Read Local BC 2017

As If is a collection of stories that, as its title suggests, points at an indubitable truth: all literature is speculative. Goulden's, however, extends past the boundaries of conventional fiction into areas traditionally occupied by fantasy and magic realism. These stories rail against the industrial and digital mechanisms of our age and, in the great fabulist tradition, call upon its characters to take action, to reach beyond the repetitive anxiety of being a cog in the wheel of mechanical env …

Assdeep in Wonder is a collection of new poems that explore the idea of identity in a myriad of contexts: personal, sexual, cultural, national, literary, and poetic. The poems are raw and immediate, exploring themes of addiction, sexuality, loss, love, and wonder in equal measures.

Selected Praise: "Gudgeon's first poetry collection is a quirky valentine to irreverent readers, full of stark and pretty imagery, wry quips, and glorious bursts of vulgarity. ..." (Foreword Reviews)

Winner of the City of Vancouver Book Award Finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.

Carleigh Baker likes to make light in the dark. Whether plumbing family ties, the end of a marriage, or death itself, she never lets go of the witty, the ironic, and perhaps most notably, the awkward. Despite the title, the resolution in these stories isn't always tragic, but it's often uncomfortable, unexpected, or just plain strange. Character digressions, bad decisions, and misconceptions abound. …

In these sixteen stories, Christopher Gudgeon, bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Song of Kosovo, takes a heartbreaking and hilarious look into the lives, loves, sexual obsessions and delusions that inform a grand cast of off-kilter characters.

Here is a gay couple who persevere with their marriage plans as the world, literally, crumbles around them, a woman who discovers the mysterious collection of letters that reveals a terrifying truth about her deceased fiancée, a dutiful son, …

Montaigne Medal Finalist (Eric Hoffer Awards)

In Garage Criticism Peter Babiak eviscerates and deflates some of the cultural sacred cows of our time. From Fifty Shades of Grey ("Hot for Teacher: What Fifty Shades of Grey Taught Me About Salacious Grammar, Sexy Women and the Scandalous Conflation of Cultural and Literary Culture") to the disintegration of the "deep read" ("F You Professor: Tumblr, Triggers and the Allergies of Reading") to the Hunger Games ("The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - …

"Writers, like skaters, score the blank sheet and test the edge of inclusion and exclusion. Most of these poems begin with a word from skating and push off to another topic. Others revisit ideas of femininity, control and language as pattern, or visit the past through movement, or enact principles from the rink such as symmetry, joy, endurance, crescendo and accent, revolution, response. The blade melts ice via friction and pressure. I drifted away from skating but the language is imprinted in m …

Finalist, Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award

During his forty-two-year-career he helped detectives in Vancouver, Victoria, and throughout BC solve hit-and-runs, safe-crackings, and some of the most sensational murder cases of the 20th century. Vance was constantly called to crime scenes and to testify in court because of his skills in serology, toxicology, and autopsy.

When Vance was first called to a crime scene in 1914, forensics was in its infancy. Vancouver was the first police departm …

Winner, ReLit Award; Finalist, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize (BC Book Prizes)

A YouTube star becomes famous after he documents his breakup online. An anxious, lactose-intolerant office worker obsesses over a stranger who says "Nice shorts, bro" to him in passing. A couple wants to open up their relationship to a ghost. A monster just wants to find love in his human skin.

In these unconventional, interconnected stories--the first work of fiction by acclaimed poet Daniel Zomparelli, editor-in-chief of …