Literary Studies

In The Missing Morningstar and Other Stories, Stacie Denetsosie confronts long-reaching effects of settler-colonialism on Native lives in a series of gritty, wildly imaginative stories. A young Navajo man catches a ride home alongside a casket he’s sure contains his dead grandfather. A gas station clerk witnesses the kidnapping of the newly crowned Miss Northwestern Arizona. A young couple’s search for a sperm donor raises questions of blood quantum. This debut collection grapples with a complex and painful history alongside an inheritance of beauty, ceremony, and storytelling.

Reviews
“The Missing Morningstar is full of voices that reveal grief and redemption. This collection is a compelling compendium of family, truths, loss and love. Denetsosie’s voice is a wonderful addition to contemporary fiction that explores Indigenous lives. I loved it.”—Brandon Hobson

Additional Information
144 pages | 5.25" x 8.00" | Paperback

In this intimate collection of writing and art, Brian J. Francis invites us to explore the sacred space within. Through vision, prayer, and dream work, Francis channels messages from the ancestors to help us contemplate themes of nature, mortality, truth, and reconciliation. Eclipsing space and time, Francis words and art resonate with deep texture, hope, colour, and mastery. The result is a shimmering testament to his Mi'kmaq ancestors, and a pledge to the next generation. Guiding us beyond spirit and nation boundaries, this eloquent read is ideal for anyone seeking sanctuary, sacred space, and a comfortable seat at their own altar.

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88 pages | 8.00" x 8.00" | Hardcover 

Grocery-store clerk Beth has had a hell of a week. A hell of a life, actually, full of people squashing her soul. And after pushing back at life—stabbing a steak to her boss’s desk and lighting a magazine rack on fire, for instance—freshly unemployed Beth regroups at her mom’s suburban home. Just when Beth starts to think she’s to blame for systemic limits, the gift of a bird feeder sparks a relationship with a talking Crow who reconnects her with her true power.

This sly chamber piece from new voice Caleigh Crow turns post-capitalism ennui on its head with a righteous fury. It unearths the subtle (and not so subtle) ways we gaslight the marginalized, especially Indigenous women, people living with mental-health afflictions, and anyone struggling to make ends meet in low-income service jobs. There Is Violence captures the vivacity and humour of one truly remarkable woman not meant for this earth, and brings her to her own glorious transcendence.

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80 pages | 5.10" x 7.60" | Paperback

Vital bilingual poetry by Innu Elder Joséphine Bacon

Uiesh / Somewhere consists of short poems that speak directly to the reader, without artifice or pretension. They arise from Joséphine Bacon’s experience as an Innu woman, whose life has taken her from the nomadic ways of her Ancestors in the northern wilderness of Nitassinan, or Innu Territory, to the clamour and bustle of the city. Wherever she is, the poet and Elder is attentive to the smallest details of her environment … from the moon and the stars, the aurorae borealis, the falling snow, the changing seasons, to the sirens of fire engines and ambulances and the noise of a busy bar night. From her quiet centre, she listens to the voices of the Old Ones, whose stories are alive within her, and looks back at the beauty and the pain of her long life.

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80 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

Unikkaaqtuat is the Inuktitut word meaning "to tell stories."

This definitive collection of Inuit legends is thoughtfully introduced and carefully annotated to provide the historical and cultural context in which to understand this rich oral tradition. Fascinating and educational, this little-known part of Canada's heritage will captivate readers of all ages. As a work of historical and cultural preservation, this textbook will be invaluable to those studying Inuit.

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320 pages | 8.00" x 10.00" | 100 b&w line drawings | Hardcover | 2nd Edition

From the bestselling author of Empire of Wild, a wickedly subversive, deliciously imaginative, deeply feminist novel of contemporary witches on the rise—a book that only the supremely gifted storyteller Cherie Dimaline could write.

Lucky St. James, orphaned daughter of a bad-ass Métis good-times girl, is barely hanging on to her nowhere life when she finds out that she and her grandmother, Stella, are about to be evicted from their apartment. Bad to worse in a heartbeat. Then one night, doing laundry in the building's dank basement, Lucky feels an irresistible something calling to her. Crawling through a hidden hole in the wall, she finds a tarnished silver spoon depicting a story-book hag over letters that spell out S-A-L-E-M.
 
Which alerts Salem-born Meena Good, finder of a matching spoon, to Lucky's existence. One of the most powerful witches in North America, Meena has been called to bring together seven special witches and seven special spoons—infused with magic and scattered to the four directions more than a century ago—to form a magic circle that will restore women to their rightful power. Under the wing of the international headhunting firm VenCo, devoted to placing exceptional women in roles where they can influence business, politics and the arts, Meena has spent years searching out witches hiding in plain sight wherever women gather: suburban book clubs, Mommy & Me groups, temp agencies. Lucky and her spoon are number six.
 
