Table of contents

Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION / Making Literature, Literature in the Making by Marie Carrière, Curtis Gillespie & Jason Purcell
1 YING CHEN / Experiment and Innovation by Julie Rodgers / Le Mangeur (excerpt) L’Ingratitude (excerpt)
2 LYNN COADY / a.k.a. The Wit by Maïté Snauwaert / The Antagonist (excerpt)
3 MICHAEL CRUMMEY / The Presence of the Past by Jennifer Bowering Delisle / Sweetland (excerpt)
4 CATERINA EDWARDS / History Lost in Forgetfulness by Joseph Pivato / Finding Rosa: A Mother with Alzheimer’s, a Daughter in Search of the Past (excerpt)
5 MARINA ENDICOTT / Lights and Shadows across the Continent by Daniel Laforest / Close to Hugh (excerpt)
6 LAWRENCE HILL / History and the Truth of Fiction by Winfried Siemerling / Meet You at the Door (excerpt)
7 ALICE MAJOR / Metaphors, Myths, and the Eye of the Magpie by Don Perkins / The Office Tower Tales (excerpt)
8 EDEN ROBINSON / Reading for B’gwus by Kit Dobson / The Sasquatch at Home: Traditional Protocols & Modern Storytelling (excerpt)
9 GREGORY SCOFIELD / kistêyihtamowin êkwa sâkihitowin (Honour and Love) by Angela Van Essen / kipocihkân: Poems New & Selected (excerpt)
10 KIM THÚY / A Gentle Power by Pamela V. Sing / Ru (excerpt)
Essay Contributors
Permissions

Description

Ten years, ten authors, ten critics.

The Canadian Literature Centre/Centre de littérature canadienne reaches into its ten-year archive of Brown Bag Lunch readings to sample some of the most diverse and powerful voices in contemporary Canadian literature.

This anthology offers readers samples from some of Canada’s most exciting writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Each selection is introduced by a brief essay, serving as a point of entry into the writer’s work. From the east coast of Newfoundland to Kitamaat territory on British Columbia’s central coast, there is a story for everyone, from everywhere. True to Canada’s multilingual and multicultural heritage, these ten writers come from diverse ethnicities and backgrounds, and work in multiple languages, including English, French, and Cree.

Ying Chen | essay by Julie Rodgers
Lynn Coady | essay by Maïté Snauwaert
Michael Crummey | essay by Jennifer Bowering Delisle
Caterina Edwards | essay by Joseph Pivato
Marina Endicott | essay by Daniel Laforest
Lawrence Hill | essay by Winfried Siemerling
Alice Major | essay by Don Perkins
Eden Robinson | essay by Kit Dobson
Gregory Scofield | essay by Angela Van Essen
Kim Thúy | essay by Pamela V. Sing

Reviews

"...the collection is ideal for students and teachers of Canadian Literature at the high school or undergraduate levels, but would also be a useful resource for any active, engaged reader.... Overall, it imparts the impression of a vibrant, lively Canadian literature ranging widely in interests and preoccupations. The editors have been careful to select a diverse range of writers.... The net impact of this slim volume is to force a reconsideration of who in the world of Canadian literature is canonical and worthy of sustained, thoughtful examination. Every writer selected lives up to this standard.... [the] collection functions as something of a sampler pack of some of the most interesting writers working in Canada today."

- Brenna Clark Gray

#6 on the Edmonton Journal's Non-fiction Bestsellers list for the week of October 28, 2016 The Edmonton Journal

- The Edmonton Journal

"[A] compilation of excerpts of creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.... Each of the ten featured works is preceded by a critic’s essay, giving sharp insight into this transcultural anthology and further contextualizing individual works for the reader. The selections...are...preoccupied...with the relationship between spatiality, geography, and Canadian identity. Displacement and journeying—the impulse to search for the self—are most clearly seen in the anthology’s latter works." Canadian Literature 233 (Summer 2017) [Full review at http://canlit.ca/article/landscapes-of-the-mind]

- Rachel Lallouz