOM?
a novella by peg tittle
Inspired by Judith Jarvis Thomson’s philosophical thought experiment “The Violinist,” What
Happened to Tom? is a psychological and philosophical thriller, a horror story that any one
of millions of people could, at any moment, experience. Tom, like many men, assumes that
since pregnancy is a natural part of being a woman, it’s no big deal: a woman finds herself
pregnant, she does or does not go through with it, end of story. But then Tom wakes up to
find his body’s been hijacked and turned into a human kidney dialysis machine. For nine
months. He has to stay connected to Simon for nine months or Simon will die.
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Tom finds he is powerless to take legal or medical action to deal with the situation. He
loses his girlfriend, his car, his apartment, and eventually his job as an architect. At the
end of the novel, he has lost almost everything he holds dear and his life is completely, and
irrevocably, derailed, and entwined with that of a violinist who no longer wants to work.
Considering this situation analogous to an unwanted pregnancy, this book draws out the
ethical dimension of a pro-choice position. What Happened to Tom? is ultimately a feminist
allegory about women’s reproductive rights.
Peg Tittle, feminist, writer, philosopher, is the author of What If…Collected Thought Experiments in Philosophy (2004) and Critical Thinking: An Appeal to Reason (2011). She is also
the editor of Should Parents be Licensed? Debating the Issues (2004). She is also the author of
six screenplays. What Happened to Tom? is her first novel. She lives in Sundridge, Ontario.
The ability to move more or less on two legs, no matter how uncomfortably, opens new ways
of thinking for the women. Solanj’l and Deba’l, wife of Hunak, Minister Second Only to
the First, therefore start Gatherings of women, ostensibly to discuss Pleasure Ways with the
wooden legs for the purpose of increasing husband happiness. Nevertheless, husbands are
not always paramount in their thoughts.
When items start disappearing in Ramprend and it is learned that women who live in the
mountains outside the city have two legs and operate independently, Solanj’l and some of
her friends are determined to put an end to the “Beautification,” no matter the cost.
Huey Helene Alcaro has worked on a farm,
taught adults in inner city Newark, New
Jersey, and taught and directed the Women’s
Center at Montclair State University, nj. Her
fiction has appeared in several North American
journals and was a finalist for the 2011 Glass
Woman Prize. She lives in Roseland, nj, and
blogs at hueyhelenealcaro.com. In the Land of
Two-Legged Women is her debut novel.
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Solanj had loathed the Beautification Ritual as far back as she could remember.
All girls feared it and cried before and after the leg was sawed off but they went
on, doing what was expected. Few tried to prevent it. Solanj did. She asked, begged
her mother, Luranj’l, and father, Hect, to not have it done to her. At first they
smiled and thought she was being a nervous little girl, then realized she was serious.
They kept a servant with her at all times, even when she slept, knowing she might
try to run away. Her woman’s blood came and the day was set for removal. She
only pretended to take the drug that was to make her senseless for the three days
prior to The Beautification. On that day she’d thrown it across her room and run
screaming out of the house and down the street. It was a golden and blue day, so
beautiful it hurt and they were going to saw off her leg. It took three servants to
catch and carry her back to her waiting parents, the parents deeply embarrassed
by her unseemly behavior. The drug was forced down her throat.
She said nothing after her leg was sawed off, flung into the bloodstained wooden
bucket and carried to the wagon that would transport it to the pits. She continued to say nothing as the weeks went by. She held Spirry and stared at people,
her mouth a straight, tight line, her eyes hard. Her mother tried to cajole, then
threatened with various restrictions. Solanj’l looked at her in a way that said there
was nothing anyone could do that was worse than what had been done.
Her father prided himself on his reserve and dignity but finally yelled, “What
is wrong with you? All females do this. It is natural. It is what the god wants.
It is what we all want. Why must you act as if something bad has been done to
you? Without Beautification you would never have a man. I do not know what
is wrong with you.”
Casanj’l, her older sister with flirty eyes and giggly little girl ways, told Solanj’l
she was being dumb. Every girl knew this was needed to get a husband. Casanj’l
lowered her lushly-lashed eyes, turned pink and moved her shoulders this way and
that, signaling sweet, docile, malleable for every man who came into the house.
Solanj’l did not wiggle and twinkle for the men. She merely flicked glances at
them with her rage-filled eyes. When no one could see, she cried. She put her head
against Spirry’s soft little body, rocked back and forth and sobbed. Spirry licked
her tears and whimpered.
15
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15 pgs colour artwork
poetry / april 2016
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poetry / april 2016
INANNA POETRY AND FICTION SERIES
RED WITH LIVING
THE LARGENESS OF RESCUE
poems and art by diane driedger
POEMS by eva tihanyi
In this compelling collection of poems and art, the colour of living is red with excitement,
pain, sunsets, blood, and tropical flowers. Along the way, the poet paints herself into the
works of Frida Kahlo, Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet and Maud Lewis. Diane Driedger
confronts the body in two different contexts: through her participation in the Trinidad and
Tobago Carnival and through her experience of undergoing breast cancer treatment and of
being chronically ill. This is poetry that celebrates the body in all its varied forms.
The big theme—perhaps the only theme— is the narrative that unfolds between the bookends
of our birth and our death. Each of us is born into a time and place—our present—and must
answer the questions only we can answer for ourselves: Who are we? What will we do? What
choices will we make? The Largeness of Rescue helps us along our own storyline by doing what
the best art does so well: engage us with ourselves and with our world and encourage us to
slow down and consider our very humanness.
A naturalized Trinidadian through marriage, Diane, with an acute eye, successfully explores in
poetry and art the contrasts between her Mennonite heritage in wintry Manitoba with the “letting
go” carnival culture of ​Trinidad’s opulent tropical landscape. Lines such as “mashing down the
place” and “Women would go mad without Carnival” are a foil to “standoffish Canadians” and
“my past a black statue dress/ unrumpled/ not even a swish.” A bi-cultural tribute to both cultures.
—Madeline Coopsammy, author of Prairie Journey
The Largeness of Rescue is a book of both restlessness and acceptance; both a longing for clarity
and a reconciliation. In this way, the poems form a moving whole, seeking resolution in the larger
embrace of art.—Anne Michaels, author of Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault
Diane Driedger’s artful poems and allusive paintings tumble us through a carnival of the rebellious
body. Red With Living invites a nervy reassessment of pain and pain’s intimate trespass upon
the suffering, joyous body.—Méira Cook, author of Monologue Dogs
Whether it’s a student crying in her office, or the slow demise of jazz genius Chet Baker, or the
poets, Byron, Keats, Shelley in Italy, Tihanyi’s soulful poems show an intimate understanding of
life — and often the great human cost of art. Tihanyi offers us poetry that whispers from one heart
to another.—Bruce Hunter, author of Two O’clock Creek – Poems New and Selected
[A] sensitive and probing new collection,. Tihany deals with big subjects: time, love, suffering,
and the way the world’s contortions and upheavals change us.—Quill and Quire
Diane Driedger is a poet, writer, visual artist and educator. Her poetry collection, The
Mennonite Madonna was published in 1999. She has also co-edited or edited four anthologies, including most recently, Living the Edges: A Disabled Women’s Reader (2010). She lives
in Manitoba and is Assistant Professor in Disability Studies at the University of Manitoba.
Eva Tihanyi teaches at Niagara College and divides her time between Port Dalhousie (St.
Catharines) and Toronto. The Largeness of Rescue is her eighth poetry volume. She has also
published a collection of short stories, Truth and Other Fictions.
LAND OF THE SKY
A BEDROOM OF SEARCHLIGHTS
poems by salimah valiani
poems by joanna m. weston
Inspired by the Rocky Mountains, Land of the Sky is a means of using detail from a distance to reflect on the socio-politcal and the human that is all around us. The poems in
this collection explore the land through the distance of the sky and understand that which
seems so grounded as a sky full of metaphor and near-unfathomable reflexes of history. The
volume covers themes that come together in a kind of harmony, in particular, the notion of
otherness from a variety of perspectives—being other at home, being other in your chosen
new home, being at home and considering others as other.
The poems in this collection explore the life of the poet’s mother who divorced in 1939,
at a time when a woman divorcing was still frowned upon by society. Without photos and
with few letters, the poet come to terms with the fact that her mother worked outside the
home until she had a nervous breakdown, but still painted, sketched, and took commissions.
This collection draws a picture of the artist and single mother who struggled with poverty,
war, and the realities of daily life, yet still found beauty and comfort in her garden, and her
art. The theme is heartfelt, always clearly seen, and honestly evoked.
Land of the Sky delivers poetry that is moving, transporting, and transcendent. A citizen of the
globe, Salimah Valiani has no time for the pedestrian and no room for the commonplace. She
recognizes that “things are similar and different simultaneously”: “What’s wrong with choosing
the strange?” In Land of the Sky, Valiani connects Canada, Tanzania, and Uganda; Ismaili,
Ishnashari, and Buddhist; Anishnabek Cree, Chinese, and Luganda; Chez Rodin and Plante
Bath; snow and savannah; astronomy that’s based on criminal justice forensics.
—George Elliott Clarke, Parliamentary (Canadian) Poet Laureate (2016-2018)
Salimah Valiani is a poet, an activist and a researcher. She is the author of two collections
of poetry – breathing for breadth (2005) and Letter Out: Letter In (2009). She is an Associate
Researcher with the Centre for the Study of Learning, Social Economy and Work at the
University of Toronto.
978-1-77133-297-2
$18.95 cdn
6" x 7.5" pb, 80 pages
poetry / april 2016
In this volume, intelligent control of syntax, and imagery that is consistently strong, detailed
and sensual evoke emotions that are strong and powerful, yet skirt sentimentality.
Joanna M. Weston is a full-time writer of poetry, short-stories, children’s books and reviews.
She has published over 2,000 poems in magazines, journals, and anthologies across North
America and internationally. Her publications include a popular middle-reader, Those
Blue Shoes, and a volume of poetry, A Summer Father. She lives in Shawnigan Lake, British
Columbia, with her partner, two cats, multiple spiders, a herd of deer, and two derelict
hen-houses. She spends most of her time writing poetry and weird short stories.
