Bookhug Press
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Congratulations to Marianne Apostolides! I Can't Get You Out of My Mind is a Finalist for the 2020 INDIES in the Science Fiction category! http://buff.ly/2Nsp6KN

"I didn’t know this at the time, but I was writing about how far away I was from homefrom my former able body, my childhood in the Philippines, and my represse...d memories and feelings. Through the collection, I try to retrace my steps back to the beginning or source somehow." We chat with debut poet Therese Estacion about her new collection Phantompains, out March 31 from Bookhug. Book*hug Press is working to produce a variety of fully accessible formats of Phantompains, including braille, audiobook, and ebook editions produced by NNELS, ECW Press, and Laura Brady, respectively. alllitup.ca//Phantompains-An-Interview-with-Therese-Estaci

When Maria Stepanova’s aunt died, she left behind an apartment full of ephemera postcards and photographs and diaries, from almost a century of life in Russia. Stepanova’s prize-winning memoir, In Memory of Memory, newly translated into English, is about her Russian Jewish family, but also about how we construct and understand our own and our families’ lives, and how we construct and understand history. In this excerpt, Stepanova talks about her aunt’s diaries what the...y left out, and what they didn’t. Read an excerpt from In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale, in The Toronto Star. Our thanks to Deborah Dundas #FridayReads https://www.thestar.com//with-an-aunts-diaries-and-souveni

How did acclaimed Russian author Maria Stepanova's book In Memory of Memory come to be published in Canada? Find out in this behind-the-scenes tale, featuring Book*hug's Co-publisher Hazel Millar, and charming and delightful animation by Wordfest's Everett Wilson You won't want to miss this special WordFest event with Stepanova, in conversation with Leanne Shapton, Tuesday, March 23, on #ImagineOnAir. Tuesday, March 23 - 7PM MT/9PM ET FREE, RSVP: http://ow.ly/zmZB50DWKCv... https://vimeo.com/525179479

We’re so excited to share that Therese Estacion, author of Phantompains, will be part of the fabulous #FOLD21 roster! After recently becoming a bilateral below the knee and partial hands amputee, Estacion began writing poetry that explores the topics of grief, disability, Filipino culture and memory. Her work has been published by the CBC, CV2, EdgeNorth, Homesick Zine, Pank Magazine, and the Yellowknifer. Her debut book of poetry, PHANTOMPAINS, will be released on March 31. Get your tickets starting on March 25! #ReadCanadian #DiverseCanLit

Begin by Telling by Meg Remy of U.S. Girls and Permanent Revolution by Gail Scott are included in Shrapnel Magazine's Most Anticipated Titles for Spring 2021 preview. There are so many wonderful books coming this Spring! https://www.shrapnelmagazine.com//shrapnels-most-anticipat

Today, we’re excited to preview Aaron Tucker’s Catalogue d’oiseaux. The book began as notes sent to poet Aaron Tucker’s long-distance partner. Not initially intended for publication, the writings moved, over time, into a long, lyrical, confessional love poem. Following the couple on travels across the globefrom Berlin to the Yukon, Porto to Torontothis poem is expansive, moving sensually through small, intimate spaces and the larger world alike. Catalogue d’oiseaux is a stu...nning work; a celebration of the depth of adult love, and the elemental parts of life that make it so. The book lives between geographies and chronologies as a kaleidoscopic gathering of the many fractals that make up a couple’s life. We asked Tuckerwho you may know as the author of Irresponsible Mediums: The Chess Games of Marcel Duchampto introduce his latest collection to readers, and to talk about some of its influences. You can read his answers, and a brief excerpt from the collection, on the Book*hug blog. https://bookhugpress.ca/spring-poetry-preview-catalogue-do/

