Hannah Colville
Hannah Colville is a writer and English tutor entering Library studies at Dalhousie.
Brain Food is an informal book news and reviews page that welcomes your comments and criticism. Check in for quick updates, gossip and all things bookish.
LINKS
Go To Infomonkey Books
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Atlantic Summer Reading Guide |
 JULY 6, 2007
If you didn't get this year's Atlantic Summer Reading Guide in the Globe or the Herald, check it out at the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association website:
www.atlanticpublishers.ca
It's full of great new and classic titles from Atlantic Canadian publishers and there's something for everyone. The Republic of Nothing, by Lesley Choyce, is out in a new edition from Goose Lane. I'm recommending that everyone read the local writers in The Vagrant Revue of New Fiction, recently published by Nimbus. Formac always has great recipe books on offer from Elaine Elliott and Virginia Lee, and you can discover a number of new YA titles from various publishers as well. You can also find out which ...
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Fine Lines: Clothesline Culture |
 JUNE 30, 2007
Fine Lines: A Celebration of Clothesline Culture is an exhaustive study of the habits and obsessions of clothesline devotees. Cindy Etter-Turnbull (a.k.a. Mrs. Clothesline) shows how, for many people, the clothesline is not just a place to dry clothes, but a rich source of memories, an invitation to create art, and part of a complex and controversial system.
The book is a patchwork of rural history, stories that the author received from eager liners across rural Canada, and clothesline tips and detailed directions. Etter-Turnbull is from Windsor, N.S., and was featured on CBC’s Vinyl Café for her interest in the role of clotheslines in rural life. To complete the book, she interviewed man...
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Feast and Famine in the Vagrant Revue |
 JUNE 25, 2007
In her Coda to The Vagrant Revue of New Fiction, editor Sandra McIntyre stresses the importance of the reader’s freedom to roam within an anthology. The Revue is a collection of short stories written by emerging writers from Atlantic Canada, and McIntyre puts the reader in control, encouraging “readerly whimsy,” and revelling in the “fun of anthologies” where the reader is “set loose.” Though at times this reader’s freedom gives way to a desperate, rambling search for good writing, when you find a good story in this collection, it’s very good.
The most exciting discovery for me in the Vagrant Revue was the sharp, funny and realistic work of Darcy Rhyno. “What It Would Make of Him as He ...
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Ledwell's Story Brook |
 JUNE 15, 2007
Frank Ledwell is now in his third year as P.E.I’s second Poet Laureate. It’s no surprise that The Taste of Water starts and ends at home in P.E.I., but Ledwell varies his discussion of home considerably, moving from sketches of local personalities to discussions of a more widespread feeling of being ‘at home’ in quiet moments or in aesthetic appreciation. His love of P.E.I. and his strong bond with his family are evident in the collection--it is undeniably a family affair, as daughter Jane Ledwell (herself a fine poet) edited the work, and the painting on the cover is the work of son Danny Ledwell.
I was slow to warm up to this collection because the first two poems, “Leaving home” and “...
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Fluff Fest |
 APRIL 2, 2007
I am generally of the “If you can’t say anything nice…” school of writing, and therefore I hesitate to go into too much detail about the final reading of the 2007 Halifax International Writer’s Festival. But it can be painful to keep horrible events to yourself.
Maureen Hull, Alan Cumyn, and Rebecca Eckler wrapped up the festival. First of all, it was an odd trio. Eckler in particular seemed out of place reading her popular blog-style memoir next to two more serious writers. In some cases, as on Friday night’s reading, diversity works. Here, we just wondered what was going on.
Maureen Hull began by reading from her first novel The View ...
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Diverse Voices at the Writer’s Fest |
 APRIL 1, 2007
On Friday night at the Lord Nelson Hotel, four incredibly diverse writers gathered to read for a full house. Agnes Walsh, Stephanie Domet, Lorri Neilsen Glenn and Tanya Davis were reading, and the group truly offered something for everyone.
Agnes Walsh, who read first, is the poet laureate for St John’s, and also the founder of the Tramore Theatre Troupe, which works to preserve the history and voices of the people on the Cape Shore of Placentia Bay, near her home on the Bay. Her work is earthy and unromantic, focused on the language and stories of Newfoundland people. She often writes with steady, grim humour.
Her poem “Love”, written for the CBC poetry competition (though she moc...
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Blondes are People Too |
 MARCH 25, 2007
If you felt tortured by the popularity and all-around superiority of a clique of giggling Blondes in High school, you might not recognize the light-headed leaders of Teresa Toten’s Me and the Blondes. For starters, the Blondes are nice. And smart. And, we are forced to realize, quite human, with problems of their own.
Me and the Blondes is the story of 15 year-old Sophie Kadinsky and her need for normal. Her father is serving time for manslaughter (though we are told that he “hardly did any of the slaughtering”) and she has faced cruel teasing from classmates for years. After having switched schools several times, she vows to become popular and stay at her latest school, Northern Heights ...
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Doctors' Notes |
 MARCH 17, 2007
Many great writers have also been Doctors; John Keats, Anton Chekhov, and William Carlos Willliams are just a few of the more recognizable names. Lately, however, as the medical world becomes increasingly a part of popular culture (see ER, Scrubs, Grey’s Anatomy, Dr. Phil, Dr. Marla Shapiro), we are seeing more high profile Doctor-writers. There is now more focus on writing about the practice of medicine itself, and on writing as a way for Doctors to change their clinical approach and help them to deal with the stress of medical practice.
Most medical schools have Narrative Medicine departments, or at least teach literature or medical narrative classes specifically designed for medical s...