978-1-77133-305-4
$18.95 cdn
6" x 7.5" pb, 120 pages
poetry / may 2016
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18 INANNA MEMOIR SERIES
INANNA MEMOIR SERIES 19
ONE BEAD AT A TIME
a memoir by beverly little thunder
as told to sharron proulx-turner
One Bead at a Time is the oral memoir of Beverly Little Thunder, a two-spirit Lakota Elder
from Standing Rock, who has lived most of her life in service to Indigenous and non-Indigenous women in vast areas of both the United States and Canada. Transcribed and
edited by two-spirit Métis writer Sharron Proulx-Turner, Little Thunder’s narrative is told
verbatim, her melodious voice and keen sense of humour almost audible overtop of the text
on the page. Early in her story, Little Thunder recounts a dream from her early adulthood,
“I stared at these lily pads for the longest time and I decided that there was one part of the
pond that had lots of lily pads and no frogs. I said, ‘I want to go there because there’s lots
of lily pads but no frogs and I like creating community.’” And create community she does.
Little Thunder established the first and today, the only all-women’s Sundance in the world,
securing a land base in the Green Mountains of Vermont for future generations of Indigenous
women’s ceremony. She was active in the a.i.m. movement and she continues to practice
and promote political and spiritual awareness for Indigenous women around the world. A
truly remarkable visionary.
978-1-77133-269-9 / $22.95 cdn / 6” x 9” pb / 148 pages / memoir / september 2015
Laundry Lines: A Memoir in Stories and Poems is about the imperative to tell our stories for
our survival, the complex emotional inheritance and painful undertow in families, the slow
reconciliation with the blows and beauties meted out by life that comes with age, and the
deep sensual salve offered by surrender to nature.
Ann Elizabeth Carson’s new collection is as crisp as linens drying in the Manitoulin sunshine. A
born storyteller Ann takes us on an extraordinary jaunt into history and poetry. She paints her
experiences with an exquisite memory of places in Ontario from her youth to the present. Ann’s
writing is wise, compassionate and lyrical. Always in her work there is an enviable clarity and
immeasurable strength.—Gianna Patriarca, poet and storyteller
Poet, writer, sculptor, and feminist, Ann Elizabeth Carson is the author of several volumes
of poetry and prose, including Shadows Light (2005), My Grandmother’s Hair (2006), and
The Risks of Remembrance (2010).
FIRST GEAR: A MOTORCYCLE MEMOIR by lorrie jorgensen
978-1-77133-246-0 / $22.95 cdn / 6” x 9” pb / 256 pages / memoir / september 2015
978-1-77133-265-1
$22.95 cdn
6" x 9" pb, 250 pages
memoir / may 2016
Beverly Little Thunder, Lakota Elder and women’s activist, is a member of the Standing
Rock Lakota Band from North Dakota. When she was forced to leave her Spiritual community because she was a lesbian, Beverly founded the Women’s Sundance over 20 years ago to
continue teaching the traditions and ceremonies of her
heritage. She currently works with women and children
I went to my grandmother’s every summer. That’s a good way for a kid
from her Vermont home by teaching leadership skills
to grow up, I think. Those were some of the happiest memories of my life
– being there at my grandmother’s. I remember going to church school,
through the Lakota Sundance ceremony.
bible school. There was a time I came home from Sunday school, got off
the bus and I was walking up the quarter mile to the house, in tears. I
Though from the Ottawa River valley, Sharron Prouwalked up the steps and my grandmother asked what was wrong. I said
lx-Turner lives in Calgary and is a member of the
that the minister said I was going to burn in hell. She says, “Well, why?”
Métis Nation of Alberta. She’s a two-spirit nokomis,
And I said, “Because he says if I’m not good, if I don’t do what my mother
mom, writer and community worker. Her previously
tells me, then I’m going to die and burn in hell.” I didn’t know what it was
published memoir, Where the Rivers Join: A Personal
to die yet because my brother hadn’t passed, so I must have been about
Account of Healing from Ritual Abuse (1995), written
three-and-a half, almost four. I didn’t know what hell was either. I just
under the pseudonym Beckylane, was a finalist for
knew it was a place you went to burn.
the Edna Staebler award, and her second book, what
the auntys say (2002), was a finalist for the League
My grandmother says, “No, that’s not true.” She says, “No, no, no,
of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Prize. Her 2008
heaven and hell, that’s for White people. Only White people go to heaven
and hell.” So I thought about it for a minute and I thought, “Oh, well,
poetry book, she is reading her blanket with her hands,
where do we go?” “If you’re not good,” she says, “If you don’t do what your
was shortlisted for the Governor General Award.
mother tells you, when a Lakota person dies they come back in the next
life as Navaho.” I didn’t know what a Navaho was then, but it must have
been bad. I really tried to be good because I didn’t want to be a Navaho.
And then, years and years later – my grandmother was about ninety-four
– she really didn’t recognize us. I was cutting vegetables and had all my
silver bracelets on, my turquoise, like the Navaho women wear. She says,
“Lila, chicha,” – it means, you’re so bad. I said, “What did I do, grandma?”
She says, “You can’t even wait until you’ve died. You’re already practicing
to be a Navaho.” I started laughing because I thought, she remembered
that from that long back. Who knows, maybe I have to come back as a
Navaho. I haven’t been that good.
LAUNDRY LINES stories and poems by ann elizabeth carson
First Gear: A Motorcycle Memoir is a compelling story of childhood physical, emotional and
sexual abuse that unrolls as the author, at age 50 and living with Multiple Sclerosis, rides her
2009 Harley-Davidson — named Thelma D. — from Ottawa to Winnipeg and back with a
stop off in northern Ontario and a detour into Quebec. During her ride through the stunning
landscape of the Canadian Shield, she shares stories of her childhood growing up in the 1970s
in the Ottawa Valley with her three brothers, a violent father and an alcoholic mother. Told
with a frank openness and humour, First Gear is a story of courage, survival, and recovery.
A gritty and courageous story of one woman’s journey to make peace with her past. Powerfully
written. A compelling read.—Helen humphreys, author of The Evening Chorus
A tradeswoman, teacher and artist for over 30 years, Lorrie Jorgensen loves working with
her hands and creating art with found objects. First Gear: A Motorcyle Memoir is her first
published book.
into the mystic: my years with olga, by susan mccaslin
978-1-77133-188-3 / $24.95 / cdn / 6” x 9” pb / 224 pages / MEMOIR / nov. 2014
Into the Mystic is a memoir that focuses on the author’s spiritual mentor, Olga Park, who
self-published books of her thoughts on spirituality grounded in and moving out from the
Christian tradition with which she was most familiar. Although this is McCaslin’s spiritual
memoir, Olga Park and her ideas, are the main interest. The book synthesizes memoir, spiritual
autobiography, biography, personal narrative, and poetry in an innovative way.
You won’t be the same after reading this book. Into the Mystic: My Years with Olga flows with
a subtle, near-miraculous spiritual sweetness. This is a vibrant, light-filled portrait, a document
of transformation, an eloquent guidebook.—russell thornton, author of Governor
General’s Award for Poetry nominated Birds, Metals, Stones & Rain
Promotional Plans
• Toronto, Calgary and Vermont launches
• Promotional bookmarks
• Review copy mailing
• Ads in trade and literary magazines
Susan McCaslin is an award-winning Canadian poet. She is the author of eleven volumes
of poetry, including The Disarmed Heart (2014) and Demeter Goes Skydiving (2012), winner
of the Alberta Book Publishing Award in 2012.
RECENT POETRY AND FICTION 21
20 INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.
AMITY a novel by nasreen pejvack
BETWEEN THE CRACKS SHE FELL a novel by lisa de nikolits
978-1-77133-237-8 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 304 pages / fiction / october 2015
978-1-77133-225-5 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 312 pages / fiction / august 2015
shortlisted for the 2016 ethel wilson fiction bc book prize
Amity provides a window to the lives of various people who are dealing with the devastation
of war and conflict, here specifically within the contexts of Yugoslavia’s dissolution and Iran’s
revolution. Payvand, an Iranian refugee and activist, and Ragusa, a Yugoslavian refugee,
form an incredibly strong bond as Payvand listens to Ragusa’s story and Ragusa decides to
stay alive long enough to hear Payvand’s story.
When Joss is forced to sell her house at a loss, she decides to camp out in a vacant complex
of school buildings to give herself time to decide what to do next. It turns out the building
is used by a gang of teenagers for wild, drug-fueled parties and Joss soon finds herself both
repelled by their charismatic evil leader, as well as sexually attracted to him. She knows he
is dangerous even before she finds his girlfriend’s dead and violently abused body in the
school library.
A beautifully written and heart-wrenching novel, this is an important book, a timely book that
needs to be read and, read now. It speaks powerfully to the devastating anguish of families ripped
apart by war and conflict, of loved ones tortured and killed.
—Lisa de Nikolits, author Beneath the Cracks She Fell
Lisa de Nikolits’ highly believable and human characters are outsiders struggling to find meaning,
and perhaps hope, in contemporary urban society. With a deft and confident clarity of style, she
explores the complex interplay of faith, crime and social isolation. Highly recommended.
—M. H. Callway, award-winning author of Windigo Fire
NasreenPejvackwasborninTehran,Iran,wherepre-revolutionsheworkedasawriterandpoetforan
activist publication. She currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Amity is her debut novel.
Lisa de Nikolits is the award-winning author of four previous awanovels: The Hungry Mirror
(2010); West of Wawa (2011); A Glittering Chaos (2013); and The Witchdoctor’s Bones (2014).
CALLS ACROSS THE PACIFIC a novel by zoë s. roy
HERE COMES THE DREAMER a novella carole giangrande
978-1-77133-229-3 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 270 pages / fiction / october 2015
978-1-77133-250-7 / $19.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 136 pages / fiction / august 2015
Amid the Cultural Revolution, Nina Huang says goodbye to her boyfriend, Dahai, who
plans to join the Vietcong in the Vietnam War, and sneaks across the bay by boat to Hong
Kong where she is granted political asylum in the United States. Twice she travels back to
China to to reunite with her mother as well as friends, and to see how Chinese society and
politics are evolving. In doing so, however, Nina puts herself in dangerous situations and
finds herself needing to flee from the red terror once again.