With only one more spoon to find, a very powerful adversary has Meena's coven in his sights—Jay Christos, a roguish and deadly witch-hunter as old as witchcraft itself. As the clock ticks toward a now-or-never deadline, Meena sends Lucky and her grandmother on a dangerous, sometimes hilarious, road trip through the United States in search of the seventh spoon. The trail leads them at last to the darkly magical city of New Orleans, where Lucky's final showdown with Jay Christos will determine whether the coven will be completed, ushering in a new beginning, or whether witches will be forced to remain forever underground.

Reviews
“Bring magic back into your life with the compulsively readable VenCo, a thundering, fantastical road trip with the wily Lucky St. James, her unpredictable grandmother, the witches they are trying to unite and the man who wants to end them all.” —Eden Robinson

“Once I opened VenCo, I was propelled through an entire night of charmed reading. Cherie Dimaline creates a world utterly fantastical, yet real. VenCo is funny, tense and cracking with a dark, divine energy.” —Louise Erdrich, New York Times bestselling author of The Sentence
 
“Crackling with magic, mystery, adventure, and intrigue, VenCo is a captivating tribute to the bonds of families we are born into and the ones that we create, and a delightful testament to the power of all womankind.” —Nikki Erlick, New York Times bestselling author of The Measure

“Spellbinding and utterly original, VenCo shows the power women can wield when we join forces.”  —Kirsten Miller, author of The Change

"A gripping, witchy romp of a novel. It's impossible not to fall in love with Stella and Lucky." —BuzzFeed

"Fast, fun, full of charms. . . . A propulsive read full of intriguing detail, this novel is well-written, engaging and, more than anything, enjoyable. The reader will feel genuine affection for Dimaline’s irreverent, badass witches as they battle for the future of their family and the future of the world, one and the same in Dimaline’s inclusive vision." —Kirkus Reviews

Additional Information
400 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Hardcover

From the bestselling author of Empire of Wild, a wickedly subversive, deliciously imaginative, deeply feminist novel of contemporary witches on the rise—a book that only the supremely gifted storyteller Cherie Dimaline could write.

Lucky St. James, orphaned daughter of a bad-ass Métis good-times girl, is barely hanging on to her nowhere life when she finds out that she and her grandmother, Stella, are about to be evicted from their apartment. One night, dejectedly doing laundry in the building's dank basement, Lucky feels an irresistible something calling her. Crawling through a hidden hole in the wall, she finds a tarnished silver spoon depicting a storybook hag over letters that spell out S-A-L-E-M—a spoon whose otherwordly energy soon connects her to a teeming network of witches who have been anxiously waiting for her.

Chief among them is Salem-born Meena Good, finder of a matching spoon. Under the wing of the international headhunting firm VenCo, devoted to placing exceptional women in influential jobs, Meena has been collecting these spoons, and the witches who found them, in order to former a magic circle that will restore women to their rightful power.

But now, with only one more spoon to find, a roguish and deadly witch-hunter has Meena's coven in his sights. As the clock ticks toward a now-or-never deadline, Meena sends Lucky and her grandmother on a dangerous, sometimes hilarious, road trip in search of the seventh spoon. It ends in the darkly magical city of New Orleans and a final confrontation that will either usher in a new beginning or force witches to remain underground forever.

Reviews
“Bring magic back into your life with the compulsively readable VenCo, a thundering, fantastical road trip with the wily Lucky St. James, her unpredictable grandmother, the witches they are trying to unite and the man who wants to end them all.” —Eden Robinson

“Once I opened VenCo, I was propelled through an entire night of charmed reading. Cherie Dimaline creates a world utterly fantastical, yet real. VenCo is funny, tense and cracking with a dark, divine energy.” —Louise Erdrich, New York Times bestselling author of The Sentence
 
“Crackling with magic, mystery, adventure, and intrigue, VenCo is a captivating tribute to the bonds of families we are born into and the ones that we create, and a delightful testament to the power of all womankind.” —Nikki Erlick, New York Times bestselling author of The Measure

“Spellbinding and utterly original, VenCo shows the power women can wield when we join forces.”  —Kirsten Miller, author of The Change

"A gripping, witchy romp of a novel. It's impossible not to fall in love with Stella and Lucky." —BuzzFeed

"Fast, fun, full of charms. . . . A propulsive read full of intriguing detail, this novel is well-written, engaging and, more than anything, enjoyable. The reader will feel genuine affection for Dimaline’s irreverent, badass witches as they battle for the future of their family and the future of the world, one and the same in Dimaline’s inclusive vision." —Kirkus Reviews

Additional Information
400 pages | 5.20" x 8.00" | Paperback

An emerging Lakota scholar’s critical interrogation of settler-colonial nations that re-centers Oceti Sakowin (Dakota) women as the tribe’s traditional culture keepers and bearers.