I begin from a position of extreme distrust of language and do not believe that englishor any European language, for that mattercan truly speak our truths without the language in question being put through some sort of transformative process. M. NourbeSe Philip, Bla_K As the month of February draws to a close, so, too, does Black History Month. But the conversation doesn’t have to stop, nor should it if the goal is revolution. If it is to make real the new ways of thinki...ng, seeing, and relating that we so frequently imagine. We close with Bla_K: Essays and Interviews, by M. NourbeSe Philip, a collection of previously out-of-print essays and new works by one of Canada’s most important contemporary writers and thinkers. Through an engagement with her earlier work, Philip comes to realize the existence of a repetition in the world: the return of something that, while still present, has become unembedded, disappeared. Her imperative becomes to make us see what has gone unseen, by writing memory upon the margin of history, in the shadow of empire and at the frontier of silence. Bla_K explores questions of race, the body politic, timeliness, recurrence, ongoingness, art, and the so-called multicultural nation. Now and indefinitely, it is essential. As part of our series, we’re honoured to share a brief excerpt from Bla_K, which you can read and enjoy on the blog. Thank you for joining us this monthand, as aforementioned, indefinitelyin our effort to support the work of Black authors. https://bookhugpress.ca/were-all-in-this-continuing-the-co/

Acclaimed contemporary Russian author Maria Stepanova sends warm greetings to Canadian readers from her Moscow apartment in anticipation of the upcoming release of In Memory of Memory (available on March 2). In Memory of Memory is available now for pre-order from our website, or order from your local independent bookseller. https://bookhugpress.ca//in-memory-of-memory-by-maria-ste/

Today, we’re excited to preview Maria Stepanova’s award-winning novel, In Memory of Memory, translated from the Russian by Sasha Dugdale. Stepanova, Russia’s next great writer, is one of the most powerful and distinctive voices of Russia’s first post-Soviet literary generation. She’s received several Russian and international literary awards, including the Andrey Bely Prize and the Joseph Brodsky Fellowship, but in 2021the year of Stepanova, according to The GuardianEng...lish-language readers will finally be introduced: not just to Stepanova’s fiction, but to her poetry and essays, as well. In Memory of Memory’s English-language translator, Sasha Dugdale, is a force of nature in her own right: a poet and a playwright as well as a translator, she was recently shortlisted for the prestigious TS Eliot Prize, the Prize most poets want to win. Forthcoming from Book*hug Press on March 2nd, 2021, In Memory of Memory is imbued with rare intellectual curiosity and a wonderfully soft-spoken, poetic voice. In dialogue with writers like Roland Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Susan Sontag, and Osip Mandelstam, and dipping into various formsessay, fiction, memoir, travelogue, and historical documentsStepanova assembles a vast panorama of ideas and personalities and offers an entirely new and bold exploration of cultural and personal memory. In this book, an exciting contemporary Russian writer explores terra incognita: the still-living margins of history. Pulitzer Prize finalist Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot, calls In Memory of Memory luminous, rigorous, and mesmerizing. We’ve selected an excerpt from In Memory of Memory, which you can read and enjoy on our blog, and the book is available now for pre-order: either from our online shop or from your local independent bookstore. https://bookhugpress.ca/spring-fiction-preview-in-memory-o/

We are endlessly vulnerable, desperately interesting, utterly defenseless. Especially after we are gone. Maria Stepanova In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale, is reviewed in The New York Times! Book critic John Williams calls Stepanova's award-winning book, "[A] daring combination of family history and roving cultural analysis... a kaleidoscopic, time-shuffling look at one family of Russian Jews throughout a fiercely eventful century." https://www.nytimes.com//review-in-memory-of-memory-maria-

In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale, is reviewed in the Wall Street Journal. Reviewer Sam Sacks writes, "the hybrid book that Ms. Stepanova has finally produced presents gleanings from her family archives alongside the labyrinthine narrative of her "search for the past," which she concedes is incomplete and in many ways unsuccessful. And amidst the personal artifacts are essay-like meditations on the tensions that inhere within any act of remembrance. The result is a rich, digressive, deeply introspective work..." In Memory of Memory will be released in Canada in exactly one week on Tuesday, March 2. Pre-order your copy from our webstore or order from your local independent bookseller. https://www.wsj.com//fiction-in-memory-of-memory-review-11

We're having a Holiday Sale! Save 25% off everything from now until December 23rd, 2020! Plus get free shipping within Canada on all orders over $50.00. BONUS: The Book*hug Elves have curated a selection of Holiday Bundles featuring 2020 releases that are perfect for the book lovers on your gift list. Choose from The Hygge Bundle, The Modern Fables Bundle, The Blurred Edges Bundle, The Literary Adventures Bundle, and two Poetry Lovers Bundles. Due to Covid-19 restrictions an...d expected high shipping volumes, Canada Post is encouraging everyone to shop early so that your books can arrive on time. We echo that! Shop early. Shop now. https://bookhugpress.ca

