Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 1d

I only list small presses - do you publish translations? I can't tell from your description. Thanks!

Reposted by Joanne Merriam

TriCon @tricon-hfx.bsky.social · 5d

TriCon will be at @canconsffh.bsky.social! Look for our Executive Chair, @charlotteashley.bsky.social, in Ottawa the weekend of October 17-19 2025. She'll have TriCon swag & all the answers you could want about Kjipuktuk's newest literary event!

Come say hi and introduce yourself! 💙📚🔱

TriCon's schedule: Saturday, October 18, 11:30-12:20pm, Reading Like a Writer w/ several panelists; Sunday, October 19, 2:30-3:29pm, Local Writing Communities & How to Join Them w/ several panelists.

An October calendar indicating the dates of Can*Con (October 17, 18, and 19) reading Let's hang at Can*Con! Includes social media handles.

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Reposted by Joanne Merriam

Trident Booksellers & Cafe @tridenthalifax.bsky.social · 5d

Come say hi to TriCon Chair/Trident Owner Charlotte at @canconsffh.bsky.social in Ottawa! She's always approachable and will be happy to talk all things TriCon, Halifax, books, science fiction, coffee, and--frankly--anything else you can imagine.

TriCon @tricon-hfx.bsky.social · 5d

TriCon will be at @canconsffh.bsky.social! Look for our Executive Chair, @charlotteashley.bsky.social, in Ottawa the weekend of October 17-19 2025. She'll have TriCon swag & all the answers you could want about Kjipuktuk's newest literary event!

Come say hi and introduce yourself! 💙📚🔱

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 8d

Spent the day hemming curtains. We're outfitting the whole house we just bought, so that's for 14 windows. I've gotten all of the curtains cut to the right length and about half ironed in prep for the actual hemming, and tomorrow I'll finish ironing and then use the iron-on hem stuff to finish them.

A screenshot of Britney Spears from the video for Hit Me Baby One More Time, with the lyrics MY LONELINESS IS KILLING ME superimposed, but LONELINESS has been crossed out and replaced with LOWER BACK.

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 10d

I made crabapple crisp last night. 😋 Here's the #recipe: joannemerriam.com/2025/09/28/c...

Crabapple Crisp – Joanne Merriam

joannemerriam.com

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Reposted by Joanne Merriam

Mahaila Smith (they/them) @mahailasmith.ca · 12d

Purple prose ;)

Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

4/12 #SmallPress #books #BookSky #DSPBposts 💙📚 @skunkbabepoet.bsky.social ‬ @mahaila.bsky.social @stelliform.press

Book cover for poetry collection Coining a Wishing Tower by Ayesha Raees (Radix Press), with a single cube within a circle against a navy background. “In the end, living is dying many times in one singular life,” writes Ayesha Raees, inviting you to consider the departures that make up one lifetime. The splintering of a voice from domestic life, the defiance of wisdom leaving childhood behind, the egress from one’s country of birth, and the non-permanence of life and inanimate objects become the rich pasture for the hybrid epic poems in this collection. Through investigation of family, faith, empire, and desire, Raees sutures together parables, both real and imagined, as concrete prose-poems of chronicle and whimsy. Winner of the 2020 Broken River Book Prize. https://radix.coop/product/coining-a-wishing-tower/ or https://www.akpress.org/coining-a-wishing-tower.html

Book cover for Black Writers Matter edited by Whitney French (University of Regina Press), with title and author text against a purple background, on which is written in lavender: "Black Writers? African, Bluesy, Classical, Disrespectful, Erudite, Fiery, Groovy, Haunting, Inspiring, Jazzy, Knowing, Liberating, Militant, Nervy, Optimistic, Pugnacious, Quixotic, Rambunctious, Seductive, Truculent, Urgent, Vivacious, Wicked, X-ray sharp, Yearning, Zesty. And so, they matter!" —George Elliott Clarke. An anthology of African-Canadian writing, Black Writers Matter offers a cross-section of established writers and newcomers to the literary world who tackle contemporary and pressing issues with beautiful, sometimes raw, prose. https://uofrpress.ca/Books/B/Black-Writers-Matter

Book cover for Now You Know Me: Seeing the Unhidden Truth in Settler Colonialism by k'ʷunəmɛn Joe Gallagher & John Matterson (Hancock House). Now You Know Me tells of a journey of understanding between two old friends who grew up in different worlds in the same small town of Powell River, BC, on traditional Tla’amin land. Joe Gallagher, who is Tla’amin, and John Matterson, who is white, were friends as teenagers but went their separate ways before reconnecting 35 years later and truly getting to know each other. In their illuminating dialogue, we learn what it took for Joe to straddle two worlds while battling racism, a traumatic childhood, and his father’s warning that he couldn’t succeed in a white world without working twice as hard. Despite ongoing suffering from multigenerational harms, Joe garnered broad respect on his way to becoming CEO of a groundbreaking Indigenous-led health organization, bringing hope and a collaborative spirit to a revolution in health and wellness for BC First Nations. https://www.hancockhouse.com/products/now-you-know-me

Book cover for Seed Beetle by Mahaila Smith (Stelliform Press‬), with a mechanical beetle in bright colours with gears exposed against a soft lavender background. In a climate changed future, Canada is thought to be a promised land. But in southern Ontario, the promise and the land are exhausted: industrialization has led to widespread destruction, desertification and food insecurity. So when Utopic Robotics promises growth and presents a community with a swarm of automated beetles that will revitalize the land and rebuild utopia, community members rally behind the corporation and its message of hope. But technological solutions often come with secret risks. This collection of illustrated poems explores those risks inherent in utopia and the idea that through science alone we can solve our environmental problems. Through femme and queer perspectives, Smith lays bare the social implications of a technological savior, and creates a blueprint for co-opting technology in the name of community and connection. https://www.stelliform.press/index.php/product/seed-beetle-by-mahaila-smith/

