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	barangay an offshore poem. Adrian De Leon As beautiful and varied as an archipelago, barangay is an elegant new collection of poetry from Adrian De Leon that gathers in and arranges the difficult pieces of a scattered history. While mourning the loss of his grandmother who "lived, loved and grieved in three languages," De Leon skips his barangay, which is both a boat and an administrative unit in the Philippine government, over the history of both his family and a nation. In these poems De Leon considers the deadly impact of colonialism, the far-reaching effects of the diaspora from the Philippines and the personal loss of his ability to speak Ilokano, his grandmother's native tongue. These are spare, haunting poems, which wash over the reader like the waves of the ocean the barangays navigated long ago and then pull the reader into their current like the rivers De Leon left behind. Want to learn more about Adrian De Leon? Visit his profile here.
	Embodying the Tactile in Victorian Literature Touching Bodies/Bodies Touching Ann Gagné Embodying the Tactile in Victorian Literature: Touching Bodies/Bodies Touching explores the importance of sensory studies in mid to late-Victorian literature. Ann Gagné reconciles the social and cultural issues surrounding embodiment, particularly gendered embodiment, through the lens of tactility and how touch can function as embodied residue. The main focus on tactility highlights bodily interactions through narrative description and positions lived experience as narrated and witnessed on the body through touch. By exploring four distinct types of tactility—reciprocal touch, architectural touch, self-touch, and telepathic touch—found in Victorian literature, Gagné reveals a larger social and cultural focus on ethics, care, the built environment, and pedagogy. Through analyses of more canonical texts such as Goblin Market alongside lesser known works by canonical authors such as Wilkie Collins’s “Mrs. Zant and the Ghost,” Gagné demonstrates how these same sensory considerations continue to be important today.
	Bittersweet Poems Natasha Ramoutar Bittersweet is a collage representing both a reconstructed homeland and Scarborough, Ontario. This poetry collection considers memory using photographs, maps, language, and folklore. Bringing together definitions, recipes, cartography, photo albums, and oral stories, it meditates on themes of obscured and suppressed history, theft, time, and liminality. The poems journey from Toronto to Guyana to South Asia, and Scarborough remains omnipresent, with a mix of identities and a strong, active, and boisterous youthful presence. This poetry collection was released by Mawenzi House in September 2020. Want to learn more about Natasha Ramoutar? Visit her profile here.
	Blackening Canada: Diaspora, Race, Multiculturalism Paul Barrett Focusing on the work of black, diasporic writers in Canada, particularly Dionne Brand, Austin Clarke, and Tessa McWatt, Blackening Canada investigates the manner in which literature can transform conceptions of nation and diaspora. Through a consideration of literary representation, public discourse, and the language of political protest, Paul Barrett argues that Canadian multiculturalism uniquely enables black diasporic writers to transform national literature and identity. These writers seize upon the ambiguities and tensions within Canadian discourses of nation to rewrite the nation from a black, diasporic perspective, converting exclusion from the national discourse into the impetus for their creative endeavours. Within this context, Barrett suggests, debates over who counts as Canadian, the limits of tolerance, and the breaking points of Canadian multiculturalism serve not as signs of multiculturalism’s failure but as proof of both its vitality and of the unique challenges that black writing in Canada poses to multicultural politics and the nation itself. Want to learn more about Paul Barrett? Visit his website here.
	FEEL WAYS Adrian De Leon, Téa Mutonji, and Natasha Ramoutar FEEL WAYS is a breakthrough anthology of works by writers of Scarborough, Ontario. It is inspired by the suburb of Scarborough, shedding light on its myths and stories. The collection includes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and an Introduction by the editors. The anthology is co-edited by Adrian De Leon, Téa Mutonji and Natasha Ramoutar. The anthology was released by Mawenzi House in April 2021.
	Goof-Proof Victoria Loder In this step-by-step manual for aspiring fiction authors, former literary agent Victoria Loder has included her viral formula for the query letter guaranteed to land you a literary agent. Successfully tested by authors in her free query critique workshops, the Goof-Proof formula is all any writer at the querying stage needs to stay out of the slush pile.
	More Than Just a Pretty Face Syed M., Mansood Danyal Jilani doesn't lack confidence. He may not be the smartest guy in the room, but he's funny, gorgeous, and going to make a great chef one day. His father doesn't approve of his career choice, but that hardly matters. What does matter is the opinion of Danyal's longtime crush, the perfect-in-all-ways Kaval, and her family, who consider him a less than ideal arranged marriage prospect. When Danyal gets selected for Renaissance Man, a school-wide academic championship, it's the perfect opportunity to show everyone he's smarter than they think. He recruits the brilliant, totally-uninterested-in-him Bisma to help with the competition, but the more time Danyal spends with her…the more he learns from her…the more he cooks for her…the more he realizes that happiness may be staring him right in his pretty face. Want to learn more about Syed M. Masood? Visit his website here.