We Are the Stars is a literary recovery project that seeks to reconstruct a genealogy of Oceti Sakowin (Dakota) literature, and study in-depth the linkages between settler colonialism, literature, nationalism, and gender via analysis of tribal and settler colonial narratives about women and land.

Sarah Hernandez begins by exploring how settler colonizers used the printing press and boarding schools to displace Oceti Sakowin women as traditional culture keepers and bearers, with the goal of assimilating completely the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota nations.

She then shifts her focus to decolonization, exploring how contemporary Oceti Sakowin writers and scholars have started to reclaim Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota literatures to decolonize and heal their families, communities, and nations.

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256 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

In this followup to his hugely popular Midnight Storm Moonless Sky: Indigenous Horror Stories, Blackfoot storyteller Alex Soop plunges us again into enthralling tales that mix reality with dark terror. Within its stories, Whisper at Night and They Will Come reveals ancient theories of the paranormal, post apocalyptic scenarios, impossible wells of grief, and monstrous phobias. Soop scares the wits out of readers, all the while uncovering overlooked social anxieties and racism affecting Indigenous Peoples across North America.

Educator & Series Information
This is the second volume in the Indigenous Horror series.

Additional Information
276 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback

From Oklahoma to California, the heroes of A Calm & Normal Heart are modern-day adventurers—seeking out new places to call their own inside a nation to which they do not entirely belong. A member of the Osage tribe, author Chelsea T. Hicks’ stories are compelled by an overlooked diaspora happening inside America itself: that of young Native people.

In stories like “Superdrunk,” “Tsexope,” and “Wets’a,” iPhone lifestyles co-mingle with ancestral connection, strengthening relationships or pushing people apart, while generational trauma haunts individual paths. Broken partnerships and polyamorous desire signal a fraught era of modern love, even as old ways continue to influence how people assess compatibility. And in “By Alcatraz,” a Native student finds herself alone on campus over Thanksgiving break, seeking out new friendships during a national holiday she does not recognize. Leaping back in time, “A Fresh Start Ruined” inhabits the life of Florence, an Osage woman attempting to hide her origins while social climbing in midcentury Oklahoma. And in “House of RGB” a young professional settles into a new home, intent on claiming her independence after a break-up, even if her ancestors can’t seem to get out of her way.

Whether in between college semesters or jobs, on the road to tribal dances or escaping troubled homes, the characters of A Calm & Normal Heart occupy a complicated and often unreliable terrain. Chelsea T. Hicks brings sharp humor, sprawling imagination, and a profound connection to Native experience in a collection that will subvert long-held assumptions for many readers, and inspire hope along the way.

Reviews
"Chelsea T. Hicks' deadpan dexterous wit can make you laugh and cry in the space of a heartbeat. A Calm and Normal Heart is the book I've been waiting for— audacious, tender, and fiercely committed." —Louise Erdrich, author of The Sentence

"A Calm & Normal Heart is sharp, sexy, and endlessly surprising. An electric blend of playfulness and intensity in Hicks's prose ignites her characters' desires. Their stories dazzle and are to be savored. This is a gorgeous collection!" —Deesha Philyaw, National Book Award finalist and author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

"The stories in Chelsea Hicks's A Calm & Normal Heart are full of quiet truths and wry, soulful secrets. It is a book that doesn't at all feel like a debut story collection, but rather written with startling beauty and the flawless precision of a master storyteller. It is a genuine page-turner full of sentences so beautiful they demand re-reading." —Brandon Hobson, National Book Award finalist and author of The Removed

Additional Information
Hardcover

An urgent first novel about breaching the prisons we live inside from one of Canada’s most daring literary talents.

An unnamed narrator abandons his unfinished thesis and returns to northern Alberta in search of what eludes him: the shape of the novel he yearns to write, an autobiography of his rural hometown, the answers to existential questions about family, love, and happiness.

What ensues is a series of conversations, connections, and disconnections that reveals the texture of life in a town literature has left unexplored, where the friction between possibility and constraint provides an insistent background score.

Whether he’s meeting with an auntie distraught over the imprisonment of her grandson, engaging in rez gossip with his cousin at a pow wow, or lingering in bed with a married man after a hotel room hookup, the narrator makes space for those in his orbit to divulge their private joys and miseries, testing the theory that storytelling can make us feel less lonely.