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

12/12 #SmallPress #books #BookSky #DSPBposts 💙📚 @akashicbooks.bsky.social @ailencruz.bsky.social ‬ @mcgillqueensup.bsky.social ‬ @heritagehouse.bsky.social

Book cover for From Griffin to Axolotl: Reimagining the Bestiary in Contemporary Hispanic Literature by Ailen Cruz (part of the McGill-Queen's Iberian and Latin American Cultures Series, forthcoming December 2025), with a stylized griffin and axolotl on opposite sides of a box. The fox is cunning, the lion is brave. These familiar ideas span back to the medieval bestiary – short, animal-centred texts, often illustrated, used to disseminate Christian teachings in medieval society. Translated into dozens of languages, bestiaries were wildly popular until the twelfth century. After centuries of obscurity, six of Latin America’s most prominent writers – Juan José Arreola, Jorge Luis Borges, Nicolás Guillén, Augusto Monterroso, Pablo Neruda, and José Emilio Pacheco – took up the bestiary during the experimental Latin American avant-garde and Boom periods. This book presents the bestiary as a distinct genre within Hispanic literature, examining its resurgence in the contemporary canon. Analyzing a corpus of over eighty bestiaries collected through field research in Canada, Argentina, Mexico, and Spain, Ailén Cruz explores the evolutions of the genre. https://www.mqup.ca/from-griffin-to-axolotl-products-9780228026310.php

Book cover for memoir Naomi's Houses by Rosalie I. Tennison (Heritage House Publishing), with a line drawing of a two-storey but small house on a wide prairie. In the crushing poverty of post-war rural Manitoba, Naomi, a mother of three, pushes through incredible obstacles to ensure her children’s security and future prosperity. Closely observed by one of those children, Naomi endures decades of financial struggle, male dominance, and the loss of her husband, while endeavouring to shelter her family as their circumstances change again and again. https://heritagehouse.ca/products/naomis-houses

Book cover for Carnival at the End of the World edited by Harper Walton (Buoy Press), with a pencil drawing of lines and circles. Photo from Buoy Press's Linked-In account of several copies of the book lined up on a sales table. People metamorphose into birds, vows of silence become clown eras, hallucinogenic visions are plentiful, language and form disintegrates and evolves, drugs unlock psychogeography, sex and gender fluctuate and threaten to explode, bodies open and close, toilet queues stretch on for infinity, and streams of consciousness are polluted. In our contemporary moment of poly-apocalyptic anxiety, can we find a rugged sense of optimism? Or perhaps it is already too late, with nothing left for us to do but dance into the flaming rubble. Contributors Olly Barrett, David Dobson, Jack Houston, Nick Maynard, Alice Musgrove, Luke Reilly, Maria Robinson, Lily Steve, James Tilden, Harper Walton, and Alfie White. https://buoypress.sumupstore.com/product/carnival-at-the-end-of-the-world

$Book cover for A Million Aunties by Alecia McKenzie (Akashic Books), with a green and yellow leaf against a deep yellow background. After a personal tragedy upends his world, American-born artist Chris travels to his mother’s homeland in the Caribbean hoping to find some peace and tranquility. He plans to spend his time painting in solitude and coming to terms with his recent loss and his fractured relationship with his father. Instead, he discovers a new extended and complicated “family.” The people he meets help him to heal, even as he supports them in unexpected ways. Told from different points of view, this is a compelling novel about unlikely love, friendship, and community, with surprises along the way. https://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/a-million-aunties/$

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

11/12 #SmallPress #books #BookSky #DSPBposts 💙📚 @fernpub.bsky.social @houseofanansi.bsky.social @dundurnpress.bsky.social @arsenalpulp.bsky.social

Book cover for i cut my tongue on a broken country by poet Kyo Lee (Arsenal Pulp), with a chalk-pencil drawing of a person with their eyes closed and flowers growing all around them. Lotus flowers, youthful hunger, and other temporary beauties intertwine to tell this coming-of-age story, a set of pulsating poems that move toward a distant memory or a flaming future. Kyo Lee's intimate debut poetry collection is simultaneously a vulnerable confession and a micro study of macro topics including lineage, family, war, and hope. i cut my tongue on a broken country explores the Asian American diaspora, queerness, girlhood, and the relationships between and within them, pushing and pulling on the boundaries of identity and language like a story trying to tell itself. i cut my tongue on a broken country documents a search for love. It's a eulogy for the things we gave up to get here. It's an ode to tenderness. It blossoms and bleeds in your hands. https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/I/i-cut-my-tongue-on-a-broken-country

Book cover for Abolitionist Intimacies by El Jones (Fernwood Publishing), with green lines suggestive of prison bars which turn into a profusion of flowers and butterflies at their tops. In Abolitionist Intimacies, El Jones examines the movement to abolish prisons through the Black feminist principles of care and collectivity. Understanding the history of prisons in Canada in their relationship to settler colonialism and anti-Black racism, Jones observes how practices of intimacy become imbued with state violence at carceral sites including prisons, policing and borders, as well as through purported care institutions such as hospitals and social work. The state also polices intimacy through mechanisms such as prison visits, strip searches and managing community contact with incarcerated people. Despite this, Jones argues, intimacy is integral to the ongoing struggles of prisoners for justice and liberation through the care work of building relationships and organizing with the people inside. Through characteristically fierce and personal prose and poetry, and motivated by a decade of prison justice work, Jones observes that abolition is not only a political movement to end prisons; it is also an intimate one deeply motivated by commitment and love. https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/abolitionist-intimacies