	Rouge Adrian De Leon This series of poems is a response to the 2012 mass shooting at a block party on Danzig Street, Scarborough (Toronto). The city's east end becomes a source of poetic inspiration, and the intersecting subway lines provide the organizing structure. From west to east, and north to south--Kipling to McCowan, Finch to Downsview--the stations on the way inspiring form, voice, and content, meditation, commentary, and geometry. The City is the Poem. Want to learn more about Adrian De Leon? Visit his profile here.
	Shut Up, You're Pretty Téa Mutonji In Tea Mutonji's disarming debut story collection, a woman contemplates her Congolese traditions during a family wedding, a teenage girl looks for happiness inside a pack of cigarettes, a mother reconnects with her daughter through their shared interest in fish, and a young woman decides to shave her head in the waiting room of an abortion clinic. These punchy, sharply observed stories blur the lines between longing and choosing, exploring the narrator's experience as an involuntary one. Tinged with pathos and humour, they interrogate the moments in which femininity, womanness, and identity are not only questioned but also imposed. Shut Up You're Pretty is the first book to be published under the imprint VS. Books, a series of books curated and edited by writer-musician Vivek Shraya featuring work by new and emerging Indigenous or Black writers, or writers of colour.
	Sway With Me Syed M., Mansood Arsalan has learned everything he knows from Nana, his 100-year-old great-grandfather. This includes the fact that when Nana dies, Arsalan will be completely alone in the world, except for his estranged and abusive father. So he turns to Beenish, the step-daughter of a prominent matchmaker, to find him a future life partner. Beenish’s request in return? That Arsalan help her ruin her older sister’s wedding with a spectacular dance she’s been forbidden to perform. Despite knowing as little about dancing as he does about girls, Arsalan wades into Beenish’s chaotic world to discover friends and family he never expected. And though Arsalan’s old-school manners and Beenish’s take-no-prisoners attitude clash every minute, they find themselves getting closer and closer—literally. All that’s left to realize is that the thing they both really want is each other, if only they can get in step. At turns laugh-out-loud funny, poignant, and sincerely heartfelt, Sway With Me is a coming-of-age story for anyone trying to find their place in the world. Want to learn more about Syed M. Masood? Visit his website here.
	The Bad Muslim Discount Syed M., Mansood It is 1995, and Anvar Faris is a restless, rebellious, and sharp-tongued boy doing his best to grow up in Karachi, Pakistan. As fundamentalism takes root within the social order and the zealots next door attempt to make Islam great again, his family decides, not quite unanimously, to start life over in California. Ironically, Anvar’s deeply devout mother and his model-Muslim brother adjust easily to life in America, while his fun-loving father can’t find anyone he relates to. For his part, Anvar fully commits to being a bad Muslim. At the same time, thousands of miles away, Safwa, a young girl living in war-torn Baghdad with her grief-stricken, conservative father will find a very different and far more dangerous path to America. When Anvar and Safwa’s worlds collide as two remarkable, strong-willed adults, their contradictory, intertwined fates will rock their community, and families, to their core. Want to learn more about Syed M. Masood? Visit his website here.
	The Craft Chelsea La Vecchia The review was up. The city’s only all-female brewery gets special PC treatment. Marsha stared at the text on her phone, ignoring the smell of yeast in the air. It was her second week at The Craft. She’d gotten the job through her friend Stacey, who’d been working there for some time as an assistant brewer. Stacey knew Marsha would never have the courage to get into beer brewing on her own, so she’d gotten into a field she knew nothing about just to give her friend a reference. Marsha still couldn’t believe the ease with which Stacey navigated life, forever walking into opportunities like the guest of honor at a ball. To continue reading Chelsea La Vecchia's Flash Fiction click here.
	The Rhetoric of Diversion in English Literature and Culture, 1690–1760 Darryl P. Domingo Why did eighteenth-century writers employ digression as a literary form of diversion, and how did their readers come to enjoy linguistic and textual devices that self-consciously disrupt the reading experience? Darryl P. Domingo answers these questions through an examination of the formative period in the commercialization of leisure in England, and the coincidental coming of age of literary self-consciousness in works published between approximately 1690 and 1760. To learn more about Darryl P. Domingo's work click here.