Alastair’s an artist, a quiet man who paints houses for a living, drinks too much, and worries
about his suffering child, Grace. Just before the accident that kills his daughter’s best friend
Todd, he offers a ride to their teenage neighbour, Claire Bernard. She continues the story as a
witness to tragedy, a wry observer of suburban mores and a compassionate friend of Alastair,
whose talent and politics she’d long admired. In Toronto, it’s Alastair’s exiled daughter Grace
who speaks, giving voice to her fury, an artist who works to “burn” the city down with brilliant
colour, who resents Claire for hurting her dad, and who still grieves the loss of young Todd.
Zoë Roy’s experience of this endlessly fascinating era, combined with a talent for detailed, humorous
and sometimes heartbreaking storytelling, makes for a fine novel which delights and informs in
equal measure.—Amanda Hale, author of In the Embrace of the Alligator
Zoë S. Roy lives and works in Toronto as an adult educator. She is the author of an acclaimed
collection of short stories, Butterfly Tears (2009) and a novel, The Long March Home (2011).
Combining rich lyrical language, inspired narration, and sensitive psychological insight, this is
fiction of the most darkly illuminating, deeply touching kind.
—Allan Briesmaster, author of Against the Flight of Spring and Confluences
Carole Giangrande’s novella Midsummer was published by Inanna in 2014. A previous
novella, A Gardener On The Moon, won the 2010 Ken Klonsky Novella Contest.
THE HOMES WE BUILD ON ASHES a novel by christina park
A HERO a novel by charlotte r. mendel
978-1-77133-233-0 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 264 pages / fiction / september 2015
978-1-77133-193-7 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 286 pages / fiction / may 2015
Set against an historical backdrop when Korea was a colony and citizenry was rendered impotent, Nara’s life is forged in the 1919 March First Movement. Her journey takes her from
her ancestral home to an insidious orphanage to a forced-labour factory during the Japanese
Occupation. After surviving the grand tragedy of the Busan Fire, Nara leaves the squalid
tent city that had become her home and is thrown headlong into a new life in Vancouver,
Canada. Amidst violence and abject injustice, Nara finds a way to rise up from the ashes
again and again to rejoice in small triumphs in the homes she has lived,.
The state war raging outside the home of the Al-Fakhoury extended family, who live in a
border town buffeted by the turmoil of the Arab Spring, entwines with the familial conflict
raging within. The patriarch of the family, Mohammed, is an aggressive, dominant man who
bullies his wife and four children and wages paranoiac diatribes against his sister and her
family. When Ahmed is involved in a terrible incident during a demonstration, he wakes up
in an underground cavern, surrounded by groaning, dying men stretched out on blankets
on the floor, and is stunned by what he discovers there.
Christina Park’s poignant depiction of women’s ability to survive war and oppression, and their
capacity to keep the family going through hardships and dramatic changes in life, will live with
you long after you put the book down.—Zoë S. Roy, author of The Long March Home
With an ear for dialogue and a deep-seated understanding about the dynamics of a Middle Eastern family, Charlotte Mendel charts the challenging and heartfelt path of a family living during
revolutionary times. A Hero is a poignant story of survival through a conflict that is raging not
only at state level, but between family members as well.—Donna Morrissey
Christina Park’s writing is informed by her personal experiences as a second-generation
Korean, as well as having lived in Vancouver and Montreal. The Homes We Build on Ashes
is her debut novel. She lives in Montreal.
Charlotte Mendel’s first novel, Turn Us Again, won the H.R. Percy Novel Prize, the Beacon
Award for Social Justice, and the Atlantic Book Award for First Novel.
RECENT POETRY AND FICTION 23
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DANCING IN RED SHOES WILL KILL YOU
BEAR WAR-DEN a novel by vivian demuth
a novel by donna decker
978-1-77133-205-7 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 224 pages / fiction / april 2015
978-1-77133-201-9 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 360 pages / fiction / may 2015
Through the braided narratives of three spirited characters, this novel bears witness to the
infamous crime that metastasized uber-civilized Montreal, the “Montreal Massacre,” when
on December 6, 1989, fourteen female engineering students were murdered in their classrooms. The novel focuses on the lives of Deirdre, a first-year female engineering student at
Aquitaine, who takes a Women’s Studies course as an elective; Marin, a student at Cantech
who ponders what it means to be a female engineering student in such a chilly gendered
climate; and Jenean, a francophone female journalist who longs for peace between the sexes
even as she ponders splitting from her live-in partner. Set in that tragic historic moment, on
two college campuses fraught with gendered antagonisms, this novel follows the imagined
lives of these women as they happen headlong into the December 6 tragedy — a story disarmingly accurate that explores the profundity of deepest love and unimaginable loss and
the enduring effects of the massacre’s 24 minutes of inarticulate inhumanity.
This book is also a strong condemnation of society’s negative attitudes towards women’s emancipation. I am grateful that Donna Decker, with this book, has made me aware that in modern
times, in a civilized country, women were killed just because they were women.
—Slavenka Drakulic, author of Holograms of Fear
Donna Decker is a writer and an English professor at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge,
New Hampshire, whose teaching includes a seminar on school shootings. In 2010, she was
one of 25 professors selected from among 150 applicants to be a Ms. Magazine Feminist
Scholar based on her project about the 1989 Montreal Massacre. She lives in Ashburnham,
Massachusetts.
MOMENTS OF JOY a novel by cecelia frey
978-1-77133-197-5 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 304 pages / fiction / may 2015
Manfred Weiszl lies dying of cancer in an upper room of a grand old Toronto house. His
last wish is to see his son, Rupert, from whom he has been estranged for sixteen years, and
much of the action derives from attempts to get Rupert’s cooperation. Manfred’s sister
Pauline, the housekeeper Marie (and Marie’s boyfriend Steve), as well as Manfred’s dead
wife, Gertrude are central to Manfred’s life and each have their role to play in the unfolding
drama of a family in crisis dealing with issues of death, marriage breakup, gender identity,
and generally just trying to find ways to live. The novel explores how these characters interact
with each other and play off each other, and how an intervening fate operates in their lives
as they discover that through (or in spite of ) the incredible antics of mankind, life can be
salvaged, can be joyful and magical.
I was hooked from the first sentence and couldn’t put this book down. Once again Frey has
established a pitch perfect familial concert of insightful humor, deep caring, alternated with
ambiguous frustration, anger as well as misunderstanding or outright lack of concern — all the
emotions that connect families and their foibles in a deeply touching and nuanced style. Cecilia
Frey is to Canadian literature what John Updike represents to American literature, a voice that
harkens clearly to the multi-generational and multi-media interfaces of contemporary families.
Moments of Joy is a book to be read and reread.
—Elona Malterre, author of The Last Wolf of Ireland
Cecelia Frey is an award-winning author of thirteen books of fiction and poetry as well as
works of non-fiction and plays. She lives in Calgary, Alberta.
While an out-of-control fire rages through the national park, a woman park warden, with two
grizzly bear skulls in hand, begins a difficult and dream-like journey to the park boundary
— where wild animals can seem like ghosts and trauma can strike as suddenly as lightning.
Told in an experimental style that mixes realism and magical realism, and interrupted by
photographs and by the voice of a bear, Bear War-den explores themes of personal and ecological loss, trauma, and of women and non-human animals dealing with oppression within
a male-dominated, and often paramilitary-like Parks Management system.
An important and far-reaching addition to the vital genre of eco-fiction, Vivian Demuth’s Bear
War-den fuses lyricism, romance, mystery and human interest in a novel that simultaneously
critiques the slyly coded racist and sexist attitudes encountered by its female park warden protagonist.—Patricia Keeney, author of First Woman and You Bring Me Wings
Vivian Demuth is the author of a previous ecological novel, Eyes of the Forest (2007), and a
poetry book, Fire Watcher (2013). She lives in Hinton, Alberta.
THE GIRL WHO WAS BORN THAT WAY a novel by gail benick
978-1-77133-213-2 / $19.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 128 pages / fiction / april 2015
The Girl Who Was Born That Way is the story of the Berk family, not exactly an ordinary
Jewish family, trying to bury its Holocaust past while starting over in post-war usa. The novel
centers on the dynamics between the family’s four daughters, the two oldest girls who grew
up in the Lodz Ghetto and the two youngest who came of age in an idyllic American suburb.
The novel considers the life of immigrants living in the diaspora, the miracle of their survival
and their helplessness when faced with the disabling condition of their third daughter.
This finely-crafted novella encompasses universal themes. Familial love and loss transcend all
boundaries of history and culture; Benick has brought these themes home through her beautiful
portrayal of Linda Sue and her siblings. —Marianne Apostolides, author of The
Lucky Child and Voluptuous Pleasure: The Truth About the Writing Life
Gail Benick is an author and a retired professor (Sheridan College). Her fiction has been
published in Jewish Fiction.net and Parchment. She lives in Toronto.
ONLY BY BLOOD a novel by renate krakauer
978-1-77133-209-5 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 320 pages / fiction / april 2015
Only by Blood is a novel of the search for roots, mother-daughter love, and family reconciliation. The novel weaves together the story of Mania a devout, Polish Christian doctor
and her mother Krystyna. Krystyna has always refused to tell Mania about their family or
the time they spent together when Mania was small during the war, but her final words are,
“Find them … make it right.” Mania wants to fulfill her mother’s last wishes, but has little
idea of where to start. Never does she suspect that her search will take her across Poland,
back in time and over the ocean.
Krakauer’s novel is at once a lyrical testament to the power of love and an exciting page-turner,
as full of twists and turns as any true-crime novel.
—Susan Glickman, poet and author of The Violin Lover and The Tale Teller
Renate Krakauer’s has published award-winning short fiction in a number of literary journals; a memoir But I Had a Happy Childhood; and two plays. Only by Blood is her first novel.
Renate lives in Toronto with her husband.
24 INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.
RECENT POETRY AND FICTION
THE SNOW KIMONO poems by ilona martonfi
OVER OUR HEADS a novel by andrea thompson
978-1-77133-257-6 / $18.95 cdn / 6” x 7.5” pb / 128 pages / poetry / october 2015
978-1-77133-130-2 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 272 pages / fiction / october 2014
The Snow Kimono invites the reader into a magical world where reality shimmers with the
fragile beauty of the moment and the dark, haunting awareness of a painful past that lingers
just out of sight. Compassionate and disturbing, witness poems elaborate on history, exile,
the war refugee, the dispossessed, and the disappeared. Other, more personal poems concern
themselves with love, identity, place, and with loss — especially in the series keening for a
mentally ill daughter.