Book cover for The Golden Daughter: My Mother’s Secret Past as a Ukrainian Slave Worker in Nazi Germany by journalist Halina St. James (House of Anansi), with three stylized flowers arranged like a little family (like those stickers people put on their cars). Sorting through her late mother’s possessions, Halina St. James found a secret stash of letters. They told how her mother, Maria, was abducted as a teenager in Ukraine by Nazis and sent to Germany as a slave. After the war, Maria found herself pregnant in a displaced persons camp. She married the father, an older man from a noble Polish family. But her life changed when her husband introduced his friend, a young Polish freedom fighter. In Canada, the younger man betrayed his friend and ran off with Maria and Halina. The letters made Halina realize how little she knew of her mother or her heritage. The Golden Daughter is the gripping story of a mother and daughter shaped by forces they had no control over. https://houseofanansi.com/products/the-golden-daughter

Book cover for The Hypebeast by Adnan Khan (Rare Machines/Dundurn), with a slinking dark green cougar with yellow eyes against a green background with yellow text. Hamid Shaikh is a small-time crook in the big city, hoping that one of his cons will lead to riches. Tax fraud, telemarketing tricks, government scams. Whatever it takes. When he’s not working the phones hustling fake promises, he dreams of a move that will finally announce his arrival. When his girlfriend Natalie Mendoza vanishes, Hamid finds himself pulled into the orbit of former Guantanamo Bay detainee turned social-media imam Abdul Mohammad. On the surface, Abdul’s organization is virtuous: they are helping other detainees rehabilitate to life outside the prison. But as Hamid dives deeper into Abdul’s nebulous and luxurious world, he finds a confusing mix of religious zeal and cynical self-advancement. With his connection to the imam deepening, Hamid must decide just how far into darkness he can go before losing sight of himself. https://www.dundurn.com/books_/t22117/a9781459754478-the-hypebeast

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

10/12 #SmallPress #books #BookSky #DSPBposts 💙📚 @beaconpress.bsky.social @catapultbooks.bsky.social @llpmtl.bsky.social @kegedoncepress.bsky.social

Book cover for The Bigamist by Felicia Mihali, translated by Linda Leith (Linda Leith Publishing), with a woman in a red dress side-eying the viewer (with both eyes on one side of her face). The story of a woman torn between her husband and her lover—and about her transition to a new life in a city teeming with multiple identities. Tension mounts as she risks offending everyone in her conservative immigrant community if she chooses to leave her husband. The comings and goings between these two men reveal couples torn not only by conflicting loves and loyalties, but also by the chasm separating their present in Montreal from the past they’ve left behind. https://www.lindaleith.com/en/pages/book-detail/The_Bigamist

Book cover for An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States by Kyle T. Mays (Beacon Press), with title and author text in red, green, yellow and white against a black background. The first intersectional history of the Black and Native American struggle for freedom in our country that also reframes our understanding of who was Indigenous in early America. https://www.beacon.org/An-Afro-Indigenous-History-of-the-United-States-P1898.aspx

Book cover for Who Gets Believed?: When the Truth Isn't Enough by former refugee Dina Nayeri (Catapult), with the title and author text in white (except the word Truth in red) against a black background. From the author of The Ungrateful Refugee, Who Gets Believed? is a groundbreaking book about persuasion and performance that asks unsettling questions about lies, truths, and the difference between being believed and being dismissed in situations spanning asylum interviews, emergency rooms, consulting jobs, and family life. https://books.catapult.co/books/who-gets-believed/

Book cover for Commonwealth by poet D.A. Lockhart (Kegedonce Press), with a central drawing of a red flower in bloom surrounded by leaves and six-pointed stars. Commonwealth is a profound lyrical meditation on the pre- and post-colonial migrations of the Lenape population throughout the American Midwest, from the watershed of Weli Sipu (the Ohio River) in the Commonwealth of Kentucky to Indiana and beyond. This is a book that transcribes the languages of rivers, highways, rail lines, and buffalo traces. It seeks—or is pushed toward—destinations that are always over the horizon. It is about the fluidity of space and time, and the tangibility of history. As the Lenape journey ever northward and westward, they both create and are created by a collective body of stories: stories of belonging and exclusion, of freedom and confinement, of aspirations and hard truths. Commonwealth explores the ways landscape and people inform one another, and does so in a way that is as clear as a broad Ohio sky. https://kegedonce.com/books/commonwealth/

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

9/12 #SmallPress #books #BookSky #DSPBposts 💙📚 @adriennejs.bsky.social @redhenpress.bsky.social @barbicanpress.bsky.social @teresawong.bsky.social ‬ @arsenalpulp.bsky.social

