Taking the Stairs AVAILABLE 0-88971-221-2 · Paperback 5.5" x 8.5" · 214 pages · $21.95 May 2008 "Taking the Stairs is subtle, desperation-laced with bits of hope that compel it forward with improbable force. It’s Stiles’ best, and a winner by all accounts." —Corb Lund Jarod Palmer is a 32-year-old Toronto writer waiting for his big break—though a small one will do. Haunted by his story of tragic teenage sweethearts in smalltown Nova Scotia—featuring the unforgettable Lana Banana—Jarod is infected by the ancient mariner’s curse on all young unpublished novelists to "tell the tale." The problem is that he is trying to pursue his solitary and introspective task in a city that feels like a film set: "the lights are on all the time." Between answering constant phone calls from his doting, overprotective mother and a perpetually neurotic, alcoholic and soon-to-be-divorced film producer determined to convince Jarod into plying his trade for the "dark side," Jarod finds time to communicate just as ineffectively with his volatile Spanish girlfriend. His pursuit of work gives new meaning to the term "odd job": dishwasher, copywriter, telemarketer, door-to-door salesman, film set gofer . . . One day, despite a $50-per-hour press-release-writing gig, Jarod finds himself at a restaurant table with his girlfriend, a bottle of ketchup, a bill, and not a dime in his pocket. Sorting through life in the city, writing, rejection letters from publishers, jobs, and a rocky relationship, Taking the Stairs is fast-moving, risky and infectiously fun. This is the story of Jarod Palmer's self-discovery—a coming-of-age for the soon-to-be-evicted. It's the perfect book for anyone who's ever found themselves an elevator-ride away from their dreams. Repose AVAILABLE 0-88971-219-0 · Paperback 5.5" x 8" · 88 pages · $16.95 March 2008 Repose, the striking new work by award-winning poet Adam Getty, is technically flawless, philosophically refreshing and naturally phrased. Repose is an exploration of the definition of cultural freedom; it is a pointed look at an obsession with production, and a comparison of the natural and urban environments that shape our lives. Getty argues that our lives are so tightly controlled by non-negotiable experiences of employment that for the majority of people, employment is anything but a democratic process. Getty's attempt to find spontaneity and a modern idiom by writing in traditional poetic styles mirrors a cultural attempt to find freedom and vitality. By meticulously studying the poetic techniques of the past, Adam Getty has put new wine into old wineskins: he has found a voice that is erudite, disciplined and, ultimately, free. Living Things AVAILABLE 0-88971-223-9 · Paperback 5.25" x 7.5" · 88 pages · $16.95 March 2008 "Living Things thrives." -George Elliott Clarke, Halifax ChronicleHerald Written in the year after the birth of Matt Rader's first daughter, Living Things honestly introduces the contradictions of the modern world: "how what we see in daylight is less than whole / and also more so." Using words in lieu of sonar, these poems bounce off the ecology of "shabby saturated grasses" and "panther-eyed armies of salal," and locate both author and reader within a literary genealogy. Matt Rader's poetry brings subtle slowness to a chaotic, fast-paced environment. It is both celebration and documentation of this world and its relationship to all living things. Birch Split Bark AVAILABLE 0-88971-215-8 · Paperback 5.5" x 8.0" · 102 pages · $16.95 November 2007 A debut collection of haunting poetry. Winner of the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize In her debut collection of poems, Birch Split Bark, Diane Guichon uses a quintessentially Canadian image—a birch bark canoe—to speak of those private waters that make us universally human. By writing in the first person of a father, a mother, a son and a daughter, she bridges age to gender, myth to memory and hatred to reconciliation. These poems are brave and brilliantly voiced and her descriptions are as haunting as a loon’s concerto on a silent summer lake. Guichon's characters speak to the plurality of Canadian identity; in four distinct voices, Guichon pulls apart the myths that have created us and continue to dictate who we must be. Birch Split Bark proves that canoes will always write history upon their waters just as poets will write humanity upon the page. Forage AVAILABLE 0-88971-213-1 · Paperback 5.5" x 8" · 88 pages · $16.95 December 2007 "Her questioning truthfulness demonstrates that Wong is a significant poet." —George Elliott Clarke, Halifax Sunday Herald Winner of the 2008 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize Rita Wong's new collection of poems explores how ecological crises relate to the injustices of our international political landscape. Querying the relations between writing and other forms of action, Wong seeks a shift in consciousness through poems that bespeak a range of responses to our world: anger, protest, anxiety, bewilderment, hope and love. In her words, "the next shift may be the biggest one yet, the union of the living, from mosquito to manatee to mom." Forage is accompanied by marginalia, Chinese characters and photos that give depth to the political context in which most of Wong's poems are situated. She is instructive without being pedantic, and thought-provoking while still calling forth humour and beauty. The Lost Coast Salmon, Memory and the Death of Wild Culture AVAILABLE 0-88971-211-5 · Hardback 6" x 9" · 255 pages · $29.95 September 2007 An impassioned lament for the home Bowling once knew and for the river and creatures that continue to haunt his imagination. A 2008 Kiriyama Prize "Notable Book" Finalist for the Writers’ Trust Nereus Non-Fiction Prize Finalist for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, BC Book Prize Finalist for the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction, Alberta Literary Awards Longlisted for the British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-fiction Somewhere between joyous affirmation of British Columbia's splendour and momentous grief for the destruction of a once thriving salmon culture comes the newest work from acclaimed poet and novelist Tim Bowling. The Lost Coast is a lyrical, impassioned lament for the home Bowling once knew and for the river and creatures that continue to haunt his imagination. Raised in Ladner, BC, by a gillnetting family, Bowling was a fisherman himself until the mid-1990s. The loss of the West Coast's salmon culture is felt deeply by Bowling; this is a betrayal of his birthright and a decimation of his children's heritage. The Lost Coast asks hard questions of politicians, fishermen, fish farmers, industrialists and of the three million people currently inhabiting Greater Vancouver. What is the story behind the pioneers who built this province? What is the secret life of the killer whale and the great blue heron? And above all else, who caused, and continues to hasten, the diminishment of the Pacific salmon, British Columbia's most totemic creature? With a poet's attention to details of the spirit, and a novelist's flair for character and story, Tim Bowling elevates his cherished homeland to the realm of enduring myth.