Over Our Heads is a novel that weaves together the histories of two very different
half-sisters who return home to deal with the aftermath of their grandmother’s death.
Emma, a punk band singer and poet turned pet psychic, and Rachel, an actuary
with an interest in astronomy, both carry the remnants of childhoods overshadowed
by issues of bullying, abandonment, alienation and fear. In the raw terrain of profound loss, the two sisters struggle through the stages of grief — each in her own way.
In The Snow Kimono, Ilona Martonfi deftly paints a series of succinct tableaux which present
women’s distress with as much subtlety as restraint. Here, poetry meets life.
—Louise Dupré, author of Plus haut que les flames
The poignant yet sprightly story of a family troubled by abandonment, accident, addiction, adoption, and death. Thompson writes with a poet’s careful eye and a novelist’s open heart.
—george elliott clarke, Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15)
Ilona Martonfi is a Montreal poet, editor, and creative writing teacher. She is the author of
two poetry books, Blue Poppy (2009) and Black Grass (2012), and two chapbooks, Visiting
the Ridge (2004) and Charivari (2013.)
Andrea Thompson is one of the most well known poets in the Canadian spoken word scene
and has performed her poetry at venues across North America and overseas for the past twenty
years. Her debut poetry collection, Eating the Seed was published in 2000. Thompson is also
the co-editor of the anthology Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out (Inanna, 2010).
TERRA INCOGNITA poems by adebe derango-adem
978-1-77133-217-0 / $18.95 cdn / 6” x 7.5” pb / 80 pages / poetry / may 2015
finalist 2016 pat lowther award for poetry
Titled after the Latin term for “unknown land,”Terra Incognita is a collection of poems
that creatively explores various racial discourses and interracial crossings both buried in the
grand narratives of history and the everyday experiences of being mixed-race. Poems ask how
the discourse of multiculturalism speaks to the particular history of interracial figures—a
history that has remained largely silenced, and a people who have continued to experience
inequity on various fronts.
There is a true poet at work here, and there is a rare fineness of feeling on display in these poems.
A delightful gathering by an exciting new voice. —Lorna Goodison
Adebe DeRango-Adem is the author of the poetry collection Ex Nihilo (2010), longlisted
for the Dylan Thomas Prize in Literature, and editor, with Andrea Thompson, of Other
Tongues: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out (2010). Her home base is in Toronto.
DANCING ON A PIN poems by katerina vaughan fretwell
WOULD I LIE TO YOU? a novel by mary lou dickinson
978-1-77133-164-7 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 328 pages / fiction / october 2014
After ten years of marriage, Sue and Jerry each harboura significant secret. When Jerry
becomes ill and it’s apparent he’s dying, Sue visits a psychic, Hans, who tells her there is
someone like a son in her life. She dismisses this, but at Jerry’s funeral his son turns up—a
son Sue didn’t know existed. At first Sue feels betrayed by Jerry, but gradually she accepts
her own complicity. And she regrets never telling him, or anyone else, about the baby girl
she gave up for adoption when she herself was only sixteen.
A compelling story of loss and redemption. With a sure hand and a keen eye, Dickinson deftly probes
the secrets of the human heart.—andrew j. borkowski, author of Copernicus Avenue
Mary Lou Dickinson’s is the author of a book of short stories, One Day It Happens (2007)
and a novel, Ile d’Or (2010). She lives in Toronto.
THE SAVIOUR SHOES AND OTHER STORIES
short fiction by carol lipszyc
978-1-77133-172-2 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 198 pages / fiction / october 2014
978-1-77133-221-7 / $18.95 cdn / 6” x 7.5” pb / 104 pages / poetry / april 2015
Honest, stark, brave, and at times a humorous evoking of feelings and ideas, this collection
of evocative poems is focused on the poet’s husband’s illness and eventual death, her close
sharing of this process, and the frustration of dealing with modern medical treatment that
is controlled by the pharmaceutical industry.
This collection presents an arc of historical experience of Jewish child and teen life during
the Shoah. Across Central and Eastern Europe, the young and hunted in these stories hide
in forests; survive in ghettoes and camps; assume new identities under the protection of
Righteous Among the Nations. The stories in this collection depict children as creative,
resilient, aged-before their time, as they adapt to their unconscionable reality.
Katerina refuses to distance cancer. She lives with Jack through it. There is the intensity of Emily
Dickinson here, the physicality of Ted Hughes, the radiance of Kathleen Raine, the transcendent
mourning of Phyllis Nakonechny, and now, I must add to this list: the full presence of Katerina
Fretwell.—Harold Rhenisch, author of The Spoken Word
Carol Lipszyc’s stories are both moving and historically accurate. Her documentary style provides
a sense of what life was like for young persons not only during the catastrophe, but in the months
before and after. Readers should not expect stereotypical Shoah-tales. Complexities abound.
—kenneth sherman, author of What the Furies Bring
Award-winning poet and professional artist, Katerina Vaughan Fretwell’s poetry and art
reside across Canada and in Denmark, Japan, and across the United States. She lives just
south of Parry Sound, Ontario.
Carol Lipszyc’s book of poetry, Singing Me Home, was published by Inanna Publications in
2010. Carol is currently an Associate Professor at State University of New York, Plattsburgh,
teaching English teacher education and writing arts.
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26 INANNA POETRY AND FICTION SERIES
RECENT POETRY AND FICTION
CONFESSIONS A BOOK OF TALES by loren edizel
EVIE, THE BABY AND THE WIFE a novel by phyllis rudin
978-1-77133-176-0 / $19.95 cdn / 5.5” x 8.25” pb / 120 pages / october 2014
978-1-77133-134-0 / $22.95 cdn / 5.5” x 8.25” pb / 224 pages / august 2014
The nine tales in this collection, all told in the first person, are each spun around a wellkept secret, willingly or inadvertently confessed. Sometimes the secrets are at the core of
the narrator’s life, other times they appear tangential. Regardless of the magnitude of its
burden, the confession finds its way to the reader, through a story told perhaps over a cup of
tea, in the pages of a journal or within the intimacy of the narrator’s mind. These stories are
confessions of intimate events or desires: marital infidelities, betrayal of friendship, crimes
including murderous thoughts and actual acts of murder.
Evie Troy, an impulsive and funny young Jewish woman, has a tendency to overcomplicate
things. And that can get her into trouble. When her dying friend Jean-Gabriel, a successful
francophone writer, cons her into carrying out his last wish, Evie decides she knows better.
A whacky plot unfolds in which Jean-Gabriel dies and Evie inherits the job of giving his
former wife, Amelie, his fortune without her knowing the source of the money. Evie decides
what Amelie really needs is a baby, something she and Jean-Gabriel were unable to have, a
plan she keeps so secret not even Amélie has an inkling a baby is headed her way.
Loren Edizel’s writing hums with rich undertones of history, of vanished worlds that live once
again through her voice. Alive with a sense of time and place, these poignant tales open our hearts
to the painful truth of what it is to be human.
—carole giangrande, author of Midsummer and A Gardener on the Moon
With heart and humour, Phyllis Rudin reminds us of how those we love both surprise as well as
disappoint us, and that injustice can inspire sacrifice.
—renee norman, author of True Confessions and Martha in the Mirror
Loren Edizel is the author of two novels, The Ghosts of Smyrna, translated and published
in Canada in 2013, and Adrift, longlisted for the ReLit Awards in 2012. She currently lives
in Toronto.
Phyllis Rudin’s award-winning short stories have appeared in numerous Canadian and
American literary magazines. She lives in Montreal, which serves as the landscape for all
her fiction.
STONY POINT a novel by s. noël mckay
MIDSUMMER a novella by carole giangrande
978-1-77133-168-5 / $22.95 cdn / 5.5” x 8.25” pb / 298 pages / august 2014
978-1-77133-138-8 / $19.95 cdn / 5.5” x 8.25” pb / 104 pages / april 2014
The year is 1903, just weeks after the Frank, Alberta, landslide disaster. Lucille Reilly, a
newspaper reporter from Winnipeg, has come to neighbouring Stony Point in search of her
brother-in-law. Stanley, also a reporter, had been investigating the plight of local coal miners
and was last seen with a union organizer the evening they both disappeared. Stony Point is
a frontier town ablaze with conflict and collusion. Lucille must battle official indifference
to her brother-in-law’s disappearance, and her support of the miners’ attempts to organize
is a potent source of friction.
All her life Joy has been haunted by a man she’s never met — her visionary grandfather,
the artist Lorenzo. Yet nonno’s story also led to the death of Joy’s cousin Leonora, her Aunt
Elena’s only child. It was a tragedy that might have been prevented by Joy’s father, Eddie, a
man who’s been bruised by life and who seldom speaks to his sister. Wealthy Aunt Elena and
Uncle Carlo are coming to New York City to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary and
they’ve invited the family to dine at the sky-high tower restaurant above the tunnel where
nonno Lorenzo saw a vision long ago. Elena and Eddie will face each other at last.
Lucille Reilly is an inspiration as well as a reminder of the strength of women in recognizing and
struggling to overcome injustice.—mary lou dickinson, author of Would I Lie to You?
Midsummer is emotionally focused and charged with the power of archetype, its undercurrent of
passion perfectly controlled.—eva tihanyi, author of Truth and Other Fictions
S. Noël McKay currently lives in Edmonton, Alberta, with her cat, Cletus. Both enjoy
snowboarding. Stony Point is her debut novel.
Carole Giangrande’s novella, A Gardener On The Moon, was co-winner of the 2010 Ken
Klonsky Novella Contest. She’s also the author of two novels, An Ordinary Star (2004) and
A Forest Burning (2000) and a short story collection, Missing Persons (1994).