Book cover for The Fifth Dimension by Martin Vopěnka, translated from the Czech by Hana Sklenkova (Barbican Press), with a photograph of a masculine-appearing person in t-shirt and cargo shorts, hanging in the air while holding up a white landscape against a deep blue background filled with stars. To support his family, a man submits himself to a solo science experiment in the High Andes. A cosmic adventure story of big ideas and murder. Your business is dead. It seems like a deal: leave your family behind in Prague for a year, isolate yourself in a research station in the Andes, and come home with a fortune. With a treatise on black holes for company, Jakob settles in at altitude. The air is thin. Strangers pass by on dangerous pilgrimage while his young wife and kids take life in his mind. One visitor provides a startling challenge to his sexuality. In mountain starkness, the big questions take shape: like what happens to love inside a black hole? Part murder mystery, part science fiction, part mystical quest, part mountain adventure, always remarkable. https://barbicanpress.com/book/the-fifth-dimension/

Book cover for A Professional Lola and Other Stories by E. P. Tuazon (Red Hen Press), with a woman in a red dress doing her makeup seated at a vanity, while wearing sunglasses. A Professional Lola is a collection of short stories that blend literary fiction with the surreal to present the contemporary Filipino American experience and its universal themes of love, family, and identity. A family hires an actress to play their beloved grandmother at a party; a couple craving Filipino food rob a panaderya; a coven of Filipino witches cast a spell on their husbands; a Lolo transforms into a Lola. These are just a few of the stories in the collection that represent its roster of stories beautifully grounded in culture and vividly and meticulously painted to make the absurd seem mundane and the commonplace, sinister. https://redhen.org/book/professional-lola/

Book cover for All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey by Teresa Wong (Arsenal Pulp), with two figures in ankle-deep water, one connected to the other by a length of red rope. Longlisted for Canada Reads 2025 and winner of 2 Alberta Literary Awards (the Memoir Award and the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction). Beginning with her mother's stroke in 2014, Teresa Wong takes us on a moving journey through time and place to locate the beginnings of the disconnection she feels from her parents. Through a series of stories - some epic, like her mother and father's daring escapes from communes during China's Cultural Revolution, and some banal, like her quitting Chinese school to watch Saturday morning cartoons - Wong carefully examines the cultural, historical, language, and personality barriers to intimacy in her family, seeking answers to the questions "Where did I come from?" and "Where are we going?" At the same time, she discovers how storytelling can bridge distances and help make sense of a life. https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/A/All-Our-Ordinary-Stories

Book cover for Skipping Stones by Marie-Andrée Auclair and Adrienne Stevenson (The BumplePuppy Press), with a stone in the act of skipping across a lake. Magic and wisdom gestate in the moments of our quotidian lives, ripening in our memories. With humour and insight, Marie-Andrée Auclair and Adrienne Stevenson reflect on the passage of time and its endless changes, exploring shifting relationships in our restless world. For more than a decade, these Ottawa writers shared their poems-in-progress, only to realize their work was a dialogue that must see print together. The result is the remarkable collaboration that is Skipping Stones, a cycle of poems that speaks to the living truths within us all. https://bppress.ca/product/skipping-stones-paperback/

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

8/12 #SmallPress #books #BookSky #DSPBposts 💙📚 @okaylib.bsky.social @bellpressbooks.bsky.social @roxanellanque.bsky.social @pbarmby.bsky.social @anthonyboulanger.bsky.social @gideongregory.bsky.social @adriennejs.bsky.social @mahaila.bsky.social @fleurymarc.bsky.social

Book cover for Weird Wild West by Carter Rydyr (Antoinette Rydyr and Steve Carter) and Ethan Somerville (Bizarro Pulp Press). Six colourful characters, some not entirely human, embark on a perilous journey south from Sunbleached Plains to Kellyville. A dapper dentist, a southern belle, a wealthy madam, a retired banker turned gambler, an orphaned boy and a travelling body-parts salesman all trade their various stories to pass the time. Driving the carriage is one Zeke “the Freak” Sarandon, a retired soldier with more than one strange, nervous habit. Although he is an experienced traveller, and the only one insane enough to take the most direct route south, even he cannot prevent his passengers from each meeting their grisly demise, one by one. Hot on the trail of the coach, astride an ancient mechanical horse blowing sparks and belching out toxic clouds of smoke, is a zombie gunslinger, the risen corpse of a murdered prospector. For on the carriage is the one who killed him, and he must have his horrible, bloody revenge. Comprises Weird Wild West 1 & 2. https://journalstone.com/bizarro-pulp-press/weird-wild-west/

Book cover for Summoning Space Travelers by Angela Acosta (Hiraeth Publishing), with stars and lense flare against a dark sky. Speculative poetry at its finest, with observations on self-discovery, the longing for a better place (hiraeth), the future of humanity, beings swept up in events, and classical romanticism. Often uplifting, sometimes darker, and here and there a mix of the two extremes, this collection will thrill you, haunt you, and raise your spirits. https://www.hiraethsffh.com/product-page/summoning-space-travelers-by-angela-acosta

Book cover for Weird Wild West Part 3: The Freaks of Mojo County by Carter Rydyr (Antoinette Rydyr and Steve Carter) and Ethan Somerville (Bizarro Pulp Press). On the hill overlooking Mojo Town looms the decaying edifice of the county orphanage, home to all the area’s unwanted children. Brother and sister, Sissy and Zak Spindler, are paid to look after them and keep them safe. They seem to be doing a good job, for the youngsters are neither seen nor heard, but Mojo Town’s unwanted youngsters have been transformed into horrific freaks. Only one child has not been affected by the Stuff: a fiercely intelligent boy named Bart. But Sissy considers him a failure, and treats him like a servant. Can Bart’s brilliant mind help him and cat-boy Nate to elude the Spindler's evil clutches? Or will they be dragged back into the horrific plan Sissy and Zak have for the monstrous mutations they have created? https://journalstone.com/bookstore/weird-wild-west-part-3/

