Prairie Writers
A selection of recent books by writers from the Canadian Prairies.
Dark Chapters
- Arin Fay 
, Nic Wilson , David Garneau
Trade paperback
$32.95
Reader Reward Price: $29.66
A singular collection of responses to the still life paintings of acclaimed artist David Garneau
Dark Chapters brings together 17 poets, fiction writers, curators, and critics to engage with the works of David Garneau, the Governor General's Award-winning Métis artist. Featuring paintings from Garneau's still life series "Dark Chapters" alongside poetry, fiction, critical analysis, and autotheory, the book includes contributions from Fred Wah, Paul Seesequasis, Jesse Wente, Lillian Allen, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Larissa Lai, Susan Musgrave, and more.
A nod to the Reports of Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in which Justice Murray Sinclair describes the residential school system as "one of the darkest, most troubling chapters in our nation's history," Garneau's still life paintings combine common objects (books, bones, teacups, mirrors) and less familiar ones (a Métis sash, a stone hammer, a braid of sweetgrass) to reflect the complexity of contemporary Indigenous experiences. Provocative titles like "Métis in the Academy" and "Smudge Before Reading" invite consideration of the mixed influences and loyalties faced by Indigenous students and scholars. Other paintings explore colonialism, vertical and lateral violence, Christian influence on traditional knowledge, and museum treatment of Indigenous belongings.
Rooted in Garneau's life-long engagement at the intersections of visual art and writing, Dark Chapters presents a multifaceted reflection on the work of an inimitable, unparalleled artist.
Includes contributions from Arin Fay, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Cecily Nicholson, David Howes, Dick Averns, Fred Wah, Jeff Derksen, Jesse Wente, John G. Hampton, Larissa Lai, Lillian Allen, Paul Seesequasis, Peter Morin, Rita Bouvier, Susan Musgrave, Tarene Thomas, and Trevor Herriot.
For the Love of a Son
- Scott Oake
Trade paperback
$26.99
Reader Reward Price: $24.29
#1 National Bestseller
From Hockey Night in Canada's Scott Oake, a raw and honest memoir about his son's struggle with opioid use and how he turned a father's worst nightmare into a second chance for others battling addiction.
A father's love. A devastating drug crisis. A stirring call to action.
When veteran broadcaster Scott Oake first held his infant son, Bruce, in his arms, he never imagined that Bruce would become a statistic in the losing battle to opioid abuse.
In those early days, Scott, a new father, watched Bruce with awe, marveling at the potential of his funny, charismatic boy. As Bruce got older, though, he struggled to fit in at school and began showing signs of having ADHD, including a streak of impulsiveness that often got him into trouble. Scott and his wife, Anne, did their best to support him, and for a time, he found community and belonging in boxing and local rap battles. But when Bruce was pulled into a world of drugs and gangs, Scott and Anne experienced a crash course in the reality of loving someone battling substance use disorder.
Then one quiet day in 2011, Scott got the phone call that every parent dreads: Bruce had accidentally overdosed. At just twenty-five, Scott's vibrant, creative, first-born son was gone forever.
It was a loss that could have broken a man, a marriage, a family--but Scott, Anne, and their younger son, Darcy, instead turned the worst day of their lives into a way to help the thousands of Canadians struggling with addiction. After nearly a decade of fundraising and battling red tape and political machinations they launched the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre, a free, revolutionary treatment centre staffed by addicts and alcoholics in recovery.
For the Love of a Son is the story of a father's unconditional love for his son. Above all, it's the story of a young man who never got to grow up and a family who gives others the chance to find their way home.
How to Feed the World
- Vaclav Smil
Hardcover
$39.99
Reader Reward Price: $35.99
"Vaclav Smil is my favorite author."--Bill Gates
An indispensable analysis of how the world really produces and consumes its food--and a scientist's exploration of how we can successfully feed a growing population without killing the planet
We have never had to feed as many people as we do today. And yet, we misunderstand the essentials of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways. As a result, in our economic, political, and everyday choices, we take for granted and fail to prioritize the thing that makes all our lives possible: food.
In this ambitious, myth-busting book, Smil investigates many of the burning questions facing the world today: why are some of the world's biggest food producers also the countries with the most undernourished populations? Why do we waste so much food and how can we solve that? Could the whole planet go vegan and be healthy? Should it? He explores the global history of food production to understand why we farm some animals and not others, why most of the world's calories come from just a few foodstuffs, and how this might change in the future.
How to Feed the World is the data-based, rigorously researched guide that offers solutions to our broken global food system.
