My Favourite Things in TWR for 2013

By Maurice Mierau

I’m proud of the year we had at The Winnipeg Review: more than 80 reviews of Canadian fiction published in 2013, interviews with writers, columns, exciting new poems, and a bit of controversy, as you’d expect from the masthead. Other than two national newspapers, and possibly the indefatigable Morley Walker at the Winnipeg Free Press, nobody else is covering Canadian fiction on-line with this kind of focus; and yes, we’d accept ads for cars if anyone offered them, but so far that has not happened.

My favourite things? Let’s start with the feisty Sandra Kasturi, co-founder of cutting edge genre publisher ChiZine, who talked to TWR about self-publishing and trad publishing, and had many witty and well-expressed insights in our January issue.

Outstanding west coast poet Patricia Young also contributed to issue 10, but she focused on micro-publishing from a poet’s perspective, and everyone interested in this area should check out her essay.

Josh Rioux, a young BC writer, wrote a number of fine reviews, including this one on Chris Eaton’s PoMo novel A Biography by Chris Eaton. Josh also wrote a terrific piece on George Saunders’s Tenth of December. This collection of stories was easily the best fiction I read in 2013, and Josh’s perspective is fresh even on this much-reviewed and now bestselling (!) writer.

Josh Rioux’s mother, Susie Moloney (who’s not usually introduced that way), contributed a wonderful interview with Billie Livingston last winter. No, we don’t neglect those lucky enough to sell their books to big publishers.

Nathan Dueck continued a TWR specialty with a hilarious satirical series called Not Pronounced Toes, which celebrated the thoughts and accomplishments of Manitoba’s much-missed senior politician Vic Toews; the celebration was entirely in the form of tweets (never sent, as far as I know). Here’s one of the early ones.

Chadwick Ginther has consistently written reviews of talented, small press Canadian genre writers. His review of Paul Marlowe’s under-noticed Ether Frolics is especially notable, from the summer. Although Marlowe’s collection of stories was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed award, I think the overall neglect of this book comes from a number of factors: not being published in Toronto, and the weird CanLit attitude that literary novelists should write middlebrow thrillers (which they usually do badly) and the simultaneous disapproval of artists who actually write genre books because of their love for a particular tradition, rather than their obsession with pleasing Toronto-based agents.

Thomas Trofimuk has shared his enthusiasm and wisdom about the craft of fiction since the beginning of TWR three years ago. Here’s his excellent piece on Bill Gaston’s last book.

Poet Ray Hsu and visual artist Marc Neys contributed TWR’s first video poem in fall, a striking, beautiful, and innovative piece.

Shane Neilson, a poet, memoirist, and fiction writer,  is also a brilliant critic, and proved it again with this almost encyclopedic review of an anthology of Atlantic fiction published by Goose Lane this fall.

Alison Gillmor is one of my favourite book critics for her good taste and way with a sentence, and she outdid herself on Michael Winter’s latest novel.

Jess Woolford has made a specialty of writing about memoir. Her review of Jowita Bydlowska’s controversial Drunk Mom was original and made observations that went missing in the so-called national media.

The young Winnipeg journalist Matthew TenBruggencate wrote an entertaining piece on Winnipeg writers and the seasonal (summer) reading phenomenon that I really enjoyed.

I had a lot of fun in June talking to Calgary writer Ali Bryan about her first novel, Roost. Ali is genuinely funny and also very talented.

Rachel Carlson is a young Winnipeg writer and gifted critic. Here’s what she had to say about Joseph Boyden’s latest.

Also in fall, the extraordinary Winnipeg short story writer Melissa Steele wrote a lovely piece called “When I grow up I want to write like Alice Munro,” for the obvious occasion.

Finally, Kingston writer Richard Cumyn has kept producing fine criticism for TWR, especially on short fiction collections. Here’s what he had to say about two brilliant books, Andrew Hood’s The Cloaca, and Russell Wangersky’s Whirl Away.

If you’re a regular reader of TWR, send me a note about what you like or don’t in the magazine. I look forward to hearing from you (editor@wordpress-26455-651993.cloudwaysapps.com) and to publishing at least another 80 reviews of Canadian fiction and literature in 2014, along with interviews, new work, sharp columns, and excerpts.

Update: I should have mentioned at least some of the fabulous columnists who graced these pages in the last year. I’ll start with Jeff Bursey, a PEI writer who’s more informed and articulate about experimental fiction than anyone else in this country. Here’s the column he wrote about the letters of William Gaddis (yes, one of Jeff’s letters is in the collection) for issue 12. Then, TWR‘s newest columnist, the gifted Winnipeg fiction writer Chandra Mayor, who is doing an amazing job covering local theatre: here’s what she did recently with a Judith Thompson production. And one more: Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, an excellent and prolific YA writer, does a fascinating column of interviews with Canadian YA writers for us; here’s one with Edmonton writer Gail Sidonie Sobat from issue 11.