Book cover for Stasis: An anthology of retrofuturisms edited by Libby Graham (Bell Press‬‬‬‬), with a person with flowing long hair floating in futuristic scuba gear in a tank filled with liquid, against a backdrop of a space ship and viewing port showing a blue planet. This collection of short stories looks to the future but is inspired by the science fiction of the past. A waitress, her lover, and a retro diner take off from Roswell, New Mexico. A storyteller uses poetry as a tool for colonial resistance. A single chess match determines the future of humanity. You’ll never know where you end up as the adventuresome tales of Stasis send you to the far reaches of time and space! Contributors: Roxane Llanque, Harper Walton, Antoinette Rydyr, Anthony Boulanger, Angela Acosta, Gregory Lawrence, Stephanie Osuji, Charles Chin, Adrienne Stevenson, Mélodie Langevin, Pauline Barmby, Mahaila Smith, and Marc Fleury. https://bellpressbooks.com/product/stasis/

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

7/12 #SmallPress #books #BookSky #DSPBposts 💙📚 @zalikarb.bsky.social ‬ @erewhonbooks.bsky.social @leataranto.bsky.social @arsenalpulp.bsky.social @mmcsw13.bsky.social @littleghostsbooks.bsky.social @scribblermiller.bsky.social @emergejournal.bsky.social

Book cover for Most Likely to Summon Nyhiloteph by Madison McSweeney ‬ (Little Ghosts Books‬)‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, with a drawing of a classroom full of students, one with blank eyes, and in the background, a looming demon. Lucy never got the chance to be nominated “Most Likely to…” anything. When a head-on collision cuts her life short, Lucy is left to haunt her bereaved friends as they finish high school. Without her, the group is lost- Jackson, Lucy’s best friend, most of all. Swept up in a seance, Lucy materializes in The Grimoire, the local occult emporium owned by acid-tongued psychic Artemis. This opens her eyes to new possibilities: with some help from her friends and a ritual from one of Artemis’ books, Lucy could be back from the dead in time for graduation. The gang gathers in the woods, along with Adrienne, the popular girl responsible for the fatal crash. But her pals are no experts, and Lucy isn’t the only one on the other side looking for a way in. When the rite goes wrong, Adrienne becomes possessed by a spirit claiming to be Lucy. How long will it take the crew to realize there’s a demon in their midst? Can Lucy save everyone from beyond the grave? https://www.littleghostsbooks.com/product/most-likely-to-summon-nyhiloteph/2028

Book cover for A Drop in the Ocean by Léa Taranto‬ (Arsenal Pulp)‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, with an unsmiling girl against a wave, her hair also waves. Sixteen-year-old Mira Durand has just been checked into the secure unit of the Residency Adolescent Treatment Centre for obsessive compulsive and comorbid disorders. Four years of being passed around different psych wards like a hot potato have only worsened her OCD and anorexia. Her brutal, religious compulsions, which she believes keep her mom safe, make her less of a clean freak and more of a freak freak. No wonder her only friend is her journal. At the Residency's Ward 2, Mira discovers that her shrink is a fellow fantasy nerd and that her wardmates have enough of their own high-risk behaviours to tolerate hers. The complex friendships she forms with them (including a first love), the slow trust she builds with her treatment team, and the outside and family visits she earns give her things to look forward to beyond the drudgery of her compulsions. But it takes visiting Gung Gung, her dying maternal grandfather, for her to realize that to truly live, she must fight the cognitive distortions at the heart of her compulsions. Based on the author's personal experience, A Drop in the Ocean is a gritty, humanizing portrait of living with mental illness. https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/A/A-Drop-in-the-Ocean

Book cover for All Lovers Burn at the End of the World by Janna Miller‬ (ELJ Editions‬), with the planet as a folded paper on fire with a hand holding it from below. All Lovers Burn at the End of the World is a collection of 50 micros and flashes that straddle our world and beyond in a voicy mix of speculative and literary fiction. Details of the domestic fold into the fantastic in relocating a 500 pound robin nesting on a front porch, a daughter who needs help removing recurring stones from her feet, and future-predicting origami as applied to relationships. Practical tips include how to avoid teeth while harvesting crops, ways to make a visiting forest comfortable on the living room couch, and techniques for placating murderous houseplants when the desert blooms. Selected pieces have been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, Cheap Pop, X-RAY Lit, Atlas and Alice, Shenandoah, Whale Road Review, Emerge Literary Journal, Janus Literary, and others. https://elj-editions.com/all-lovers-burn-at-the-end-of-the-world/
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Book cover for River Mumma by Zalika Reid-Benta (Erewhon Books, an imprint of Kensington Publishing), with a girl in blue walking through a dark landscape. Alicia has been out of grad school for months. She has no career prospects and lives with her mom, who won’t stop texting her macabre news stories and reminders to pick up items from the grocery store. Then, one evening, the Jamaican water deity, River Mumma, appears to Alicia, telling her that she has twenty-four hours to scour the city for her missing comb. Alicia doesn’t understand why River Mumma would choose her. She can’t remember all the legends her relatives told her, unlike her retail co-worker Heaven, who can reel off Jamaican folklore by heart. She doesn’t know if her childhood visions have returned, or why she feels a strange connection to her other co-worker Mars. But when the trio are chased down by malevolent spirits called duppies, they realize their tenuous bonds to each other may be their only lifelines. With the clock ticking, Alicia’s quest through the city broadens into a journey through time—to find herself and what the river carries. https://www.kensingtonbooks.com/9781645661368/river-mumma/

