news | Wednesday May 27, 2026

Three Talonbooks Authors on League of Canadian Poets Book Awards Shortlists!

Three Talonbooks titles are on the League of Canadian Poets Book Award shortlists!

Cecily Nicholson’s latest work of poetry Crowd Source is shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award! Crowd Source parallels the daily migration of crows who, aside from fledgling season, journey across metro Vancouver every day at dawn and dusk.

Revolutions, the debut collection by Toronto-based poet Hajer Mirwali is on the Gerald Lampert Award shortlist! In an extended conversation with Mona Hatoum’s kinetic sculpture + and –, Revolutions looks at how young Arab women make and unmake their identities.

Finally, the 2025 Governor General’s Award for Translation winning–book Uiesh / Somewhere by Joséphine Bacon and translated by Jessica Moore has been shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award! The poems in this collection move between the nomadic ways of Bacon’s Ancestors in the northern wilderness of Nitassinan and the clamour of the city, keyed in to minute and vibrant details.

The League of Canadian Poets has three annual book awards: The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for a debut collection of poetry, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for a book of poetry written by a for a book of poetry by a woman and non-binary individuals who feel comfortable being recognized by a women’s prize, and the Raymond Souster Award for a book of poetry penned by a member of the League of Canadian Poets.

A massive kudos to Cecily, Hajer, Joséphine, and Jessica for this outstanding achievement! Check out all of this year’s shortlisted authors here. And be sure to tune in online to hear readings from the shortlisted authors including Nicholson, Mirwali, and Moore on June 2 at 8 p.m. EDT. For more details and to register, click here.

news | Tuesday May 26, 2026

Hello from the CATR Conference!

Hello from the 50th anniversary Canadian Association for Theatre Research Conference in Victoria! Come visit Talonbooks in the lobby of the Phoenix Theatre at the University of Victoria. It’s looking like it’s going to be an amazing conference, check out the full conference schedule here. We’ll be here until May 29. Come by and say hi! Can’t wait to see you and talk theatre!

news | Tuesday May 26, 2026

bissett Reading Covered in The Halifax Examiner

Recently, poetry legend bill bissett toured poems from his latest collection th book uv lost passwords 1 to Canada’s East Coast, including a performance at Main & Station Nonesuch in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia. He performed alongside his longtime sister in poetry, Honey Novick. Journalist Philip Moscovitch attended the performance and penned a personal essay about the experience of being at a bill bissett performance for The Halifax Examiner. th book uv lost passwords 1 was longlisted for the 2026 Al and Eurithe Purdy Poetry Prize. Read Moscovitch’s piece here.

news | Saturday May 23, 2026

bill bissett in The New Wark Times

There’s an article about bill bissett, his politics, and his recent Nova Scotia poetry performances from th book uv lost passwords 1 in The New Wark Times, the blog of journalist Bruce Wark. Read the piece here and you may hear a recording of bill bissett reading his poem “did u c th moon last nite.”

news | Friday May 22, 2026

Shari Narine Interviews ᑳᐯᓵᑳᐢᑌᐠ reuben quinn

Shari Narine interviews ᑳᐯᓵᑳᐢᑌᐠ reuben quinn about his book ᑭᐢᑭᓱᒥᑐᐠ kiskisomitok: ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐤ to remind each and one another on Windspeaker.com. The pair talk about nêhîyawêwin and the hope that quinn’s book inspires greater interest in the culture and the paradigm of the nêhîyawak philosophies and culture. ᑭᐢᑭᓱᒥᑐᐠ kiskisomitok: ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐤ to remind each and one another is currently shortlisted for the 2026 Wilfred Eggleston Award for Nonfiction and the 2026 Indigenous Voices Award for Published Prose. Read the complete interview here

news | Thursday May 21, 2026

rob mclennan Reviews sometimes, forest

rob mclennan reviews sometimes, forest by Elee Kraljii Gardiner, stating that “the poems of sometimes, forest have such a wonderful thick and rich quality, a mélange of sound and bounce and visual play, offering a layered density of language as thick and teeming with life as any forest floor.” Read the complete review here.

news | Wednesday May 20, 2026

Four Talonbooks Titles on League of Canadian Poets Book Awards Longlists!

