National Network for Equitable Library Service

A residential school survivor’s complicated path toward healing and love. Genocidal Love delves into the long-term effects of childhood trauma on those who attended residential school and demonstrates the power of story to help in recovery and healing. Presenting herself as 'Myrtle,' Bevann Fox recounts her early childhood filled with love and warmth on the First Nation reservation with her grandparents.

How do we understand the boundaries of individual creatures? What are the systems of interdependency that bind all living creatures together? Plants were among the the first to colonize the planet. They created the soil and the atmosphere that made life possible for animals. They are some of the largest and oldest life forms on Earth. In spite of their primacy, Western cultures have traditionally regarded plants as the lowest life forms, lacking mobility, sensation, and communication.

Ian Kinney fell seven stories, and he survived. In Air Salt Kinney (un)writes his hospitalization and recovery, using poetry as neuro-rehabilitation.

An evocative blend of narrative nonfiction, personal memoir, nature writing, and reportage in the style of Barry Lopez and Annie Dillard, Surrender explores the changing landscape of the American West and the outsider eco-cultures that have taken root in an era of increasing climatic disruption.The mid-life crisis handed to Joanna Pocock came in a box marked with one simple word: Montana.

Chubby. Curvy. Fluffy. Plus-size. Thick. Fat. The time has come for fat people to tell their own stories. The (Other) F Word combines the voices of Renée Watson, Julie Murphy, Jes Baker, Samantha Irby, Bruce Sturgell, and more in a relatable and gift-worthy guide about body image and fat acceptance. This dazzling collection of poetry, essays, and fashion tips is meant for people of all sizes who desire to be seen and heard in a culture consumed by a narrow definition of beauty.

In this award-winning collection from his Montreal Gazette city columns, Joe Fiorito reveals the true heart and soul of a large city. He walks the streets, meeting and talking to the people who make the city tick, but never make the front-page news.

I open my eyes in the darkness, laying on my side, half my vision is of the earth and shadows; the other is of the sky, treetops, and stars. I should write Clifford's story. The thought emerges fully formed . . . The thought dissipates. I close my eyes and the earth and the sky disappear. The warmth of my sleeping bag wraps around me and sleep pulls me under into that half-world where reality and fantasy mingle in a place where coherent thoughts disintegrate.

This is a book about a small Southern Italian village and its offshoots in Toronto. It's about bread and figs and food in general, about Carnival and pilgrimages to religious sanctuaries, about fathers, mothers and children, about migrating and about remaining, about yearning to leave if you've stayed and yearning to make the trek back if you've gone, about how both those who travel and those who never stray from home change.

Small Things is a book of mini-anti-essays, part of Sky Gilbert's project to dismantle and challenge the rigid classifications of genre. The purpose of this kind of genre bending is to challenge 21st century notions of truth. Inspired by Oscar Wilde, Foucault, and the post-structuralist project, the small writings in small things are story, essay, and memoir combined.

Since selections first appeared in the New Quarterly and the National Post as part of “The Afterword,” Steven Heighton’s memos and dispatches to himself — a writer’s pointed, cutting take on his own work and the work of writing — have been tweeted and retweeted, discussed and tacked to bulletin boards everywhere. Coalesced, completed, and collected here for the first time, a wholly new kind of book has emerged, one that’s as much about creative process as it is about created product, at once about living life and the writing life.