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

6/12 #SmallPress #books #BookSky #DSPBposts 💙📚 @chineloonwualu.bsky.social ‬ @pdjeliclark.bsky.social @older.bsky.social @nisishawl.bsky.social @jeanependziwol.com @houseofanansi.bsky.social @nightwoodeditions.bsky.social @sofi-see-sofi-drew.bsky.social @conundrumpress.bsky.social

Book cover for Endsickness by Sofia Alarcon‬ (Conundrum Press), with a drawing of a bathtub filled by water and surrounded by flowers, toes peeking out of the water, which contains small houses (one on fire), cars, and a unicorn floaty. A first collection of graphic stories about climate change and eco-anxiety. Coined by Elizabeth Rush, “endsickness” is a term that describes our modern malaise and severe anxiety over the end of the world. For Alarcon, It’s also a shorthand way of describing our culture’s current obsession with all things dystopian and apocalyptic. Climate change is often referred to as a hyperobject: so large in scope and scale that it’s difficult to see or understand the entirety of it. In Endsickness, each story attempts to counter that challenge by taking a close look at the individual quandaries of living in a society that seems at odds with itself, unable to face the existential threat looming on the horizon. https://conundrumpress.com/product/endsickness/

Book cover for undercurrent by Rita Wong, who won the Latner Griffin Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize (Nightwood Editions), with a drawing of a burgundy woman swimming through green patterns of waves and kelp, pursued by a whale. Poet Rita Wong approaches water through personal, cultural and political lenses. The water belongs to itself. undercurrent reflects on the power and sacredness of water—largely underappreciated by too many—whether it be in the form of ocean currents, the headwaters of the Fraser River or fluids in the womb. Exploring a variety of poetic forms, anecdote, allusion and visual elements, this collection reminds humanity that we are water bodies, and we need and deserve better ways of honouring this. https://nightwoodeditions.com/collections/rita-wong/products/9780889713086

Book cover for 2024 GG winner for Young People’s Literature – Illustrated Books, Skating Wild on an Inland Sea by Jean E. Pendziwol‬ and illustrated by Todd Stewart (House of Anansi, under their imprint Groundwood Books‬)‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, with title text carved out of turquoise ice by the skates of young children. Two children wake up to hear the lake singing, then the wind begins wailing … or is it a wolf? They bundle up and venture out into the cold, carrying their skates. On the snow-covered shore, they spot tracks made by fox, deer, hare, mink, otter … and the wolf! In the bay, the ice is thick and smooth. They lace up their skates, step onto the ice, stroking and gliding, and the great lake sings again. In her signature poetic style, Jean E. Pendziwol describes the exhilarating experience of skating on the wild ice of Lake Superior, including the haunting singing that occurs as the ice expands and contracts. Accompanied by Todd Stewart’s breathtaking illustrations, this book will make us all long to skate wild! https://houseofanansi.com/products/skating-wild-on-an-inland-sea

Book cover for Ex Marginalia: Essays from the Edges of Speculative Fiction edited by Chinelo Onwualu (Hydra House Books), with a naked woman towering above frolicking whales and dolphins, with hair made of the ocean. While speculative fiction is justly lauded for its progressive ideas and ideals, it has too often and for too long failed to include the voices of those who aren’t white or cis male. With the dawn of the 21st century, however, marginalized groups have challenged the genre’s status quo with renewed vigor—forging, reimagining, and expanding new paths—to take their rightful place in the field. But the work is not done. Edited by Chinelo Onwualu, Hydra House Books introduces Ex Marginalia, a collection of essays by writers from identities routinely excluded or ignored by the speculative fiction community. These voices are vital to the present and the future of the genre. And they cannot—will not—remain any longer in the margins. https://hydrahousebooks.com/catalog/ex-marginalia/

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

5/12 #SmallPress #books #BookSky #DSPBposts 💙📚 @arsenalpulp.bsky.social @zalikarb.bsky.social ‬ @houseofanansi.bsky.social @pennockty.bsky.social @williamotyler.bsky.social @stackeddeckpress.bsky.social

Book cover for Blood by Tyler Pennock‬ (Brick Books), with a bird and sun against a dark background, as though in silhouette, but with an orange sunrise or sunset showing through their shapes. Poems about a young two-spirit Indigenous person moving through shadow and trauma toward strength and awareness. Longlisted for the 2023 ReLit and First Nations Community READS awards. https://www.brickbooks.ca/shop/blood-by-tyler-pennock/

Book cover for Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta (House of Anansi), with images from Little Jamaica against yellow and red backgrounds. Kara Davis is a girl caught in the middle — of her North American identity and her desire to be a “true” Jamaican, of her mother and grandmother’s rages and life lessons, of having to avoid being thought of as too “faas” or too “quiet” or too “bold” or too “soft.” In these twelve interconnected stories, we see Kara on a visit to Jamaica, startled by the sight of a severed pig’s head in her great-aunt’s freezer; in junior high, the victim of a devastating prank by her closest friends; and as a teenager in and out of her grandmother’s house, trying to cope with ongoing battles of unyielding authority. Longlisted for the Giller Prize. https://houseofanansi.com/products/frying-plantain
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Book cover for We Belong: The All-Black, All-LGBTQ+ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Comics Anthology edited by Viktor T. Kerney and William O. Tyler‬ (Stacked Deck Press), with a black woman with a superhero mantle seen from below, standing in front of two more superheroes, one with horns. We Belong is an all-Black, all-LGBTQ+ sci-fi and fantasy comics anthology published by Stacked Deck Press in association with Prism Comics. Edited by comics writer Viktor T. Kerney and cartoonist and critic William O. Tyler, We Belong features over 20 talented comics creators. Editors Kerney and Tyler won the 2024 Kinnard Better Future Award for their work on this book. https://stackeddeckpress.com/product/we-belong-the-all-black-all-lgbtq-sci-fi-and-fantasy-comics-anthology/‬‬‬‬‬‬

