Maria Cichosz

Review: On Writing and Failure

Orwell, Joyce and Austin could barely get jobs, never mind publishing deals. Stephen Marche asks: “Why would it be any different for you?”

Review: A Kid Called Chatter

Westerns are populated with larger-than-life characters, but children are notoriously difficult to write convincingly. Kelly’s Chatter and his orphan companions are adult minds in small bodies, making grave enigmatic statements while stone-facedly witnessing the world’s cruelty.

Review: Tear

Tear creates a superimposition of architectural and mental space characteristic of psychoanalysis, where physical spaces become symbolic of psychological states. A deeply gothic novel somewhere between Henry James and Shirley Jackson.

Review: Len & Cub: A Queer History

The result of painstaking research stretching through New Brunswick, Maine, Quebec, and Vermont, this early century chronicle of queer Canadians is a labour of love.

Review: The Quiet Is Loud

Samantha Garner’s refreshingly original debut novel, The Quiet Is Loud, explores the grey areas between what we say and what we conceal and the stakes of keeping one’s identity hidden.