news | Tuesday May 12, 2026

Asian Heritage Month 2026

May is Asian Heritage Month! To celebrate the occasion, Talon has put together a reading list of some cool, unique titles that belong in your library. Dive into the craft and creativity of a diverse roster of authors of Asian heritage working in poetry, drama, comedy, and nonfiction. These Talonbooks authors are tackling subjects like desire, class, the climate crisis, grief, justice, community, isolation, lineage, language, and much, much more. Here are some recent and forthcoming titles we’d love to shout out:

1. wet by Leanne Dunic

Winner of the 2025 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize wet is a collection of poetry and photography that follows a Chinese American model in Singapore as she thirsts for labour justice, climate action, and liveable environments for humans and animals alike. In images and language shot through with empathy and desire, wet unravels complexities of social stratification, sexual privation, and environmental catastrophe. The 2025 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize jury notes that “wet moves with the clarity and patience of water itself, layering observations of place with intimate reckonings of identity.” Pick up your own copy here.

2. The Tao of the World by Jovanni Sy

After isolating during a global pandemic, Singapore’s wealthy elite make up for lost time, bedding other people’s partners and swindling one another out of dynastic fortunes. Inspired by William Congreve’s The Way of the World and Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians, The Tao of the World is a Restoration comedy for modern times, a hilarious, bawdy romp that asks what it means for things to return to normal. The Tao of the World is having its world premiere at the Stratford Festival this summer (get your tickets here). Pre-order your own copy of Sy’s forthcoming play here.

3. Revolutions by Hajer Mirwali

Check out the Trillium Book Award for Poetry–finalist Revolutions! In this debut collection, Mirwali looks at shame and pleasure, asking how young Arab women – who live in homes and communities where actions are surveilled and categorized as 3aib or not 3aib, shameful or acceptable – make and unmake their identities. In conversation with artist Mona Hatoum’s kinetic sculpture + and –, Revolutions is a work of art not to be missed. Get your copy here.

4. The Book of Z by Rahat Kurd

Have you read Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize–finalist The Book of Z yet? In Rahat Kurd’s latest collection, she writes in the imagined voice of Zulaykha, “the wife of Aziz” in the Qur’an and the Biblical “wife of Potiphar.” Here, Zulaykha considers her Abrahamic lineage from its estranged and fragmented reality, asking what consolation human desire and divine longing might offer our shared present tense. Order your copy here.

5. Speaking Through the Night: Diary of a Lockdown March–April 2020 by Wajdi Mouawad and translated by Linda Gaboriau

Work of nonfiction Speaking Through the Night showcases Mouawad’s unparalleled ability to turn a phrase. While isolating in the early days of the pandemic, Mouawad embarks upon a spectacular inner voyage, travelling from his own microcosm to the eye of the Big Bang. We follow him from Peter Handke’s office to his father’s retirement home, from the banks of the Saint Lawrence to Montréal, Greece, Greenland, and the Lebanon of his childhood. Pick up your copy here.

6. Music at the Heart of Thinking by Fred Wah

Check out Music at the Heart of Thinking by recipient of the 2025 Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence Fred Wah! Music at the Heart of Thinking is a poetry that works through language as the true practice of thought and improvisation as the tool that listens to and notates thinking. In this collection that Knife Fork Books says boasts “marvels every page”, Fred Wah’s poetic mastery is on full display. Snag a copy of your own here.

7. cop city swagger by Mercedes Eng

Check out cop city swagger, the latest poetry collection by author and activist Mercedes Eng. A finalist for the 2026 City of Vancouver Book Award, cop city swagger conducts a threat assessment of Vancouver’s police. Holding close lived and living connections to the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown neighbourhoods, Eng juxtaposes the police’s and the city’s institutional rhetoric with their acts of violence against marginalized people, presenting a panoramic media montage of structural harm and community care. Order your copy here.

8. A Child’s Seance by Weyman Chan

Finally, forthcoming this fall is A Child’s Seance by poet Weyman Chan! A Child’s Seance begins with a Ouija board game played by a brother and sister as they attempt to make contact with their dead mother. Out of their shared grief explodes a big bang of questions about the universe’s smeared complexity. Pre-order your copy here.

Happy Asian Heritage Month! We hope it’s a month of art, joy, and connection.

news | Friday May 8, 2026

ᑭᐢᑭᓱᒥᑐᐠ kiskisomitok: ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐤ to remind each and one another Shortlisted for Indigenous Voices Award for Published Prose

ᑭᐢᑭᓱᒥᑐᐠ kiskisomitok: ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐤ to remind each and one another by ᑳᐯᓵᑳᐢᑌᐠ reuben quinn is on the shortlist for the Indigenous Voices Award for Published Prose! ᑭᐢᑭᓱᒥᑐᐠ kiskisomitok uses the spirit marker writing system as a foundation for teaching ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐁᐧᐃᐧᐣ nêhîyawewin. This vital and well-researched work delves into language philosophy with tremendous knowledge and warmth. The Indigenous Voices Awards were founded in 2017 to support and celebrate the works of Indigenous authors in so-called Canada. A huge congratulations to ᑳᐯᓵᑳᐢᑌᐠ reuben quinn and to all of the shortlisted authors! Check out all of the shortlisted titles here.

news | Wednesday May 6, 2026

An Interview with Jónína Kirton

Shari Narine interviews Jónína Kirton, author of the new hybrid poetry and prose collection Save Your Prayers – Send Money for windspeaker.com. The pair discuss Kirton’s new book, why Kirton decided on hybridity for this latest collection, unpacking trauma, and more.