Book cover for Curious Sounds: A Dialogue in Three Movements by Roger Mooking & francesca ekwuyasi. A dialogue between two artists across various mediums, Curious Sounds uses Mooking's most recent album, SoundBites, as scaffolding for the artists' conversations on creativity, Blackness, family, grief, and more. Composed of ekwuyasi's essays reflecting on artmaking, storytelling, and creative expression and Mooking's multimedia visual art, micro stories, music, and lyrics, this book is a collage of ideas about making meaning through life's rhythms. https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/C/Curious-Sounds
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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

4/12 #SmallPress #books #BookSky #DSPBposts 💙📚 @skunkbabepoet.bsky.social ‬ @mahaila.bsky.social @stelliform.press

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

3/12 #SmallPress #books #BookSky #DSPBposts 💙📚 @teresempierre.bsky.social @houseofanansi.bsky.social ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬ @metatronpress.bsky.social @arsenalpulp.bsky.social ‬ @suyidavies.com

Book cover for David Mogo, Godhunter by Suyi Davies Okungbowa (Rebellion Publishing), with a silhouette of a man wearing an African mask stands in the center of an urban street under a bright sun dropping flares of light. Since the Orisha War that rained thousands of deities down on the streets of Lagos, David Mogo, demigod, scours Eko’s dank underbelly for a living wage as a freelance Godhunter. Despite pulling his biggest feat yet by capturing a high god for a renowned Eko wizard, David knows his job’s bad luck. He’s proved right when the wizard conjures a legion of Taboos-feral godling-child hybrids-to seize Lagos for himself. To fix his mistake and keep Lagos standing, David teams up with his foster wizard, the high god’s twin sister and a speech-impaired Muslim teenage girl to defeat the wizard. https://rebellionpublishing.com/product/david_mogo_godhunter/

Book cover for the half-drowned by Trynne Delaney (Metatron Press), with a blur of colours suggestive of a landscape around an aqua lake. the half-drowned is a vision of a future at the end of the world where what survives is the shapeshifting love of family both given and chosen. Drawing on the Afro-diasporic ancestral knowledge of water and the urgency of desire, Delaney builds a glittering, speculative world where community holds through grief, where we must choose to fend for ourselves while also caring for others. This is a genre-bending novella that crafts a polyphony of voices to speak to and through our lives and dreams in order to reach for the unspoken and unsayable and make it heard. Winner of the 2022 Quebec Writers’ Federation Literary Awards' Concordia University First Book Prize. https://metatron.press/shop/the-half-drowned/

Book cover for Myth by Terese Mason Pierre (House of Anansi), with a photo of palm trees in a setting with water and mountains in the distance, manipulated to make the colours more stark, and with a series of concentric circles in the sky as if the sun is getting bigger. The much-anticipated debut collection from the multi-talented Terese Mason Pierre weaves between worlds (‘real’ and ‘imaginary’) unearthing the unsettling: our jaded and joyful relationships to land, ancestry, trauma, self, and future. In three movements and two interludes, the poems in Myth move symphonically from tropical islands to barren cities, from lucid dreams to the mysteries of reality, from the sea to the cosmos. A dynamic mix of speculative poetry and ecstatic lyricism, the otherworldly and the sublime, Pierre’s poems never stray too long or too far from the spell of unspoiled nature: “The palm trees nod / at the ocean / the ocean does / what it always does / trusts the moon completely.” https://houseofanansi.com/products/myth

$Book cover for Butter Honey Pig Bread by francesca ekwuyasi (Arsenal Pulp), with two black sisters clasping hands. Kambirinachi feels she was born an Ogbanje, a spirit that plagues families with misfortune by dying in childhood to cause its mother misery. She believes that she has made the unnatural choice of staying alive to love her human family and now lives in fear of the consequences of that decision. Her daughter, Kehinde, experiences a devasting childhood trauma that causes the family to fracture in seemingly irreversible ways. As soon as she's of age, Kehinde moves away and cuts contact with her twin sister and mother. Alone in Montreal, she struggles to find ways to heal while building a life of her own. Meanwhile, Taiye, plagued by guilt for what happened to her sister, flees to London and attempts to numb the loss of the relationship with her twin through reckless hedonism. Now, after more than a decade of living apart, Taiye and Kehinde have returned home to Lagos to visit their mother. It is here that the three women must face each other and address the wounds of the past if they are to reconcile and move forward. https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/B/Butter-Honey-Pig-Bread$

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

2/12 #SmallPress #books #BookSky #DSPBposts 💙📚 @teresempierre.bsky.social @houseofanansi.bsky.social ‬‬‬‬‬ @aniyonsenga.bsky.social @suyidavies.com @chineloonwualu.bsky.social ‬@zalikarb.bsky.social ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬ @ogre.red

Book cover for Black Notes: Young Black Voices, edited by Althea Prince (Insomniac Press), with a cherry-red hand upraised in a fist similar to a black power salute, but holding a fountain pen. As far as I can tell, this book is out of print.