Talonbooks authors are well represented on the longlists for the 2026 League of Canadian Poets Book Awards! Four of our 2025 titles appear on the various longlists. The League of Canadian Poets has three annual book awards: The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for a debut collection of poetry, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for a book of poetry written by a for a book of poetry by a woman and non-binary individuals, and the Raymond Souster Award for a book of poetry penned by a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Here’s the breakdown:

Cecily Nicholson’s 2025 crow-centred collection Crowd Source is on the longlist for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Raymond Souster Award!

The Book of Z by Rahat Kurd, a poetry collection written in the imagined voice of Zulaykha (“the wife of Aziz” in the Qur’an and the Biblical “wife of Potiphar”), is on the longlist for the Raymond Souster Award!

Hajer Mirwali ’s debut collection Revolutions is on the Gerald Lampert Award longlist! Revolutions looks at shame, pleasure, and Muslim daughterhood.

Uiesh / Somewhere by Joséphine Bacon and translated by Jessica Moore is on the longlist for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award! This dual-language collection in Innu-aimun and English.

A huge congratulations to Cecily, Rahat, Hajer, Joséphine, and Jessica for this outstanding achievement! Check out all of this year’s commended authors here.

news | Sunday May 17, 2026

Sharon Thesen Pens a Tribute to the Late Gladys Maria Hindmarch

Poet and educator Sharon Thesen (Aurora, Refabulations) pens a really lovely tribute to the late author and activist Gladys Maria Hindmarch in The Capilano Review. Thesen remarks on Hindmarch’s warm and sharp observations, her energy, her kinship with the sea, and her work. Read Thesen’s moving rememberance here.

news | Saturday May 16, 2026

Revolutions Reviewed in Herizons

Banah el Ghadbanah reviews Trillium Book Award for Poetry–finalist Revolutions, the debut poetry collection by Hajer Mirwali, in the spring 2026 issue of Herizons. Of Revolutions, el Ghadbanah says “the book was a transcendental journey.” Banah el Ghadbanah also notes that, “the poems squeeze off the page and take unconventional shapes.” Order your copy of the spring 2026 issue of Herizons here.

news | Friday May 15, 2026

Fire Never Dies: The Tina Modotti Project Has Arrived!

The final book of our spring 2026 season has arrived and the spring list is going out with a bang! Fire Never Dies: The Tina Modotti Project by award-winning author and playwright Carmen Aguirre has arrived! In Fire Never Dies, Aguirre maps the intersection between art and revolution through the life of photographer and activist Tina Modotti. Modotti’s story begins in 1920s Mexico City, where her art flourished and she encountered other icons of the day, including Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. However, after seven years she abandoned photography to join the antifascist cause, ultimately running the Red Aid Hospital during the Spanish Civil War.

An excerpt from Fire Never Dies: The Tina Modotti Project:

“TINA
Chloroform, syringes, insulin, camphor, anti-tetanus shots, anti-
gangrene, tourniquets.

SAGRADX CORAZÓN
Soap and water to wash the wounds.

TINA
Go to the ones who are suffering the most first, because
suffering is a sign of life. …
(yelling out) Comrade Hemingway!

ERNEST enters.

ERNEST
Yes.

TINA
You won’t be driving the ambulance today.

ERNEST
Okay.

TINA
You’ll drive this vehicle instead.

ERNEST
What is it?

TINA
A mobile transfusion unit. Donated by the Canadian
Communist Party. There are injured comrades in the trenches
that we need to get to right away. Comrade Bethune is waiting
for us there.

ERNEST
Yes, Nurse Maria.

_TINA and ERNEST ride in the vehicle. We hear the sound
of a war plane._

TINA
(looking out the window) Cazzo.

ERNEST
Franco’s, Hitler’s, or Mussolini’s?

TINA
(still looking) It’s too far away to tell. Fuck fuck fuck. Are you
religious, by any chance?

ERNEST
God no! Is it coming towards us or veering off ?

TINA
Can’t tell yet.

ERNEST
What do I do?

TINA
(still looking) Keep going.”

Through a dynamic blend of styles and theatrical forms, the play mirrors Modotti’s struggle to reconcile passion, creativity, and political conviction. Order your copy here.