Populated by characters as alive and vast as the boreal forest, and culminating in a breathtaking crescendo, A Minor Chorus is a novel about how deeply entangled the sayable and unsayable can become—and about how ordinary life, when pressed, can produce hauntingly beautiful music.

Reviews
"No one breaks your heart as elegantly as Billy-Ray Belcourt. Innovative, intimate, and meticulous, A Minor Chorus is a thoughtful riot of intersections and juxtapositions, a congregation of keenly observed laments gently vivisecting the small, Northern Alberta community at its core."—Eden Robinson, author of Son of a Trickster

"The literary child of Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, this novel builds on both, and is yet still something so new. It has the guts to centre Indigenous queer life as worthy of serious intellectual and artistic inquiry—which, of course, it always has been. We will be reading and re-reading and learning from A Minor Chorus for decades to come."—Alicia Elliott, author of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground

"An absolutely dazzling confluence of big ideas and raw emotions, told in Billy-Ray Belcourt’s singular poetic voice. A Minor Chorus is about loving, questioning, and fighting for your life, and it’s as compelling a debut novel as I’ve read in years."—Jami Attenberg, author of I Came All This Way to Meet You

"A truly exceptional novel about how the disregarded sometimes live the most remarkable lives, and how storytelling will redeem us somehow, make us less lonely. A Minor Chorus is like a song that’s over too soon; I want to play it on repeat, to memorize the words so that I can sing them to myself."—Katherena Vermette, author of The Strangers

Additional Information
192 pages | 5.20" x 7.78" | Hardcover

In this poetry collection, the author honours Inuit who lay in the past, and Inuit who are with us now and most importantly the Inuit who are waiting to come to us. The author believes it is not okay that Inuit children and adults died and were buried in unmarked graves, their bodies never returned to their loved ones. It is not okay that their relatives were never told of their deaths or where they were buried because keeping track of dead Inuit bodies was simply not very important to Canadian authorities. The author wants to imagine a world free of colonialism, a world without interference in Inuit lives.

Educator & Series Information
This book is part of the Modern Indigenous Voices series.

Additional Information
72 pages | 8.50" x 5.50" | Paperback

Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition critiques ways of approaching Indigenous texts that are informed by the Western academic tradition and offers instead a new way of theorizing Indigenous literature based on the Indigenous practice of life writing.

Since the 1970s non-Indigenous scholars have perpetrated the notion that Indigenous people were disinclined to talk about their lives and underscored the assumption that autobiography is a European invention. Deanna Reder challenges such long held assumptions by calling attention to longstanding autobiographical practices that are engrained in Cree and Métis, or nêhiyawak, culture and examining a series of examples of Indigenous life writing. Blended with family stories and drawing on original historical research, Reder examines censored and suppressed writing by nêhiyawak intellectuals such as Maria Campbell, Edward Ahenakew, and James Brady. Grounded in nêhiyawak ontologies and epistemologies that consider life stories to be an intergenerational conduit to pass on knowledge about a shared world, this study encourages a widespread re-evaluation of past and present engagement with Indigenous storytelling forms across scholarly disciplines

Educator Information
Table of Contents

In this new edition of her powerful debut, Plains Cree writer and National Poet Laureate Louise B. Halfe - Sky Dancer reckons with personal history within cultural genocide.

Employing Indigenous spirituality, black comedy, and the memories of her own childhood as healing arts, celebrated poet Louise B. Halfe - Sky Dancer finds an irrepressible source of strength and dignity in her people. Bear Bones and Feathers offers moving portraits of Halfe's grandmother (a medicine woman whose life straddled old and new worlds), her parents (both trapped in a cycle of jealousy and abuse), and the people whose pain she witnessed on the reserve and at residential school.

Originally published by Coteau Books in 1994, Bear Bones and Feathers won the Milton Acorn People's Poet Award, and was a finalist for the Spirit of Saskatchewan Award, the Pat Lowther Award, and the Gerald Lampert Award.

Reviews
"With gentleness, old woman's humour, and a good red willow switch, Louise chases out the shadowy images that haunt our lives. She makes good medicine, she sings a beautiful song."— Maria Campbell, author of Halfbreed

Additional Information
144 pages | 5.75" x 8.50" | Paperback

Bent Back Tongue is a raw examination of love, identity, politics, masculinity, and vulnerability. Through sharp honesty and revealing satire, Gottfriedson delves into Canadian colonialism and the religious political paradigms shaping experiences of a Secwépemc First Nations man. This is a book that tears through deceptions that both Canada and the church impose on their citizens. Gottfriedson tackles the darkest layers of a shared colonial history; at the same time, the poems in Bent Back Tongue are a celebration of love, land, family, and the self.

Additional Information
120 pages | 5.50" x 8.00" | Paperback