I am writing to ask for recommendations. In particular, I am looking for unusual self-published or small press Canadian fiction.
That's the short story. The long story, if you're curious, is this: I have proposed that the music blog Weirdcanada.com (an award winning site with a discovery-first ethos which places a premium on the local, the bizarre, and the innovative) expand into Canadian fiction. I am interested in this project because I like fiction and I like Weirdcanada.com. However, I don't know much about boundary-pushing, genre-defying, experimental Canadian fiction. In fact, I don't know anything about boundary-pushing, genre-defying, experimental Canadian fiction. A friend recently self-published a Choose-your-own-adventure about being a research mathematician, and I wrote about it [1]. Surely there are other oddities like that out there, but I don't know where or how to find them.
I am writing you with the hope that you will be able and willing to help me find more unusual Canadian fiction.
David, My basement office has been flooding recently and most of my books are hiding in plastic bins ... but I can give you some suggestions for now. If you're looking for boundary-pushing and genre-defying, you should look at Aritha van Herk's novels and non-fiction; books like Places far from Ellesmere.
Also the work of the late Robert Kroetsch -- his last book of poetry, Too Bad, grabs the reader with a startling and funny cover and keeps getting better from there.
Stuart Ross and Sheila Heti are writers of engagingly unusual and surprising fiction.
And I might add my collection of short fiction, The Logogryph, which is a bibliography of imaginary books.
I invite readers to add their own recommendations.
Come to think of it, this would make a good topic for a blog post...
Thank you David for this amazing disquisition on The Logogryph. It reads like a piece that belongs in The Logogryph itself, since it sounds like you're referring to an imaginary, impossible book.
5 comments:
I am writing to ask for recommendations. In particular, I am looking for unusual self-published or small press Canadian fiction.
That's the short story. The long story, if you're curious, is this: I have proposed that the music blog Weirdcanada.com (an award winning site with a discovery-first ethos which places a premium on the local, the bizarre, and the innovative) expand into Canadian fiction. I am interested in this project because I like fiction and I like Weirdcanada.com. However, I don't know much about boundary-pushing, genre-defying, experimental Canadian fiction. In fact, I don't know anything about boundary-pushing, genre-defying, experimental Canadian fiction. A friend recently self-published a Choose-your-own-adventure about being a research mathematician, and I wrote about it [1]. Surely
there are other oddities like that out there, but I don't know where or how to find them.
I am writing you with the hope that you will be able and willing to help me find more unusual Canadian fiction.
Thank you,
David Steinberg
[1] http://weirdcanada.com/2012/02/ex-libris-mathematics-odyssey-kent-windermere/
David,
My basement office has been flooding recently and most of my books are hiding in plastic bins ... but I can give you some suggestions for now. If you're looking for boundary-pushing and genre-defying, you should look at Aritha van Herk's novels and non-fiction; books like Places far from Ellesmere.
Also the work of the late Robert Kroetsch -- his last book of poetry, Too Bad, grabs the reader with a startling and funny cover and keeps getting better from there.
Stuart Ross and Sheila Heti are writers of engagingly unusual and surprising fiction.
And I might add my collection of short fiction, The Logogryph, which is a bibliography of imaginary books.
I invite readers to add their own recommendations.
Come to think of it, this would make a good topic for a blog post...
Thanks so much! I'll take a look at those recommendations.
David
P.S. It's no coincidence that I contacted you. The Logogryph was my inspiration for this project
As promised:
http://weirdcanada.com/2012/10/ex-libris-the-logogryph-thomas-wharton/
Thank you David for this amazing disquisition on The Logogryph. It reads like a piece that belongs in The Logogryph itself, since it sounds like you're referring to an imaginary, impossible book.
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