Halloween Book Signing with Jennifer Chevalier, author of The Winter Witch

Stop by for a fun Halloween book signing with Jennifer Chevalier, Giller-longlisted author of The Winter Witch!

Two sisters set sail on a bride ship from Normandy hoping to leave a curse behind them and find better lives in the wilds of 17th-century Quebec, only to meet a mysterious witch who forces them to confront the truth about magic—and their past. For fans of Emilia Hart, Sarah Penner, Alix E. Harrow, Ami McKay, and Roberta Rich.

Élisabeth Jossard boards a bride ship to New France with her sister Marthe, forced to start a new life after a scandal in her village in Normandy. She’s harbouring a dark secret and hopes that by coming to Montreal—the holiest place in the world, she’s been told—the saints will hear her pleas and lift the curse that plagues her.

When Élisabeth’s prayers go unanswered and she is unable to banish the spirit she believes is tormenting her, Marthe encourages her to turn to a powerful witch for help, the enigmatic stowaway Jeanne Roy. But Jeanne has secrets of her own, and when she refuses to help, Élisabeth’s resentment kindles a dangerous fire.

Inspired by the tales of Canada’s Filles du Roi, The Winter Witch examines how lies, arrogance, and ignorance can lead to witch hunts in any society.

JENNIFER CHEVALIER worked for many years at the BBC in London before moving home to Ottawa, where she is currently in charge of CBC Radio’s political affairs program, The House. Her debut novel, The Winter Witch, was an instant national bestseller and was longlisted for the Giller Prize. You can follow her on @jchevalierauthor on TikTok and Instagram or read more about her writing and radio work at jenniferchevalier.ca. 

Jennifer LoveGrove launches The Tinder Sonnets

We can’t wait to have Jennifer LoveGrove in store to celebrate The Tinder Sonnets and hope you’ll join us!

From acclaimed writer Jennifer LoveGrove comes an electric poetry collection exploring female sexual desire, contemporary dating, misogyny, and middle-age that reflects and embodies our social media-saturated times.

Unabashedly confessional and radically vulnerable, The Tinder Sonnets rallies against the long-standing demand that “women of a certain age” politely accept being rendered non-sexual. Each poem is based on a date, relationship, or contemporary dating insight, and highlights how misogyny impacts the way weconnect in the modern world–or don’t.

Juxtaposing folklore and the natural world against the digital sphere of texting and dating apps, this is poetry that defies invisibility and instead confronts and subverts it through a discerning feminist lens. While experimenting with the traditional form of the sonnet, these sonically textured poems are playful and wry, erotic and joyful, all while refusing to shy away from palpable anger, frustration, and disappointment.  

Centering strength and resilience in the face of a resurgence of misogynistic chauvinism, The Tinder Sonnets is a staunch refusal to recede from view, to cede sexual space, or to be quiet and polite. 

JENNIFER LOVEGROVE is the author of the Giller Prize–longlisted novel Watch How We Walk, as well as three poetry collections: Beautiful Children with Pet Foxes (longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award), I Should Never Have Fired the Sentinel and The Dagger Between Her Teeth. She is currently working on a new novel, and creative nonfiction. She divides her time between downtown Toronto and Squirrel Creek Retreat in rural Ontario.

Allan Briesmaster launches Elsewise

Please join Allan Briesmaster as he launches his eleventh book of poetry, Elsewise, alongside Toronto poet Daniel Scott.

Allan is an editor, publisher, and literary consultant specializing in poetry and non-fiction. He lives in Thornhill, Ontario (just north of Toronto) with his wife Holly, a visual artist with whom he has collaborated several times on books which include her collages and pen-and-ink drawings.

In 1986-90 Allan led Phoenix, Toronto's longest-running poetry workshop. He was one of the chief organizers of the weekly Art Bar Poetry Reading Series from 1991 until 2002: playing a central role as it grew into the largest series of its kind in Canada. As an editor, working with several literary presses, Allan has been instrumental in the production of more than 250 literary titles since 1998. From 2000 to 2008, he was the main literary editor for Seraphim Editions. His final project with Seraphim was to co-edit the 256-page anthology Crossing Lines: Poets Who Came to Canada in the Vietnam War Era. Allan started his own micro press, Aeolus House, in 2003. In 2006, he and three fellow writers founded Quattro Books. He retired from Quattro in 2017 and continues publishing limited-edition books and chapbooks with Aeolus House. He has read his poetry, led workshops and given talks on poetry, editing and publishing in venues across Canada as well as online

Allan Briesmaster’s eleventh book is in some ways a culmination, in others an open-ended extension, and in still others a branching-out into new and different poetic terrains. Whether with deceptive simplicity or with elevated density, ironic humour, or an earnest seriousness, these poems invite — and challenge — their readers to think, feel, and imagine “elsewise.”