In this month’s podcast Shima Robinson AKA Dwennimmen speaks to us, among other things, about finding your place in the poetry community, supporting the community while advocating for artist payment, self-publishing and self-creation, and finding the intent of the poem through performance.

Amiskwaciwâskahikan

In this episode, Rayanne speaks with Margaret Macpherson about her new book, Tracking the Caribou Queen: Memoir of a Settler Girlhood. The conversation looks at the ways the memoir touches on the racism deeply embedded in the North in the 60's and 70's and her understanding of it as a child and now in self-reflecting as an adult. Macpherson discuss, with a frankness, stepping outside of her fragility, to speak as a white women, who was clear about her culpability. We discuss the framing of the memoir, the authors fear of taking up space, the violence within the book, and in her words, how "the book is about white privilege. It's about entitlement. And it's about the dawning of the child's understanding of those things as she grows.”

In this month’s podcast Rayanne Haines speaks with Emily Riddle about her debut poetry collection, The Big Melt. The collection is rooted in nehiyaw thought and urban millennial life events. It examines what it means to repair kinship, contend with fraught history, go home and contemplate prairie ndn utopia in the era of late capitalism and climate change. Part memoir, part research project, this collection draws on Riddle’s experience working in Indigenous governance and her affection for confessional poetry in crafting feminist works that are firmly rooted in place. In their conversation Emily and Rayanne speak about kinship, land, joy, queer love, and intergenerational trauma in magpies.

In this episode, Rayanne Haines speaks with author Leslie Greentree about character vs plot driven stories, how short story and novel writing are shaped, writing flawed characters and controversial stories, and about career longevity in an increasingly competitive market.

Leslie Greentree’s short story collection, Not The Apocalypse I was Hoping For, is a masterful collection that shapeshifts through her characters’ lives. It’s a not-so-subtle commentary on current politics, the pervasiveness of social media and our obsession with having or holding a platform, and the fallacy of human nature.

In this episode, Rayanne speaks with author Sandra S.G. Wong about writing the lived experience, the layers of research and character development that come with crime writing, ambiguity and suspense, and how women characters are perceived and approached in novel writing. In her latest novel, Wong, approaches family dynamics while also writing an “An unusual blend of mystery, domestic suspense, and thriller with a powerful dose of social commentary.”

Sandra SG Wong (she/her) writes fiction across genres, including the cross-genre Lola Starke novels, Crescent City short stories, and the bestselling standalone suspense novel, IN THE DARK WE FORGET. A hybrid author, she has been a Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence finalist and a Whistler Independent Book Awards nominee.

Wong has been involved with genre and literary organizations, conferences, festivals, and workshops across Canada and the United States. She served on the Sisters in Crime national board as its first president of Asian heritage, and currently chairs its DEIJB Advisory Committee. She is also an active member of Crime Writers of Color.

In this episode, Rayanne speaks to Skylar Kay about her debut poetry collection, Transcribing Moonlight. Her poetry explores how surrounding environments reflect and mirror human experiences, especially her experiences as a queer transgender woman. Rayanne and Skylar discuss the Haibun form, healing through poetry and reclaiming the feminine figure of the moon for Trans Women. 

In this episode of Crow Reads, Rayanne Haines interviews Jason Purcell, a writer and musician from amiskwaciwaskahikan, Treaty 6 (Edmonton, Alberta), where they are also the co-owner of Glass Bookshop. As a chronically ill writer, Jason writes at the intersection of queerness and illness and is the author of the chapbook A Place More Hospitable (Anstruther Press). Swollening is their first full-length collection. 

In this conversation Jason reads from Swollening and talks about teasing out metaphorical spaces, writing the external and internal violence in the body, the parameters of giving and hiding/revealing within the practice of vulnerability as a queer writer, looking for the beats of the narrative in poem placement to orient the reader and signal underlying currents in the collection, and how being sick in a sick world may be a reasonable response. 

In this moving, joyful and vulnerable episode of Crow Reads, I talk with author and postdoctoral fellow, Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike about his short story collection Double Walhala, Double Trouble, how the tenderness of Shakespeare and other romantic poets brought him to poetry during dark times in Nigeria’s history, the value of family, mentorship and relationships in both African and Alberta literary communities, inhabiting and reflecting character realities, and, how poetry, story and being part of literary communities has helped him navigate anti-blackness in North America while continuing following his impulse for joy.

For this episode of Crow Reads, Rayanne speaks with Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author, Premee Mohamed about her novel, The Annual Migration of Clouds, genre labels, climate change, finding an agent and how to know when your book is done! 

The Annual Migration of Clouds starts off by telling us - The world is nothing like it once was: climate disasters have wracked the continent, causing food shortages, ending industry, and leaving little behind. Then came Cad, mysterious mind-altering fungi that invade the bodies of the now scattered citizenry. Reid, a young woman who carries this parasite, has been given a chance to get away—to move to one of the last remnants of pre-disaster society—but she can’t bring herself to abandon her mother and the community that relies on her. When she’s offered a coveted place on a dangerous and profitable mission, she jumps at the opportunity to set her family up for life, but how can Reid ask people to put their trust in her when she can’t even trust her own mind?

Is there anyone better to write this book and talk to us about world-building?

Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. Premee is the author of novels Beneath the Rising(a finalist for Crawford Award, Aurora Award, British Fantasy Award, and Locus Award) and A Broken Darkness, as well as the novellas These Lifeless Things, And What Can We Offer You Tonight, and The Annual Migration of Clouds. Her next novel, The Void Ascendant, is the final book in the Beneath the Rising trilogy and is due out Spring 2022. Her short fiction has appeared in many venues and she can be found on Twitter at @premeesaurus and on her website at www.premeemohamed.com.