MOTION SICKNESS flash fiction by ursula pflug,
lustrations by s. k. dyment
il-
THE WITCHDOCTOR’S BONES a novel by lisa de nikolits
978-1-77133-142-5 / $24.95 cdn / 9” x 9.5” pb / 122 pages / 55 pgs artwork / aug. 2014
978-1-77133-126-5 / $22.95 cdn / 5.5” x 8.25” pb / 388 pages / april 2014
finalist 2015 relit awards
A group of tourists gather in Namibia. Some have come to holiday, others to murder. A
ragged bunch, each member of the group faces their own challenges as third-world Africa pits
against first-world greed, murderous intent and thwarted desire. The battle between goaded
vanity and frustrated appetite culminates in a surprising conclusion with shocking twists. .
Motion Sickness is a flash novel consisting of 55 chapters of exactly 500 words each and
accompanied by a wood-cut like, scratchboard illustration that follows one young woman’s
humorous and poignant misadventures in the worlds of employment, friendship, dating,
birth control and abortion.
Ursula Pflug’s voice is unique, funny and tough, and the dialogue is so exact it can be heard.
SK Dyment’s dark and whimsical illustrations play with and enhance the tersely visual prose.
—heather spears, author, artist, winner of Governor-General’s Award for Poetry
Ursula Pflug is author of the critically acclaimed slipstream novel Green Music, short story
collections After the Fires and Harvesting The Moon, and the novel, The Alphabet Stones.
You’re drawn in. Illicit love, rejected love, misfired love, machinations of all sorts. Embark on a
journey that seethes with peril.—doug o’neill, Canadian Living Magazine
Lisa de Nikolits is the award-winning author of novels The Hungry Mirror (2010), West of
Wawa (2011), A Glittering Chaos, was published by Inanna in (2013), and most recently,
Beneath the Cracks She Fell (2015). She lives in Toronto.
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28 INANNA POETRY AND FICTION SERIES
978-1-77133-180-7
$18.95 cdn
6" x 7.5" pb, 88 pages
poetry / november 2014
THE HUNGRY GRASS
UNDERSTORIES
poems by a. mary murphy
poems by elizabeth greene
This book tells a story that nobody knows because at the time the story happened, nobody
cared. The individual lives of the labouring Irish were unrecorded, irrelevant. The Hungry
Grass weaves the threads of daily routine, annual cycles, religious faith, fairy belief, communal
practice, and political reality to show as clear a picture as possible of the very complex life
among tenant families in the nineteenth-century. The poet begins with the little she knows
of her Murphy ancestors: the names and birthdates of the six who survived to emigrate, and
the name of the parish where they lived.
Understories is an exploration of things visible mostly to the inner eye and memory, things
below the surface. The book began as a riff on Mark Strand’s brilliant title, “Planet of the
Lost Things,” and it is an exploration of loss, but also of recovery through memory and
language. The first part, “A Perfect Afternoon” follows an unfulfilled romance through
significant moments and years to elegy for what never was and for the loved one himself.
The second section, “Functional Families,” considers the theme of family, especially mothers, and moves through varying visions of family to a sort of resolution though the poet’s
mothering of her own son. The third section, “Going the Distance for Poetry,” focuses on
poetry and art, some of the connections that make the poetic quest possible, literary, artistic
and natural. The final section, “Lost Cities,” looks at New York, Toronto, Florence, ancient
Rome, through the lens of history and memory, alternating sorrow for loss with belief in
the power of poetry to preserve.
This volume is one continuous poem that unfolds over the course of fifteen years. It never
falters in evoking its theme, or in being focused and concise, with impeccable word choices,
and unfailing, echoing rhythm. When employed, the rhyming is subtle and musical. The
shape of thought, which is a consistent seven-syllable line with occasional variation of one
or two syllables, is masterful in its execution of sound and sense. This is poetry that will
show anyone who doubts it the continuing and necessary love of this craft, this art.
Murphy’s book-length poem, sweeps the reader along in an evocative flow of deftly crafted images.
Deeply rooted in mysticism, faith, land and language, the book gives voice to one young Irish
family’s unstinting devotion and struggle to survive against a backdrop of forces beyond its control.
—Mary Lou Soutar-Hynes, author of Dark Water Songs and Travelling Light
A. Mary Murphy’s first a collection of poetry, Shattered Fanatics, was published in 2007.
978-1-77133-184-5
$18.95 cdn
6” x 7.5” pb, 114 pages
poetry / november 2014
RECENT POETRY AND FICTION
A layered, compelling collection that maps genealogies and tenuous, emerging flocks of selves. At
once lyric and storied, Greene’s poems celebrate discovering community and living a poetic life
with the cards we are dealt. Thank goodness Greene has, in her fine poetry, dared to disturb the
universe. —jeanette lynes, author of Archive of the Undressed
Elizabeth Greene has published two previous collections of poetry, The Iron Shoes (2007) and
Moving (2010). She edited and contributed to We Who Can Fly: Poems, Essays and Memories
in Honour of Adele Wiseman (1997), which won the Betty and Morris Aaron Prize for Best
Scholarship on a Canadian Subject, 1998. She lives in Kingston with her son and three cats.
PASSING STRANGER
JOURNEY
poems by pam galloway
poems by LILLY BARNES
Passing Stranger is a memoir in verse of one woman’s life. Poems weave through a marriage,
a desire for motherhood, considerations of fertility and infertility, an eventual divorce and
a woman finding herself in late middle age, ready to experience life to the full. Its themes
will speak to all women who have experienced the joys and the tribulations of motherhood
in all its complexities. The interweaving of its story of divorce after many years of marriage
reflects a new reality for many women of middle and past middle-age. Nothing in life, as we
know, is certain. We make plans, head into directions that go awry, our destinations shift and
we find ourselves in the company of people who, but for being family, might be strangers.
This book of poetry brings you the journey of a life lived in turbulent times. Its many stories
are distilled from personal experience, honed and deepened into the shape and rhythm of
poetry. The arc of this life begins with the child who has no fear of bombs — war being the
only way of life she has known — but is afraid that she might reveal a dangerous secret. The
journey continues through years of dislocations, when the struggle to keep afloat is all —
when the quest is survival of a recognizable self. And sooner or later in anyone’s life there’s
a choice which has to be made: to attain and then sink into comfort, or to continue the
journey, seeking freedom from the strands trailing out of the dark distant past, binding and
confining, seeking what joy there is in life, on the path of becoming an Elder.
Direct language, striking imagery and beautifully rendered metaphors take us inside a woman’s
experiences with infertility, motherhood and marriage breakdown. This book pulls no punches
when it comes to diving into grief but Galloway does not leave us stranded there — equally
powerful are celebratory poems. —sandy shreve
Pam Galloway lives, works and writes in Vancouver and has an mfa in Creative Writing
from the University of British Columbia. poetry and non-fiction have been featured on cbc
radio and her poetry has been published in numerous Canadian literary magazines including
The Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, Contemporary Verse 2, Grain, Descant, Dandelion,
Event, The New Orphic Review, Room of One’s Own and twice on the website of the Canadian
Parliamentary Poet Laureate. Her first book of poetry Parallel Lines was published in 2006.
978-1-77133-150-0
$18.95 cdn
6" x 7.5" pb, 128 pages
poetry / april 2014
In Lilly Barnes’ Journey, the poet’s mantra becomes a mantra for living — a call to experience
and marvel at the world through our senses, to listen attentively to the ‘dancing tree’ and the
‘talkative bird,’ to ‘[cull] the countryside for stars’ and in so doing, to fulfill our hearts ‘moaning
to expand.’—carol lipszyc, author of Singing Me Home
Lilly Barnes is the author of A Hero Travels Light, a book of interrelated short stories published in 1986 and of the novel Mara, published by in 2010. Lilly Barnes was married to
the late Canadian composer Milton Barnes and has two sons, Micah and Daniel. She lives
in downtown Toronto, in an old house full of stories and music.
978-1-77133-146-3
$18.95 cdn
6” x 7.5” pb, 96 pages
poetry / april 2014
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arresting hope:
women taking action in prison health inside out
ruth elwood martin, mo korchinski, lynn fels and carl leggo
This book tells a story about women in a provincial prison in Canada, about
how creative leadership fostered opportunities for transformation and hope, and
about how engaging in research and writing contributed to healing. The book
includes poetry, stories, letters, interviews, fragments of conversations, reflections,
memories, quotations, journal entries, creative nonfiction, and scholarly research.
Arresting Hope is focused on five women—a doctor, a warden, a recreation therapist, an educator, and an inmate—and their stories of grief, desire, and hope.
Arresting Hope provides a window into what is possible when committed, passionate
women are supported to do what is right and refuse to accept the bounds of institutional
and bureaucratic restrictions. —kim pate, Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
978-1-77133-158-6
$24.95 cdn
6" x 9" pb, 252 pages
non-fiction / sept. 2014
Ruth Elwood Martin is a Clinical Professor of the Department of Family Practice, and an Associate Faculty of the School of Population and Public Health, at
ubc. Mo Korchinski started her Bachelors in 2012 and volunteers as a community-based researcher with Women in2Healing. Lynn Fels is an associate professor
in Arts Education at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. Carl Leggo is a
poet and professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at ubc
a gut reaction: a true story about a mother’s fight to save
her son’s life and his amazing recovery from crohn’s disease
by sky curtis
Gut Reaction is an entertaining as well as informative true story about the author’s battle to
save her son’s life—or at least his large intestine—from a very severe case of Crohn’s disease.
With persistence, humour, much searching of the Internet and the help of two unusual
doctors, one in Canada and the other in Australia, she and her son, who was in his early
twenties, finally find a regime of fecal infusions that replaces the bacteria that had ulcerated
his gut with a healthy flora donated by his mother. The manuscript details their adventures
and then concludes with a helpful summary of how they did it. It includes a foreword by
Dr. Thomas Borody, a globally recognized gastroenterologist and the Director of the Centre
for Digestive Diseases in Australia, whose emails and phone conversations helped the author
understand what, how, and why to do what was necessary. Sky Curtis’s sometimes desperate, often hilarious, and always determined international quest for a treatment for her son’s
life-threatening Crohn’s disease resulted in a new protocol for the treatment of this disease.
Her perseverance with this with this type of therapy for intestinal diseases means that sufferers
of Crohn’s/Colitis now have hope that they can be completely well.
Sky Curtis is a former magazine writer, educational software designer, editor, playwright,
columnist and children’s writer. She now writes fiction and non-fiction books for adults. Her
most recent book, Doctored: A True Story, was published by Inanna Publications in 2010.