To commune with language, of the living and of the dead. Our In Conversation series continues with Erín Moure, whose translation of Chantal Neveu's This Radiant Life was released this week. In this new interview, Moure shares many insights into translation, poetry, and these persistently strange times. Read the full interview here: https://bookhugpress.ca/in-conversation-erin-moure/

On Monday, November 23, The Atwater Poetry Project Online presents Paul Celan/100, featuring Erín Moure, Mark Goldstein, Phil Hall, Oana Avasilichioaei, R. Kolewe, and Jaclyn Piudik. 2020 not only signifies the one-hundredth anniversary of Paul Celan’s birth but also marks the fiftieth yahrzeit of his death. Paul Celan/100 is a reading in celebration of his life, poetry, and the translational practices that accompanied it, as well as the varied poetries his work has inspired. Register to attend this special event, via Crowdcast: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/app-celan-100

In anticipation of the coming holiday season, the Book*hug Elves have put together five Holiday Book Bundles featuring 2020 releases. Our specialty bundles are perfect for the book lovers on your list. You may even decide to treat yourself. Go on... we won't tell. Introducing Holiday Book Bundle #1: The Hygge Bundle Three books to curl up with this winter. Gift this bundle to all those on your list who love to cozy up and escape into a good story. All that’s needed to complet...e the total hygge experience is a warm blanket a nice cuppa. Included in this bundle: Polar Vortex by Shani Mootoo Small, Broke, and Kind of Dirty by Hana Shafi Agatha by Ann Cathrine Bomann, translated by Caroline Waight All holiday book bundles, as well as all individual titles (print, eBooks, and audiobooks), are 25% off from now until December 23. As a bonus, get free shipping within Canada on all orders over $50.00. To order The Hygge Bundle (or any of our other holiday book bundles) visit our online shop. https://bookhugpress.ca/bookhug-2020-holiday-bundles/

Happy Publication Day to This Radiant Life by Chantal Neveu, translated by Erin Moure. In this stunning long poem, Chantal Neveu draws from the lexicons of science, art, revolution, and corporeal movement to forge intense and extended rhythms that invoke the elements and spaces making up our world. This is poetry capable of holding life and death, solidarity, and love. Renewal. Breathing. In its brevity and persistence, This Radiant Life is a material call for action: it asks... us to let go, even just a little bit, of our individuality in favour of mutuality, to arrive separately yet in unison at a radiance in which all living beings can thrive. Available now: https://bookhugpress.ca//this-radiant-life-by-chantal-nev/

Sheung-King reading from his debut novel, You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked. With captions.

"I suppose different questions call for different forms, but writing between genres, and sometimes doing away with genre altogether feels most comfortable to me." Where Things Touch author Bahar Orang answers 12 or 20 questions for rob mclennan's blog. https://robmclennan.blogspot.com//12-or-20-second-series-q

"I can’t say enough about Hana Shafi’s latest book, Small, Broke, and Kind of Dirty. It is a treasure of a book; the balm for a tumultuous year." TMR Contributo...r Rachel Marie Fernandes loves this book, and wants to gift it to all her friends! Check it out: https://bit.ly/SmallBrokeDirty Published by Bookhug Press See more

Tonight! The Librairie Drawn & Quarterly New Reads Book Club meets to discuss Talking Animals by Joni Murphy! 7pm EDT - https://t.co/puM9ycImW2

In You Are Eating An Orange. You Are Naked. the 2010s have never looked so 1770s. Brett Josef Grubisic reviews Sheung-King's debut novel for the Toronto Star. https://tinyurl.com/yxu5p36j

Writing is a process of unfolding possibilities. Lise Downe Our In Conversation series continues with multidisciplinary artist Lise Downe, whose poetry collection, Propositions and Prayers, was released earlier this week. In this new interview, Downe talks about how and why she began to write, twentieth-century poetry, the dual importance of movement and flat surfaces, and more. Read the full interview here:... https://bookhugpress.ca/in-conversation-lise-downe/ See more

Thank you to Janet Pilgrim, Nurse Manager at Toronto General Hospital for reading an excerpt from Shani Mootoo's Polar Vortex. University Health Network #ScotiabankGillerPrize #GillerPrize #CravingCanLit