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In Search of Risk: Author Michael Ungar |
 MARCH 10, 2007
It’s very cold and blustery outside the night Michael Ungar is scheduled to speak at Fairview Junior High School in Halifax. Despite the weather, a group of attentive parents has gathered inside the school library to hear Ungar address the topic of his latest book, Too Safe for Their Own Good, which argues that teens need to encounter risk in order to grow up, and that parents who coddle them ultimately do them harm.
Ungar is a Professor at the School of Social Work at Dalhousie whose research with the International Resilience Movement is recognized throughout the world. His work with this movement examines how youth around the world manage to cope with various adversities, including pov...
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Canada's New Yorkers |
 MARCH 3, 2007
It’s more than a little dangerous, especially among Can Lit scholars, to suggest that Canadian Literature was started in the U.S. Yet that is exactly what Nick Mount does in his provocative study When Canadian Literature Moved to New York.
While many may imagine Canadian poetry growing out of the country’s vast and inspiring landscapes, Mount points out that, at home, budding Canadian writers in the post-confederation period (1880 to 1900) faced poverty and anonymity, and were forced to transplant their creative roots into the busy centres of New York.
The expatriates’ contribution to Canadian literature has been overlooked, Mount argues, as have the reasons for their departure in the...
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Rare Books: Books in Nova Scotia You Should Know About |
 FEBRUARY 23, 2007
Many people have never had the chance to spend time in a rare books room, or in the Public Archives. With this feature, I hope to bring attention to several of the rare books and interesting literary artifacts that can be found, and accessed by anyone, within libraries and archives in and around Halifax. “Oh great,” you’re thinking, “a dusty books feature!” But really, anyone with the slightest interest in history or literature will find something exciting in these collections. If sitting in a rare books room and being really quiet for a period of time doesn’t appeal to you, you can view many materials online through the Library and Archives Canada website or the Nova Scotia Archives & Recor...
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NEWSMAKERS: Books and Writers in the Spotlight |
 FEBRUARY 19, 2007
THREE WISHES
The continuing controversy over Deborah Ellis’ book Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak displays some of the difficulties involved in writing and prescribing books on “politically sensitive” issues for children. Three Wishes is a compilation of interviews with Palestinian and Israeli school children, and as you might expect, there are some pretty disturbing beliefs and comments throughout, including children speaking about suicide bombers as role models.
The trouble started when the Ontario Library Association chose Three Wishes for the high-profile Silver Birch Children’s reading program, which is intended for children in grades 4-6. The Canadian Jewish C...
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A Writer's Remorse: Alice Munro's The View From Castle Rock |
 FEBRUARY 16, 2007
Alice Munro has been dealing with writer’s remorse throughout her career. Not that she’s overcome with remorse—on the surface it’s just the opposite. She is playful and ironic, and most of the stories in The View From Castle Rock are about playing with and eventually breaking this sense of guilt over what a writer must do.
The trouble lies in the way a writer can be said to use the lives of people around her, to alter and recreate them for her own purposes. This is old territory for Munro: in “Material’, the narrator struggles with anger at her ex-husband’s published story detailing scenes from their life together. In Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, young Edith and S...
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Valley Girls in Love and Service: Elizabeth Bachinsky's Home of Sudden Service |
 FEBRUARY 9, 2007
The cover blurb of Home of Sudden Service calls attention to the gritty and startling side of Elizabeth Bachinsky’s poems, labelling her work “Valley Gothic” made of “punk rock villanelles and delinquent sonnets.” These descriptions make great cover copy, but they don’t do justice to the depth of understanding and imagination you will find in many of these poems. Bachinsky is not as hard as she might like to appear, though you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise after reading the first poem in the collection.
Home of Sudden Service is a portrait of life in B.C.’s Fraser Valley and the opening poem, “Valley,” introduces the area with a smirk. Bachinsky presents her relationship with t...
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Charles Dickens in Halifax |
 FEBRUARY 9, 2007
This is an excerpt from Nova Scotia: A Traveller's Companion; Over 300 Years of Travel Writing, edited by Lesley Choyce and published in 2005 by Pottersfield Press.
CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870)
HALIFAX - 1842
Born at Portsmouth, England, in 1812, Dickens went on to become one of his country's best known novelists. The Pickwick Papers, published in 1836, brought him considerable fame and allowed him to speak out as a social reformer. Some of his best known novels include David Copperfield, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and Hard Times. He also penned the much loved holiday hook A Christmas Carol.
In 1842, he travelled to North America where his first stop was Halifax. T...
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Page to Stage: Mourning Dove Plays at Neptune |
 FEBRUARY 2, 2007
Mourning Dove is a difficult play with roots in the story of Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan farmer who killed his severely disabled daughter Tracy in 1993. It was originally written for broadcast on CBC radio’s Morningside, and will be playing at Neptune Theatre in Halifax between February 13 and March 4.
In the play, Doug and Sandra Ramsay are preparing for their disabled daughter Tina’s major surgery, described as a “salvage procedure.” While Sandra and Keith (a lively family friend) are committed to the operation and are planning for Tina’s recovery, Doug is not convinced that the operation will relieve his daughter of her almost constant pain, and he ultimately takes matters into hi...
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The Hovels and Hospitality of Nova Scotia |
 JANUARY 31, 2007
There is no enthusiasm for Nova Scotia like that of visiting friends and family from outside the province. They are amazed by the untamed, undeveloped land between the airport and Halifax, they love the short drives to the beaches and the variety of beautiful scenery to be found within such a small geographic area. And in contrast, sometimes native Nova Scotians like myself can seem a bit…well, unconcerned about all of this.
Lesley Choyce’s collection Nova Scotia A Traveller’s Companion: Over 300 Years of Travel Writing will increase your enthusiasm for Nova Scotia travel and history, no matter where you come from.
In his introduction, Choyce underlines the fact that sometimes it takes...
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