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Prairie books NOW

Prairie books NOW is a widely read publication dedicated to promoting books by Prairie publishers and writers. The full magazine is available online.

PbN is available free of charge at bookstores, libraries, and many other venues across Canada.

09/25/2025

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30 marks a moment to focus on the ongoing work of remembering the painful history of residential schools in Canada, honouring the survivors, and untangling the ongoing legacy of colonialism as we work toward a better future.

These seven books each contribute to the conversations around Truth and Reconciliation in their own way.

We've collected excerpts from articles about these seven books, and a link to the full articles, as a starting point for learning and discussion. Read more at https://prairiebooksnow.ca/articles/view/reading-for-truth-and-reconciliation

09/23/2025

“I’d like potential readers to know that Bonememory is about many things, both personal and political: memory, family, immigration, language, friendship, intergenerational trauma, chronic illness, disability, empathy, the Holocaust, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Canadian settler-colonialism, and the pandemic.”

Read more about Bonememory (University of Calgary Press) by Anna Veprinska at https://prairiebooksnow.ca/articles/view/lyrical-experimental-poems-travel-between-many-concepts-echoing-veprinskas-emigration

09/18/2025

“Mental health is not something I take lightly or for granted. I think when you have to work through trauma, especially as a writer, it sharpens your imagination of what the other people might be holding.”

Read more about A Story Can Be Told About Pain (Newest Press) by Lisa Martin at https://prairiebooksnow.ca/articles/view/poets-first-novel-sees-cast-of-characters-face-up-to-pain-of-grief-war-trauma

09/16/2025

“I’m speaking to the baby d**e that I was: I see you! I remember you! I still love you!” says Lisa Baird.

“I’m invoking tenderness towards our awkward, brave, adolescent q***r selves.”

Read more about When Whales Went Back to the Water (University of Alberta Press) by Lisa Baird at https://prairiebooksnow.ca/articles/view/collection-aims-to-find-hope-among-hard-times-as-trauma-is-metabolized-into-poems

09/11/2025

“One interviewee in the book tells me that when the men left, ‘they left a mess behind.’

I wanted to document that mess. I feel that the consequences of a tragedy like this on Muslim communities are incredibly obscured in the media.

Part of that tragedy is the hypersurveillance of the state, which impacted many Winnipeg Muslims in unpredictable but very harmful ways.”

Read more about Homegrown Radicals (University of Regina Press) by Youcef Soufi at https://prairiebooksnow.ca/articles/view/soufi-digs-behind-the-headlines-to-find-community-impacts-after-three-men-he-knew-became-homegrown-radicals

09/09/2025

“Writing about my mental health, reaching back into my childhood, revealed the seeds of it, how it grew into something hard to handle, and how much strength and courage it took to live through the worst parts of it.”

Read more about All the Little Monsters by David A. Robertson (Harper Collins) at https://prairiebooksnow.ca/articles/view/robertson-writes-a-path-to-the-future-with-weekly-handbook-reflections-on-mental-health

09/04/2025

“My aim with this book was to vent my frustrations and to expose most of the poster boys of the western canon … but as I went on, I realized that the opportunity to include alternative voices from perspectives beyond the ‘west’ was vital.”

Read more about He Who Would Walk the Earth (Fernwood Publishing) by Griffin Bjerke-Clarke at https://prairiebooksnow.ca/articles/view/man-without-memory-searches-a-shifting-world-in-debut-novel-unconstrained-by-genre

06/19/2025

“I reinforce that my body is my own,” Tea Gerbeza says, “and how I navigate my bodily experiences is also mine amongst the medical and societal ableism I receive along the way.”

Read more about the long poem How I Bend into More by Tea Gerbeza at https://prairiebooksnow.ca/articles/view/long-poem-shares-process-of-building-kinship-with-pain-rebuilding-sense-of-self

06/18/2025

“It shows in our women. My god these powerful women who live there, who come from there and who then go out into the world, or who build community there. It’s as big or bigger than how much loss has been experienced.”

Read more about the play Rise, Red River by Tara Beagan at https://prairiebooksnow.ca/articles/view/trilingual-play-set-in-post-apocalyptic-future-tackles-treatment-of-women-girls-and-two-spirit-peoples

06/17/2025

“Linked stories have characters reappear, which lets our relationship grow, at least a little. We get to see what happens to them over time. And I really enjoyed writing this book for that same reason.”

Read more about Tunnel Island by Bill Gaston at https://prairiebooksnow.ca/articles/view/linked-short-stories-reflect-intimacies-and-challenges-of-living-on-compact-rural-island

06/12/2025

“The Festival theme is an important part of Franco-Manitoban culture,” Diane Freynet Therrien says, “and through this picture book, I wanted to tell the story of where French-Canadians from the West, and Manitoba in particular, come from and what they represent.”

Read more about Grand-maman raconte au Festival du Voyageur by Diane Freynet Therrien, illustrated by Francesca Da Sacco, in your choice of English or French at https://prairiebooksnow.ca/articles/view/rhyming-picture-book-brings-festival-to-life-celebrating-franco-manitoban-traditions

06/11/2025

“It was a lot of fun creating a world where a cat runs the show,” says Colleen Nelson.

“She’s a celebrity with her own staff, so when she goes missing, it has to be kept under wraps, which makes solving the crime even harder for Elodie.”

Read more about Mystery at the Biltmore #2: The Classified Catnapping, as well as Making A Splash – two new releases from Colleen Nelson – at https://prairiebooksnow.ca/articles/view/double-feature-mystery-where-a-cat-runs-the-show-and-a-history-of-humanitys-relationship-to-water

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