The Pairings

Off-kilter. That might be the right adjective to describe how these two stylists approach genre. Or maybe out-of-this-world, especially when Patrick deWitt and Deborah Willis are the world builders. Outlandish? No, not really. Both are surprisingly grounded, even if the ground beneath their characters’ feet is always shifting in wickedly funny ways. Oh, hell. Why even consider labels when confronted with the originality fuelling The Librarianist and Girlfriend on Mars? READ MORE

Seriously. Is there anyone (anyone?!) that wouldn’t show up a little late to the office for one life-affirming hour listening to these two pals crack wise? They are both masters of their respective domains – respectively, suspense and satire – and on top of their games. Linwood Barclay even blurbed Terry Fallis’s latest hit, A New Season: “Fallis writes from another time, when Wodehouse and Leacock and Twain roamed the earth. May he never become extinct.” Here’s a first question when we get to the audience Q&A after the conversation: ask Fallis to blurb Barclay’s latest bestseller, The Lie Maker, on the spot! READ MORE

Sheer brilliance brimming with so much story and soul. That’s the special connection between Jordan Abel and Joshua Whitehead, who’ve broken molds in academia, auto-fiction, poetry, memoir, and now, with the publication of Abel’s Empty Spaces, a bold reimagination of the 19th century’s The Last of the Mohicans into a hypnotic, mystifying exploration of land and legacy. READ MORE

They are, in a word, breathtaking. In the breadth of their novels and the breath of their language. What a treat to be able to listen to Mona Awad (Rouge) and Emma Donoghue (Learned by Heart) as they share insights about their writing and the ways their fully realized characters interact with one another and their specifically envisioned environments, as well as the screen adaptations of their work. READ MORE

Now these are what we call pedigreed family trees: one lived through Andy Warhol’s NYC coterie (Alexandra Auder’s Don’t Call Me Home) and one imagined through the lens of creative struggle and parental obsession (Claudia Dey’s Daughter). Dysfunctionally fabulous. Fabulously dysfunctional. And oh, the accolades, from Debbie Harry to Leslie Feist, Maggie Nelson to Miriam Toews. READ MORE

Toronto is in the house, seen in exhilarating new light through the astute, highly original lenses of Catherine Hernandez (The Story of Us) and Zalika Reid-Benta (River Mumma). There’s aching in isolation and magic in belonging at work in both novels. And, as Hernandez told the CBC, there’s also a whole lot of hope. “I wanted it to feel like a warm hug to all my readers. Despite how bleak the future seems, I want people to read the last pages of the book believing in love and the power of family.” READ MORE

You’ve been dealt a pair of aces from the worlds of comics and graphic novels. Johnnie Christmas’s Swim Team made the longlists for The National Book Awards and the Coretta Scott King Awards, and he visually transformed works by Margaret Atwood and William Gibson into graphic novels. Mariko Tamaki’s comics resume is off the charts, creating female superheroes for DC Comics, Dark Horse and Marvel. Then there are her graphic novel collabs, including Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, Skim and This One Summer, which collectively have won Printz and Caldecott Honours, as well as Eisner and Ignatz awards – and are regulars on the American Library Association’s Most Challenged Book Lists. Let’s keep these gifts on our shelves and these authors on our stages! And who better to bring out the best in the best than Calgary comic artist Teresa Wong? READ MORE

No one has reinvigorated the domestic suspense genre quite like Canada’s Ashley Audrain and England’s Louise Candlish. Both are in Calgary for the first time. Both are major bestsellers. Both write about everyday longings gone inexplicably, horribly, awry. Like Audrain’s new mother terrified of her child (The Push) or a very pleasant street undone by neighbourliness (The Whispers). Then there’s Candlish’s happily ensconced couple who find another family moving into their home (Our House) or a landscaping project that should never have been started (The Only Suspect). READ MORE