Joe
- Carol Rose GoldenEagle
Trade paperback
$21.95
Reader Reward Price: $19.76
Joe is a vampire who has a love interest with an Indigenous woman. The story is set in Regina Beach, and Joe is an alcoholic who continues to feed that addiction by feeding on others who have consumed too much alcohol. He has been a scoundrel for most of his human lifetime but now, being turned into a vampire, he seems to be getting his life together, so to speak. He is a killer, but where is the real monster? Is it Joe or is it alcohol? This book is a blending of vampire lore and Indigenous culture.
Nobody Asked for This
- Georgia Toews
Hardcover
$34.95
Reader Reward Price: $31.46
A razor-sharp dramedy following a twenty-something comic as she navigates family grief, dysfunctional friendship, and a date gone very wrong.
Virginia is twenty-three and a stand-up comedian. In between working the rounds of Toronto's small comedy club circuit and auditioning for paper towel commercials, she is tiptoeing around her depressed roommate and childhood friend, Haley, and having biweekly dinners with her bereaved stepdad, Dale, while trying to manage her own grief at the loss of her mother. She is also secretly working to get the green card that will be her ticket to LA and, she hopes, a glittering comedy career.
But when Dale tells her that he wants to sell their family home, and when a date with a fellow comic turns into a shattering encounter, she is forced to confront the limits of comedy and friendship. Not every experience can be neatly packaged into a "bit," and not every friendship is meant to last.
By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Nobody Asked for This reaches into the messy depths of love, friendship, grief, and trauma, and, like all the best jokes, is utterly unpredictable.
Twilight of Echelon
- Blaize Moritz , Robert Pasternak , Lovern Kindzierski
Trade paperback
$24.95
Reader Reward Price: $22.46
Celebrated Canadian artist Robert Pasternak has created the entire world of Echelon. But what do we know about Echelon? Nothing and neither do the four authors who are writing about Robert?s gorgeous silver-toned illustrations. Each author has been challenged with the magnificent task of writing about Echelon without knowing a single thing about it. All they have are Robert?s illustrations to go by. To make things even more interesting none of the authors know what the other is writing about. The end result is a world told from four unique perspectives with four distinct narratives. A singular work in scope, design, narrative, layout, and execution.
All the Little Monsters
- David A Robertson , Shelagh Rogers
Trade paperback
$25.99
Reader Reward Price: $23.39
With humour, warmth and heartbreaking honesty, award-winning author David A. Robertson explores the struggles and small victories of living with chronic anxiety and depression, and shares his hard-earned wisdom in the hope of making other people's mental health journeys a little less lonely
From the outside, David A. Robertson looks as if he has it all together--a loving family, a successful career as an author, and a platform to promote Indigenous perspectives, cultures and concerns. But what we see on the outside rarely reveals what is happening inside. Robertson lives with "little monsters": chronic, debilitating health anxiety and panic attacks accompanied, at times, by depression. During the worst periods, he finds getting out of bed to walk down the hall an insurmountable task. During the better times, he wrestles with the compulsion to scan his body for that sure sign of a dire health crisis.
In All the Little Monsters, Robertson reveals what it's like to live inside his mind and his body and describes the toll his mental health challenges have taken on him and his family, and how he has learned to put one foot in front of the other as well as to get back up when he stumbles. He also writes about the tools that have helped him carry on, including community, therapy, medication and the simple question he asks himself on repeat: what if everything will be okay?
In candidly sharing his personal story and showing that he can be well even if he can't be "cured," Robertson hopes to help others on their own mental health journeys.
Rethinking Free Speech
- Peter Ives
Trade paperback
$25.00
Reader Reward Price: $22.50
Clashes over free speech rights and wrongs haunt public debates about the state of democracy, freedom and the future. While freedom of speech is recognized as foundational to democratic society, its meaning is persistently misunderstood and distorted. Prominent commentators have built massive platforms around claims that their right to free speech is being undermined. Critics of free speech correctly see these claims as a veil for misogyny, white-supremacy, colonialism and transphobia, concluding it is a political weapon to conserve entrenched power arrangements. But is this all there is to say?
Rethinking Free Speech will change the way you think about the politics of speech and its relationship to the future of freedom and democracy in the age of social media. Political theorist Peter Ives offers a new way of thinking about the essential and increasingly contentious debates around the politics of speech. Drawing on political philosophy, including the classic arguments of JS Mill, and everyday examples, Ives takes the reader on a journey through the hotspots of today's raging speech wars. In its bold and careful insights on the combative politics of language, Rethinking Free Speech provides a map for critically grasping these battles as they erupt in university classrooms, debates around the meaning of antisemitism, the "cancelling" of racist comedians and the proliferation of hate speech on social media. This is an original and essential guide to the perils and possibilities of communication for democracy and justice.
This is a selection of our current Prairie Writers titles. To find other titles or authors, or just to browse, please use the search box.