An excerpt from their discussion:

“Red River Métis-Icelandic author Jónína Kirton hopes her newest book, Save Your Prayers – Send Money, makes people think about how they respond to those who have chronic illnesses.

The title ‘is a bit cheeky. And you know, we Métis, we’re cheeky. It’s one of our favourite things,’ said Kirton. She said the title is meant to be poetic. The word money is intended to be a metaphor for support.

‘We need actual practical support.’

The “we” Kirton refers to are people who have chronic illnesses and their caregivers. She contends that better supports are needed for both.

‘Prayers are not enough,’ she writes.”

Read the complete interview here.

news | Tuesday May 5, 2026

Hajer Mirwali Is a Finalist for the Trillum Book Award for Poetry!

Revolutions, the debut collection by Hajer Mirwali, is a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry! Revolutions sifts through the grains of Muslim daughterhood to reveal two metaphorical circles inextricably overlapping: shame and pleasure. This collection asks how young Arab women – who live in homes and communities where actions are surveilled and categorized as 3aib or not 3aib, shameful or acceptable – make and unmake their identities. Way to go, Hajer! The Trillium Book Award for Poetry is given to an exceptional first, second, or third book of poetry from an Ontario-based author. Read the official announcement here.

news | Friday May 1, 2026

th book uv lost passwords 1 in The British Columbia Review

Harold Rhenisch writes about his experiences on a road trip with bill bissett and shares his thoughts on bissett’s latest work, th book uv lost passwords 1 in The British Columbia Review. Rhenisch says, “When bill reads, he creates a charged space by chanting and shaking a rattle. That enhanced excitement is here throughout the book, too.” Read the full article here.

news | Thursday April 30, 2026

Save Your Prayers – Send Money an Indigenous & Lit Book Club Pick!

Jónína Kirton new book Save Your Prayers – Send Money is Black Walnut Books’s Indigenous & Lit Book Club pick for their July 19 session! Save Your Prayers – Send Money delves into disability politics through the lived experience of a seventy-year-old Métis woman and recovering New Ager. Moving between poetry and prose, in this collection Kirton takes on the wellness industry and explores how a peace might be found whether we heal or not.

Check out all of Black Walnut Books’ picks for their 2026 Indigenous & Lit Book Club here.

news | Wednesday April 29, 2026

Kevin Loring on Global News

Kevin Loring speaks about his award-winning play Little Red Warrior and His Lawyer: A Trickster Land Claim Fable with Juliane Bodini on Global News. Loring discusses the impetus for writing the play, the importance of the story at this moment, and more. A production of Little Red Warrior and His Lawyer is running now at Regina’s Globe Theatre, get your tickets here. Watch the interview here.

news | Tuesday April 28, 2026

Caroline Russell-King on Redeye

Caroline Russell-King is a guest on the podcast Redeye! She delves into the new play that she co-wrote with Maria Crooks, Selma Burke: Carving a Sculptor’s Life. Russell-King chats about finding Selma Burke as the subject of the play, the process of dramturgy, and what she hopes people take from the play. Listen to the interview here.

news | Sunday April 26, 2026

Nicole Raziya Fong on All Lit Up

All Lit Up features Nicole Raziya Fong for their National Poetry Month series, Poets Resist, where twenty-one poets use poetry to push back against marginalizing forces. Nicole Raziya Fong reads work from their new collection SUBTEXT, which takes a multifaceted approach to questions of diaspora and selfhood, incorporating visual and textual elements that dialogue with one another and ask readers to negotiate the unsteady shoals of identity and history. They also give an interview on the role poetry might have in resistance. From the interview:

“Poetry’s resistance is formal, historical, and personal. Poetry is a place where we can begin to approach that which cannot be plainly stated in ordinary speech. Poetry has the potential to work within language to dissemble the walls created between things—both visually and conceptually.”

Listen to Nicole Raziya Fong read and check out their interview with the All Lit Up team here.

news | Saturday April 25, 2026

Elee Kraljii Gardiner on North by Northwest with Margaret Gallagher

On April 18, Elee Kraljii Gardiner was a guest on North by Northwest with Margaret Gallagher! The pair chatted about Kraljii Gardiner’s new collection sometimes, forest, her time as Vancouver’s Poet Laureate and her legacy project, the practice of co-creating art with the woods, hylofeminism, the benefits of “becoming strange to yourself,” and more. In Kraljii Gardiner’s new collection, the speaker revisits the same forest every day, noting the changes both inside and outside of herself as she does. Listen to their conversation and get your dose of Elee Kraljii Gardiner reading her remarkable poetry here.