Canada Reads Inspired

Rebecca and Tara highlight books they've read in which the location or place is a distinct character in the novel.

Rebecca (@canadareadsamericanstyle):

• True Gretch: What I've Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between by Governor Gretchen Whitmer

Tara (@onabranchreads):

• Death & Other Inconveniences by Lesley Crewe

Tara chats with Canadian Susan Wadds, author of What the Living Do.  Winner of the Writer's Union of Canada's Prose Contest in 2016, Susan's award-winning work has appeared in The Blood Pudding, Room, Quagmire, Waterwheel Review, Funicular, WOW--Women on Writing, and many more.

The first two chapters of her debut novel, What the Living Do, (Regal House Publishing, 2024), won the Lazuli Group's Prose Contest, and were published in Azure Magazine.

Susan is a certified Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) workshop facilitator.  She lives on a quiet river in South-Central Ontario with an odd assortment of humans and cats.

https://www.instagram.com/deepamwadds/

https://writeyourwayin.ca/about-me/

https://regalhousepublishing.com/susan-wadds/

Reading Recommendations:

• Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

Rebecca chats with author Michael Redhead Champagne about his first children’s book, We Need Everyone, which premiered with HighWater Press in January 2024.

Michael is working towards a revolution that dismantles harmful systems and builds up new ones based on justice, equity and love. A community leader from Winnipeg's North End with family roots in Shamattawa First Nation, Michael is host, helper, published author, on-screen personality and sought-after public speaker. He happily shares his words, wisdom and welcoming energy across Canada and around the world.

He loves family friendly jokes, Tetris, Stevie Wonder music and celebrating the successes of others.

https://www.michaelredheadchampagne.com/

https://www.instagram.com/northendmc

We Need Everyone Free Teacher Guide:

https://www.portageandmainpress.com/Books/T/Teacher-Guide-for-We-Need-Everyone

Community Resources:

https://fearlessr2w.ca/

https://necrc.org/

https://www.facebook.com/MBHealthCoal/

Upcoming Graphic Novel--Little by Little You Can Change the World by Sonya Ballantyne: https://www.portageandmainpress.com/Books/L/Little-by-Little

Recommended Title--Tipiskawi Kisik: Night Sky Star Stories by Wilfred Buck:

https://mfnerc.org/product/tipiskawi-kisik-night-sky-star-stories/

Rebecca welcomes Katie from Whitehorse, Yukon Canada to answer the Five Reader Repartee Questions. 

1. How did you become a reader?

Katie's responses include:

• CNIB (Canada): https://www.cnib.ca/en/library-services-people-who-are-blind?region=on

If you would like to be featured on a future episode of Reader Repartee, contact Rebecca through her Instagram account: @canadareadsamericanstyle

Rebecca chats with the author of Autokrator, Emily A. Weedon.  Emily is a debut novelist and a screenwriter from Toronto Canada. Her web series Chateau Laurier was the most awarded web series on the entire planet in 2023 and won a Canadian Screen Award. Her novel Autokrator released by Cormorant Books in April 2024 is already receiving acclaim for its thoughtful messages, especially about women's health in a fractious world, for its wild creativity, and its driving pace as a story.

Other titles mentioned:

• Eris by Larry Gaudet

https://emilyweedon.com/

https://www.cormorantbooks.com/emily-a-weedon

https://www.instagram.com/emily.weedon.creates/

Immediately after their discussion, Emily shared the following news with Rebecca:

"Dundurn Press Acquisitions Editor Russell Smith has acquired world rights to award-winning screenwriter and AUTOKRATOR author Emily A. Weedon’s HEMO SAPIENS, an erotic noir thriller, pitched as a sleek THE HUNGER meets a twisted HANNIBAL, that reimagines vampires through a lens of female sexuality and anthropology, wherein a homicide detective, while exposing a secret society of bloodthirsty women, will do anything to protect his wife and unborn child from a mysterious and powerful femme fatale for the ages. Publication is expected for Fall 2025."

Rebecca interviews author Marion Agnew.  Marion is a dual US/Canadian citizen, who moved north mid-life, after a career in technical writing and editing. MAKING UP THE GODS (Latitude 46, Sudbury, 2023) is her first novel. Her previous book, REVERBERATIONS: A DAUGHTER’S MEDITATIONS ON ALZHEIMER’S (Signature Editions, Winnipeg, 2019) was shortlisted for the Louise de Kiriline Lawrence award for nonfiction. She lives on the Lake Superior shoreline, a grateful guest in Robinson-Superior Treaty territory, home of the Anishinaabe (Fort William First Nation) and Metis peoples.

https://www.marionagnew.com/ (includes citations to Marion's fiction and essays, short and collected)

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marionagnew/

Currently reading:

Fuse; Rebellion Box; Widow Fantasies by Hollay Ghadery

If Sylvie Had Nine Lives by Leona Theis

Rebecca and Tara provide an update on their 2024 goals!

Rebecca (@canadareadsamericanstyle):

• Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America by Matika Wilbur

Tara (@onabranchreads): 

• The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan

2023 Giller Books:

• Away from the Dead by David Bergen

Helen Humphreys:

• The Lost Garden

Currently reading:

• I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Rebecca and Tara share their latest reads!

Rebecca (@canadareadsamericanstyle):

• The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine by Ricardo Nuila

Tara (@onabranchreads):

• The Bones of Ruin by Sarah Raughley

Rebecca welcomes Canadian author Leslie Shimotakahara, whose third novel, Sisters of the Spruce, is on Quill & Quire's "2024 Spring Preview: Fiction" and the 49th Shelf's "Most Anticipated: Our 2024 Spring Fiction Preview." Her memoir, The Reading List, won the Canada-Japan Literary Prize and has been translated into Japanese, and her fiction has been shortlisted for the KM Hunter Artist Award. She has written two other critically acclaimed novels, After the Bloom and Red Oblivion. 

Leslie’s writing has appeared in the National Post, World Literature Today, and Changing the Face of Canadian Literature, among other anthologies and periodicals. She completed a PhD in English at Brown University, after which she returned to her hometown of Toronto, where she now resides with her husband. 

https://leslieshimotakahara.com/

https://www.instagram.com/leslieshimotakahara/

https://caitlinpress.com/Books/S/Sisters-of-the-Spruce

• From Slave Girls to Salvation: Gender, Race, and Victoria's Chinese Rescue Home, 1886-1923 by Shelly D. Ikebuchi

https://www.ekphrastic.net/

https://megpokrass.com/about/

The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing by Adam Moss

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/192723955-the-work-of-art