Sky lives in Toronto with her family.
WILD WOMEN: PAINTERS OF THE WILDERNESS
“and neither have i wings to fly”:
joyce burkholder, kathy haycock, and linda sorensen
labelled and locked up in canada’s oldest institution
Wild Women is a celebration of the wilderness as seen through the eyes of three women artists.
The book presents reproductions of each artist’s paintings, and photos of the artists at work
in the landscape and in their studios. It includes short biographies of each artist, followed
by a section of conversations that illuminate and compare their individual approaches and
techniques. Wild Women: Painters of the Wilderness is a beautiful art book that is also a strong
statement by women about recording, sharing and preserving the Canadian wilderness.
An art book that goes far beyond art — the personal story of three remarkable painters whose
lives are intertwined with the natural world. Their stunning portrayals of Ontario’s magnificent
wilderness areas become an eloquent — and timely — plea for landscape preservation.
—janet foster, nature photographer and film maker
978-1-77133-154-8
$34.95 cdn
10" x 10" pb, 132 pages
art / october 2014
RECENT NON-FICTION 31
Wild Women is an extraordinary collection of brilliant work that captures a uniquely Canadian
wilderness. Burkholder, Haycock and Sorensen are talented artists, original and dedicated. One
could spend many an enchanted hour turning the pages of this beautiful book. Wild Women may
well become a collector’s edition. Bravo on this publication!
—sandra gulland, international best-selling author of the Josephine B. Trilogy
Joyce Burkholder paints outdoors (en plein air) in all seasons and in her studio located
near Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada. Kathy M. Haycock has lived in the Ottawa Valley’s
Algonquin Region, near Lake Clear and the village of Eganville, since 1973. Linda Sorensen
has lived close to nature in the Ottawa Valley for some 40 years where she was part of the
back-to-the-land movement.
978-1-771330-80-0
$22.95 cdn
5.5" x 8.25" pb, 150 pages
non-fiction / june 2013
by thelma wheatley
winner 2014 ippy bronze medal for non-fiction
The shocking true story of the institutionalization and abuse of children and adults with
intellectual and physical handicaps in Canada’s oldest provincial institution in Orillia, Ontario.
Daisy Lumsden and her family were such victims, along with over ten thousand children,
including infants, and adults with intellectual disabilities committed over the last century to
the institution now known as Huronia Regional Centre, formerly the Asylum for Idiots and
Feeble-Minded. The time frame of the book, 1900-1966, covers the most controversial decades
in its history, a time of over-crowding and abuses that reached a crux in the 1950s and 1960s
when the inmate population was nearly 3000. Powerful exposé of a part of Canadian history
kept secret — the book exposes the role of psychiatrists and leading eugenicists in Canada
in the abuse of intellectual and physically handicapped children’s civil rights in Canada. A
true story, it is highly readable and includes full historical data, endnotes, historical sources,
photographs, and a bibliography.
A powerful new book.… Critical and compassionate, “And Neither Have I Wings to Fly” is an
unprecedented insider’s view of an isolated world and a critique of our responsibility for creating
it.—Canadian History Magazine
A work of great passion and determination.—Quill and Quire
Thelma Wheatley is the author of My Sad Is All Gone: A Family’s Triumph Over Violent Autism
(2004), a book about raising her autistic child.
978-1-926708-58-4
$24.95 cdn
6" x 9" pb, 424 pages
14 pages of photos
non-fiction
april 2013
32
INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.
POETRY AND FICTION SERIES BACKLIST
portrait in black and gold a novel by carol damioli
autumn’s grace a novel by bonnie lendrum
978-1-77133-064-0 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 368 pages / fiction / nov. 2013
978-1-926708-88-1 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 408 pages / fiction / june 2013
One Italian Renaissance painter created stunning portraits of warmth and sensitivity, caught
Michelangelo’s favourable attention, served the most powerful monarch of the time, and
achieved international renown. But that artist fell into obscurity for one reason – she was
a woman. Sofonisba Anguissola’s abilities as a painter, evident while still in her mid-teens,
combined with her father’s promotional efforts, made her well known in her native northern
Italy. That fame led to a position as a lady-in-waiting to the young wife of King Philip ii of
Spain. Portrait in Black and Gold takes the reader through the triumphs and tragedies that
Anguissola witnessed at Philip’s dazzling but troubled court.
Autumns’ Grace is a story that spans a ten-month period as the Campbell family comes to
terms with the father’s diagnosis of cancer. The adult children (two nurses, veterinarian, and
teacher) confront a health care system they thought they knew, and familial relationships that
they had avoided for decades. Generational pulls and career conflicts challenge the siblings
as they support their parents, conduct their own family and professional lives, and are forced
to face critical situations and the decisions that they must make. They muddle through with
varying doses of tenacity, courage, humour and hope.
Carol Damioli’s first novel, Rogue Angel, a historical novel about the Florentine Renaissance
painter Fra Filippo Lippi, was published in 1994.
the hedge a novel by anne mcpherson
978-1-77133-092-3 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 386 pages / fiction / nov. 2013
The Hedge, set in early New England, is the story of an intelligent young governor’s wife who
is repressed by the severe attitudes of the Puritans, to the point where she withdraws from
society, and is considered to have lost her mind. Anne Yale Hopkins comes to Hartford,
Connecticut in 1638, delighted to have escaped the household of her stepfather Theophilus
Eaton, a rigorous Puritan, by marrying Edward, who becomes governor of Hartford. She
is a voracious reader, and has written several books. Her first enthusiastic impressions of
the community gradually change as she comes up against the rigidity and judgmentalism
of some of the Puritans. Edward’s friends advise taking away her books and paper, because
they say her brain is overloaded, and that is why she is behaving so oddly. She is devastated,
hides her journal and keeps writing. Finally, during her pregnancy, a crucial buried memory
is uncovered, and the process of facing a new reality begins.
Anne McPherson is the author of two previous books, Walking to the Saints: A Little Pilgrimage in France (2000), and Ways of the Wilderness: A Personal Journey through Religion and
Literature (2003). She lives in Fonthill, Ontario.
the wondrous woo a novel by carrianne k. y. leung
A novel that gives the reader a close-up and at times blindingly honest view of a family’s end-oflife journey. A valuable resource for one of the most difficult times in our lives.
—janet napper, Past Executive Director, Hospice Association of Ontario
Bonnie Lendrum is a wife, mother, nurse, gardener, volunteer, and ballet student living in
Carlisle, Ontario. Her writing is informed by the experiences that worry her, like palliative
care and its delivery in rural communities. Autumn’s Grace is her first work of fiction.
the long white sickness a novel by cecelia frey
978-1-926708-90-4 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 192 pages / fiction / june 2013
On a remote lonely mountain, Constance (frustrated poet) skis toward her death and Harry
Weinstein (brilliant author) loses himself in an avalanche. Meanwhile, back in the city, Gully Jillson (the ex-husband who won the GG) is the suspect in the investigation of a murder
that has taken place in Constance’s high-rise condo. The collision of this strange ménage a
trois is at the heart of Cecelia Frey’s latest novel of love and death, sex and life.
This fast-moving, original novel is full of surprises and good laughs, while at the same time tackling serious issues about relationships, especially, mother-daughter dynamics, and the way we all
revise the past to suit ourselves. It’s an engrossing read, as well as beautifully-written.
—sharon butala
Cecelia Frey’s last novel, A Raw Mix of Carelessness and Longing, was shortlisted for the 2009
Writers Guild of Alberta Fiction Award and she is a three-time recipient of the wga Short
Fiction Award. She is the author of several novels, collections of short fiction, and poetry.
978-1-77133-068-8 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 232 pages / fiction / nov. 2013
shortlisted for the 2014 toronto book award
Miramar Woo, the eldest of the three Woo children, is ever the obedient sister and daughter
... on the outside. On the inside, she’s a kick-ass kung fu heroine with rock star flash, sassy
attitude, and an insatiable appetite for adventure. Miramar watches helplessly as her family
unravels in the aftermath of her father’s death. As her siblings are swept up into the fantastic
world of fame and her mother fights off madness, Miramar is left behind, with no idea who
she really is or who she wants to become. The Wondrous Woo articulates a new voice that is still
squarely located in the centre of western and Chinese pop culture and everyday diasporic life.
Leung deftly blends magic, kung fu, and heartbreak in this endearing and unusual coming of age
tale. I cringed and giggled and cried as I followed Miramar Woo in her struggle to grow up in the
‘burbs, deal with her family, and find her own extraordinary gifts.
—farzana doctor, author of Stealing Nasreen and Six Metres of Pavement.
Carrianne Leung is a fiction writer, educator and business owner who lives in Toronto. She
is co-editor, with Lynn Caldwell and Darryl Leroux, of Critical Inquiries: A Reader in Studies
of Canada (2013).
a glittering chaos a novel by lisa de nikolits
978-1-926708-92-8 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 344 pages / fiction / april 2013
winner 2014 ippy silver medal for fiction
Melusine is a German librarian whose ho-hum world wobbles after she tags along when her
husband Hans attends a Las Vegas optometry conference. A newly empty nester who speaks
no English, Melusine’s voyage of self-discovery is punctuated by the poetry of Ingeborg
Bachmann, nude photos in the desert, a black dildo named Kurt, autoerotic asphyxia, and
the unravelling of her husband’s sanity because of a secret from his youth. A smart, funny
and incredibly wise novel about marriage, secrets and lies, and unusual sexual proclivities.
Wonderful, dark, witty and wild. A completely riveting read that will engage the mind, body and
spirit.—lisa young, author of When The Earth
Lisa de Nikolits’s r first novel, The Hungry Mirror, won the 2011 ippy Gold Medal for
fiction, and her second novel, West of Wawa, won the 2012 ippy Silver Medal for Fiction.
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INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.