Book cover for As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories (House of Anansi), with a bee in neon blue, pink and purple against a black background. Edited by esteemed poet Terese Mason Pierre, this bold and innovative anthology of speculative short fiction reveals and uplifts the spectacular imaginings, reveries, reflections, experiments, and hopes of Black writers in Canada. Featuring stories by the editor, Trynne Delaney, francesca ekwuyasi, Whitney French, Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga, Chimedum Ohaegbu, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Chinelo Onwualu, Lue Palmer, and Zalika Reid-Benta. Ten breathtaking stories explore natural and urban landscapes, living and dead relationships, economic catastrophe, love, and desire--all while celebrating the persistent and ever-changing self, and envisioning beautiful Black futures. https://houseofanansi.com/products/as-the-earth-dreams

Book cover for bilingual science fiction poetry collection A Belief in Cosmic Dailiness: Poems of a Fabled Universe by Angela Acosta (Red Ogre Review‬), with a creature with a blonde mohawk, dark skin, fuchsia eyes and ears, and scarring in neat lines around the eyes and lips. Nominated twice (2024 and 2025) for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association’s Elgin Awards. https://ogre.red/press/books/2023-chapbook-acosta-angela/

Book cover for A House Unsettled by Trynne Delaney (Annick Press), with a bouquet of roses rising out of a skull. With her dad’s incarceration, escalating fights with her mom, and an overbearing stepdad she’s not sure she can trust, Asha is desperate for the fresh start promised by a move to the country. Her great aunt Aggie’s crumbling, pest-ridden house isn’t exactly what she had in mind, but the immediate connection she makes with her new neighbor Cole seems like a good sign. Soon, though, Asha’s optimism is shadowed by strange and disturbing occurrences within the old house’s walls: footsteps stalking the halls; a persistent chill; cold hands around her neck in the middle of the night . . . Fearing for her loved ones’ safety–and her own–Asha seeks out the source of these terrifying incidents and uncovers secrets from the past that connect her and Cole’s families and reach into the present. But as tensions with her mom and stepdad rise and Cole withdraws, Asha is left alone to try and break the cycle of violence that holds them all in its haunting grip. https://www.annickpress.com/Books/A/A-House-Unsettled

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

Cleaning up my files and deleting #book covers I’ve already posted in my daily #SmallPress #BookSky #DSPBposts. Enjoy these beauties again! A thread. (Alt-text for book details.) 🧵 1/12

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 12d

I've started my next #mural! I mean, just barely, but still. Here it is with three of my inspo photos.

A wall with pale lavender paint on the top two-thirds, and bright, darker violet paint on the bottom third.

A tangle of wild roses and timothy with the ocean horizon in the background.

Two evergreen trees in one corner, a distant beach in the opposite corner, and the ocean horizon in the background.

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SFF Reviews @sffreview.bsky.social · 13d

That sounds amazing! 🎉 I can't wait to see what TriCon has in store! It's always exciting to connect with fellow SFF fans! 🌌✨ #TriCon2024 #SFFCommunity

Amal El-Mohtar @amalelmohtar.com · 13d

I’m really looking forward to TriCon in Halifax next May! A new convention spearheaded (as it were) by @tridenthalifax.bsky.social & @charlotteashley.bsky.social ! Get your tickets here: www.eventbrite.com/e/tricon-the...

A promptional image for TRICON, a new SFF convention, showing me as their author Guest of Honour.

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Reposted by Joanne Merriam

Charlotte Ashley @charlotteashley.bsky.social · 13d

Icymi, these are our three incredible guests of honour at @tricon-hfx.bsky.social! 👇

TriCon @tricon-hfx.bsky.social · 13d

We all know publishing is much more than putting words on a page! A book is created by a team of skilled people beyond the author, and to excel in this industry is to include them all in our celebration!

In that spirit, TriCon welcomes three Guests of Honour—an editor, an agent, & a writer. 🎉📖🧵

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Reposted by Joanne Merriam

Amal El-Mohtar @amalelmohtar.com · 13d

I’m really looking forward to TriCon in Halifax next May! A new convention spearheaded (as it were) by @tridenthalifax.bsky.social & @charlotteashley.bsky.social ! Get your tickets here: www.eventbrite.com/e/tricon-the...

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Reposted by Joanne Merriam

TriCon @tricon-hfx.bsky.social · 13d

We all know publishing is much more than putting words on a page! A book is created by a team of skilled people beyond the author, and to excel in this industry is to include them all in our celebration!

In that spirit, TriCon welcomes three Guests of Honour—an editor, an agent, & a writer. 🎉📖🧵

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Reposted by Joanne Merriam

Tiffany Morris @tiffmorris.bsky.social · 14d

I am so excited that the Kjipuktuk/Halifax/Maritime community has our first speculative writing conference coming this May!! Check out the details on @tricon-hfx.bsky.social or tricon-Halifax.com!

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Joanne Merriam @joannemerriam.bsky.social · 14d

TriCon: The Trident Conference for Speculative Fiction
May 15-17, 2026
Kjipuktuk | Halifax, Nova Scotia

Registration now open! More details: tricon-halifax.com.

GOHs: @amalelmohtar.com @englelaird.bsky.social @kurestinarmada.bsky.social

#amwriting #speculativefiction @tricon-hfx.bsky.social

Photo of Editor Guest of Honour Carl Engle-Laird.

Photo of Author Guest of Honour Amal El-Mohtar.

Photo of Agent Guest of Honour Kurestin Armada.

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