978-1-77133-052-7
$18.95 cdn
6" x 7.5" pb, 136 pages
poetry / nov. 2013
i write these words/j’écris ces mots
engagement calendar poems by mary aird rutherford
poems by lélia young trans. by christine tipper
978-1-77133-076-3 / $18.95 cdn / 6” x 7.5” pb / 110 pages / poetry / september 2013
I write these words / J’écris ces mots is a fascinating and elegant volume of poetry that
examines the world of a woman born in Tunisia but living in Toronto, and women’s
universal struggle to find their place in the world. Poems explore the roles woman play
in diverse societies and cultures and draw the reader in with gentle, probing verses that
beguile with their beauty, but challenge with their meaning. Sometimes the reader travels in the present, sometimes in the past, into the world of a woman and poet who is
pulled in many directions. The volume features a selection of French poetry, translated
into English, from the poet’s earlier collections in French, as well as new poetry written
in English (and translated, by the poet, into French). Included are a préface by Andrée
Lacelle, a foreword / avant-propos by Mireille Desjarlais-Heynneman, and a postface
by Didier Leclair.
The poems in this collection are a voyage of self-discovery. They are poems of disclosure, of exposure,
of allowing one’s self to be vulnerable, of telling truths. Engagement Calendar documents a personal
journey through many decades; it is a book about the territory of family life, and it speaks to the
many experiences that make up an individual’s life with rich insights, humour and the occasional
cynicism that comes from having seen so much.
Lélia Young’s poetry is a meditation, a prayer of sorts, not about the sacred world, but about
the need to cogitate about the real, everyday world. …Lélia Young whispers more than screams
her tears, fears, wishes during these moments of intimacy. Hers is the fragility of the poem.
—antonio d’alfonso
In these intense and shining elegies Mary Rutherford explores love, friendship, aging and nature
with a birder’s searching eye and a rebel’s savage heart. —molly peacock
Mary Aird Rutherford’s poetry was shortlisted in the cbc Literary Awards competition in
2005 and has been published in several Canadian journals. Engagement Calendar is her first
published collection of poetry.
REBEL WOMEN poems by vancy kasper
978-1-926708-96-6 / $18.95 cdn / 6” x 7.5” pb / 112 pages / poetry / april 2013
Lélia Young is an Associate Professor in the Department of French Studies, York University, in Toronto. She is the author of several poetry books in French, including: Entre
l’outil et la matière (1993); Si loin des cypress (1999); Aquarelles, La paix comme un
poème (2006); and Réverbères (2007). I write these words/ j’écris ces mots is her first
bilingual volume of selected poetry.
class acts
poems by katerina vaughan fretwell
Class Acts, Katerina Fretwell’s seventh poetry (and art) collection, establishes a posthumous
relationship with Mary Wollstonecraft, the first suffragette, whose works have carved
a path for feminists for hundreds of years. Fretwell is well versed in the circumstances
of Wollstonecraft’s life: her husband, acquaintances, social circle and key events. It is
on these that she bases many of the dialogues and monologues, along with her own
life story, courageously referring to elements of her own life, some of which are highly
personal. This knowledge and reflection are assets to the collection, combining the layers
the author brings to the work with a call to the reader for an awareness of her own role
within the poetry.
978-1-77133-072-5
$18.95 cdn
6” x 7.5” pb, 138 pages
poetry / sept. 2013
POETRY AND FICTION SERIES BACKLIST
This dazzling poetic trilogy unites the personal and political through its highly charged, metaphor-making power. Absorb these poems and be lifted through language to the place where
anger tips over into wisdom, outrage at injustice into justice-making.
—susan mccaslin, poet and author of Demeter Goes Skydiving
Katerina (Vaughan) Fretwell, poet, artist, journalist, reviewer, and former registered
social worker, is in the League of Poet’s Feminist Caucus, Canada pen, and the Writers
Union of Canada. Her poems have been published in numerous North American journals
and anthologies. Her sixth volume of poetry, Angelic Scintillations, a dialogue with her
ancestor, the 17th century Welsh mystic poet, Henry Vaughan, was published by Inanna
in 2011. She lives near Parry Sound, Ontario, with her calico cat.
shortlisted 2014 raymond souster award
Rebel Women begins by moving in and out of women’s kitchens, parlours, meetings, and
wagon-rides on the eve and throughout Toronto’s 1837 Rebellion. The poems let the reader
eavesdrop on the loves, fears, hatreds, and courage of these feisty pioneers as they are engulfed
by an uprising some did or did not support. The poems are based on the stories, gossip,
and rumours that Kasper’s grandmother, Statira Catherine Shepard—the granddaughter of
Joseph Shepard, a prominent leader of the Reform Party (after whom Sheppard Avenue is
named) and the youngest daughter of Rebel Joseph (jailed for insurrection with his three
brothers)— shared with the poet when she was growing up. This collection honours these
daring women, what happened to them, and how they took charge of their lives.
Rich, ripe, resonant, Kasper’s poems showcase a poet in her mature and creative prime.
—katerina vaughan fretwell
Vancy Kasper is a Toronto poet, author and journalist. Her work includes her first poetry
collection, Mother, I’m So Glad You Taught Me How to Dance.
dark water songs poems by mary lou soutar-hynes
978-1-926708-94-2 / $18.95 cdn / 6” x 7.5” pb / 102 pages / poetry / april 2013
The poems in Dark Water Songs begin on the margins of islands and ancestors, and fan out,
probing love, loss and life’s dilemmas. They expand and deepen the poetic exploration which
began with her earlier collections, mining the reciprocal spaces enabled by the hyphen between
Jamaican and Canadian, exploring silences, the weight of memory, and a sense of the sacred.
Dark Water Songs is a startlingly good new collection.
—rachel manley, author of Drumblair, Memories of a Jamaican Childhood, Slipstream
Mary Lou Soutar-Hynes, is a Jamaican-Canadian, poet/educator and former nun. Her
literary publications include the collections: Travelling Light (2006), long-listed for the 2007
ReLit Poetry Award, and The Fires of Naming (2001).
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INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.
POETRY AND FICTION SERIES BACKLIST
incidental music
barbara klein-muskrat, then and now
a novel by lydia perović
short stories by sharon abron drache
978-1-926708-81-2 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 268 pages / fiction / november 2012
978-1-926708-85-0 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 192 pages / fiction / october 2012
shortlisted for the 2013 lambda literay awards
The interrelated stories of this pseudo-memoir introduce readers to Barbara Klein Muskrat,
a successful author of fiction and freelance book reviewer. Spanning some thirty years in
her personal and professional life, Barbara irreverently acquaints readers with her challenges
related to her schizophrenic literary career, divided between writing fiction and reviewing it.
The result is an outrageous satirical romp that calls to mind Philip Roth and Dorothy Parker.
Barabra Klein Muskrat is endowed with a zany, exaggerated theatricality and yet remains
a unique summation of her own idiosyncrasies, which include fierce loyalty to family and
friends, and a relentlessly frustrating gullibility.
Incidental Music visits the troubled and fascinating period of the Hungarian Revolution,
within its larger context of the Communist post-war years in Eastern Europe, explores
Toronto’s heritage and urban development, takes a sober outsider view of Canadian society and politics, and last, but not least, revels in the beauty of the opera—all through
the tumultuous and passionate love affairs of its main characters. The lives of the three
protagonists overlap, but there is never any unison. Petra, Martha and Romola are
like the three operatic voices—soprano, mezzo and alto—that sometimes pair up
their melodic lines but never sing in complete accord.
A heady mix of politics, opera and tempestuous love. This is a powerful debut novel—urban,
smart and sexy.—eva tihanyi, author of Flying Under Water: Poems New and Selected
Lydia Perović has written for many Canadian, uk and u.s. media since 2001, including
The Awl, n + 1, openDemocracy, Opera Canada, Xtra! and Toronto Standard.
Drache’s writing is crisp and wry and chuckle-generating throughout, and its use of detail makes
both Jewish-Canadian and literary culture entertaining and absolutely real.
—carol giangrande
Sharon Abron Drache has published three other books of adult fiction: The Mikveh Man
(1984), Ritual Slaughter (1989), and The Golden Ghetto (1993). She lives and writes in Toronto.
beauty beneath the banyan a novel by crystal fletcher
mirrored in the caves a novel by barbara d. janusz
978-1-926708-83-6 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 336 pages / fiction / november 2012
978-1-926708-62-1 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 254 pages / fiction / june 2012
Three women, three countries, three stories—the destinies of a Thai in prison for murdering
her husband, a Cambodian longing for a child, and a Laotian Hmong refugee are threaded
together by the tears leftover from the Vietnam War. Each of the women have been marked
in some way by the atrocities of Pol Pot’s Cambodia, the Secret War in Laos, and the effects
of these wars, as well as the Vietnam War on Thailand, where many displaced people from
Laos and Cambodia found refuge, and where American soldiers sought refuge of another
kind, ultimately leading to the development of Thailand’s sex tourism industry.
When Elizabeth Thiessen embarks on an expedition to study the cave murals of Baja California, Mexico, she is catapulted onto a mythical, existential journey into the unknown.
Within days of landing in the Baja, Elizabeth discovers that her daughter, Patricia—posted
in Afghanistan with the Canadian armed forces—is taken hostage by the Taliban. Elizabeth
struggles with her decision to remain on assignment, her extreme anxiety over her daughter’s
kidnapping, and the recollections it prompts of her conflicted relationship with her father,
a Holocaust survivor.
Crystal Fletcher is passionate about three things—books, Asia and human rights. She has
travelled extensively and lived for a time in Indonesia and China. Currently, she lives in
Barrie, Ontario.
Barbara D. Janusz is a mother, an environmentalist, a lawyer, poet and an educator. Her
poetry, short stories, editorials, and essays have been published in a number of journals,
newspapers and anthologies across Canada. She lives in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta.
in the name of love a novel by sam mukherjee
priya’s world a novel by tara nanayakkara
978-1-926708-79-9 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 240 pages / fiction / november 2012
978-1-926708-64-5 / $22.95 cdn / 5” x 8.25” pb / 318 pages / fiction / july 2012
On the flight to Canada, Rimana Sen, a young Indian woman, meets Jug Ducati, a young
Canadian. By the time their flight arrives in Toronto, they are well on their way to falling in
love. At the airport, Rimana is whisked away by a couple of shady men, so when Jug does
not hear from her, he enlists the support of his two best friends, and begins to search for
her. They are stunned to discover that Rimana has been sold to a Middle Eastern buyer and
are introduced to the sinister underworld of international human trafficking and sexual
slavery. Along the way we learn the back-stories of two of the leaders of human trafficking
rings who have themselves been shaped by violence and human trafficking.
At twenty-five, kindergarten teacher Priya must accept the loss of her parents in a plane
crash. Her grief plunges her into an eating disorder. While her friends recognize that she is
crying out for help, Priya denies it all as she strives to make peace with Renita, her father’s
sister—a woman who appears chronically depressed. Unbeknownst to Priya, Renita harbours
a disturbing family secret. Priya must find the strength to overcome the ravages of anorexia
and the tyranny of food disorders, as well as the poisonous role that family secrets can play
on more than one generation.
Sam Mukherjee is a speechwriter for a Senator and a Senior Writer at Globalom Media
in Toronto. His first novel, Chopped Green Chillies in Vanilla Ice Cream was published in
2011. He lives in Toronto.
Tara Nanayakkara was born in Sri Lanka and immigrated to Canada with her family when
she was three. She is the author of two novels, To Wish Upon A Rainbow (1989) and Picture
Perfect (2007). She divides her time between Toronto and St. John’s, Newfoundland.
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INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.
POETRY AND FICTION SERIES BACKLIST
flying under water: poems new and selected
blind in one eye a novel by mary kay ross
by eva tihanyi
978-1-926708-25-6 / $22.95 cdn / 5.5" x 8.25" pb / 226 pages / fiction / november 2011
978-1-926708-73-7 / $18.95 cdn / 6” x 7.5” pb / 240 pages / poetry / september 2012
Claire, at midlife, finds herself bereft; she is aging and she has never really been sufficiently engaged in her
own life. A perhaps largely-unconscious part of her has wisely chosen to put her out of her comfort zone
by accepting a teaching position in San Jose, Mexico, where she falls in love with a Mexican man, Lolo.
Gradually, through her Mexican lover and his family and friends, she is drawn toward a deeper understanding
of the country and the surreal quality of Mexican life awakens her to a new sense of passion and possibility.
Anne Michaels calls Eva Tihanyi’s poetry “moving and powerful.” Susan Musgrave calls
it “very accomplished, beautifully crafted.” Now, almost 30 years after her first book was
published in 1983 comes Tihanyi’s latest collection, Flying Under Water: Poems New and
Selected, which brings together the best of her previous six volumes plus a group of new poems.
Eva Tihanyi was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1956 and came to Canada when she was
six. She teaches at Niagara College in Welland, Ontario, and has lived in the Niagara Peninsula since 1989, currently in St. Catharines. She is the author of seven books of poetry
and a collection of short stories, Truth and Other Fictions (Inanna 2009). Flying Under
Water: Poems New and Selected is her eighth book. See her website <www.evatihanyi.com>.
book of changes poems by madeline sonik
This book is a wonderful antidote to the commercializaiton of travel to Mexico, and provides a refreshing a vivid
picture of the people, the country and the culture.— patricia watson, author of My Husband’s Wedding
the long march home a novel by zoë s. roy
978-1-926708-27-0 / $22.95 cdn / 5.5" x 8.25" pb / 278 pages / fiction / november 2011
American-born Meihua travels to China in search of the father she never met and winds up marrying a
Chinese man, but the Cultural Revolution tears their lives apart. With both parents imprisoned, it falls to
the family’s illiterate servant, Yao, to shield their daughter, Yezi, and her brother, from family tragedy, poverty
and political discrimination, negotiating their survival during the revolution that she barely understands.
978-1-926708-68-3 / $18.95 cdn / 6” x 7.5” pb / 106 pages / poetry / april 2012
In spanning three generations … Roy achieves a balance between the larger difficulties of the family’s situation
and the smaller delights of their day-to-day activities.—asian review of books
In her second volume of poetry, Madeline Sonik creates poetry through the contemplation
and inspiration of the abstruse symbols encountered in the ancient oracular Chinese text,
the I Ching (The Book of Changes).
road to thunder hill a novel by connie barnes rose
Here are spare, taut poems with “whirlpool edges” that take readers on a journey through an
intricate and intimate poetic expanse. These poems rooted in the experiences of childhood, motherhood, and relationships attest to Sonik’s range and keen eye. —fiona lam
Madeline Sonik is an eclectic, award-winning writer and anthologist whose fiction, poetry
and creative non-fiction have appeared in literary journals internationally. Her collection of
personal essays, Afflictions & Departures, was shortlisted for the 2012 Charles Taylor Prize
for Non-Fiction. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
978-1-926708-28-7 / $22.95 cdn / 5.5" x 8.25" pb / 260 pages / fiction / november 2011
Trish suddenly finds herself faced with an ailing marriage, a teenaged daughter who would prefer to live
with her alcoholic grandmother than at home, and an annoying half-sister, Olive, who seems bent on
destroying the last shreds of Trish’s sense of self. When a freak April snowstorm hits Thunder Hill and the
power goes out, Trish finds herself in a compromising situation with her hippie friend, Bear James, who
also happens to be her husband’s closest friend.
In her clear-eyed prose, Barnes Rose has written an edgy domestic drama whose appeal is universal.
—neil smith, author of Bang Crunch
grace shiver poems by cathy stonehouse
a tilt poems by farideh de bosset
978-1-926708-66-9 / $18.95 cdn / 6” x 7.5” pb / 84 pages / poetry / april 2012
Each poem in this debut collection records the events of a woman’s everyday life, as well
as the poet’s experiences of talking to, and healing with, patients, and friends and family,
as well as the impact of literature and art, the countries she’s lived in and visited, and, of
course, her dreams and her understanding of those dreams on her work, her creation of
art, and her life.
A compelling first book. A voice of poet with lyrical impulse.
—rosemary sullivan, author of The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Out
Farideh de Bosset is not only a “new Canadian” poet, she is an enticing voice of insight and
inspiration.—ken mitchell, author of Wandering Rafferty and The Con Man
Farideh de Bosset was born in Tehran, Iran, where poetry is part of everyday life and conversation. Her poetry has been published in a number of literary journals across Canada.
978-1-926708-23-2 / $18.95 cdn / 6" x 7.5" pb / 112 pages / poetry / november 2011
Grace Shiver is a multivocal meditation on violence, trauma, loss and renewal, exploring through many
stances, the place of the mother. The poet uses the vantage point of motherhood in a variety of forms to
examine a series of themes: loss, violence and renewal.
Cathy Stonehouse’s range and wrestle with the intractable interdependence of narrative and death is stunning.
—betsy warland, author of Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing
first woman poems by patricia keeney
978-1-926708-26-3 / $18.95 cdn / 6" x 7.5" pb / 134 pages / poetry / november 2011
Award-winning Canadian writer Patricia Keeney’s latest collection of poetry continues her personal journeys inward and across the world. Lyric and political, the volume ranges from sexual love to family, from
writing to confrontations with power and profound meditations on life and culture.
Patricia Keeney writes with great beauty and quickness, and she goes after large dreams and wounds. She is what
we need, what we seek for both fire and solace.—bruce powe, author of Outage: A Journey into Electric City
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INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.
west of wawa a novel by lisa de nikolits
978-1-926708-24-9 / $22.95 cdn / 5.5" x 8.25" pb / 312 pages /fiction / september 2011
Emotionally battered and bruised, 29-year-old Australian immigrant Benny is looking for escape from
herself and the dismal failures of her life. Cutting all ties, Benny sets off on a road trip adventure across
Canada, hoping she will discover who she wants to be. Funny, aggressive, fearless and vulnerable, Benny is
a road-warrior with a backpack of opiates, a map and a guileless sense of naiveté. A tale of sexual adventure
and feminist learning, Benny looks for escape but emerges a heroine instead.
“West of Wawa is a funny, moving exploration of a surprising journey towards self-realization — and Benny,
its pill-popping, wise-cracking heroine, is a treat.”—Chatelaine Magazine
angelic scintillations poems by katerina fretwell
978-1-926708-22-5 / $18.95 cdn / 6" x 7.5" pb / 112 pages / 4 pages artwork / poetry / may 2011
While deeply embedded in the cultural, historical, ecological, and theological zeitgeist, Angelic Scintillations
continues the poet’s spiritual evolution. First, the poet dialogues with her ancestor, seventeenth century
Welsh mystic poet Henry Vaughan, and interrogates the religious practices of his time and hers, using
current events and politics to situate the reader.
A book that underlines the essential relevance of poetry to our day.
—susan mcmaster, editor of Pith & Wry: Canadian Poetry
tell anna she’s safe a novel by brenda missen
978-1-926708-20-1 / $22.95 cdn 5.5" x 8.25" pb / 352 pages / fiction / may 2011
Based on a true story, Tell Anna She’s Safe is the tale of two women, one missing, the other searching for
her. What begins as a physical search soon also becomes a determined quest for the truth beyond the
stereotypical appearances of her friend’s risky relationship.
Gripping. A moving, scary story of love and betrayal.
—kathy reichs, bestselling author and producer of the hit tv series Bones
missing matisse a novel by jan rehner
978-1-926708-21-8 / $22.95 cdn / 5.5" x 8.25" pb / 278 pages/ fiction / may 2011
Who is the mysterious woman in the Matisse drawing, “Woman in a Blouse, Dreaming?” What secrets is
she hiding? Chloe Rea grew up with the Matisse sketch and believes the woman in the famous Rumanian
blouse is her grandmother. Lydia Delectorskaya, a Russian orphan who became Matisse’s muse, model,
caregiver, administrator, and companion for twenty years holds the key to a missing masterpiece.
Told with a gentle humour entirely in keeping with the master painter of the title, Missing Matisse offers a
mystery, a romance (or two), and above all a feisty, unpredictable heroine. A swift, entertaining read.
—giles blunt, author of Forty Words for Sorrow and Crime Machine
singing me home poems by carol lipszyc
978-1-926708-15-7 / $18.95 cdn / 6" x 7.5" pb / 98 pages / poetry / november 2010
A collection of lyrical and narrative poems that take the reader through an autobiographical journey and
which feature facets of self as memoirist, teacher, musician, daughter of survivors of the Shoah.
The vibrant, memorable images that thread through Carol Lipszyc’s moving collection would in themselves be
enough to make Singing Me Home worth reading and re-reading….
—john reibetanz, award-winning poet and critic
complete backlist available on our website www.inanna.ca
Inanna Publications also publishes Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme,
an invaluable journal for anyone interested in feminist scholarship and activism.
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