Spring 2009

Sally Cooper leads a discussion with Claudia Dey, Nalo Hopkinson, Russell Smith and RM Vaughan on Sex in Fiction (Discussion)
May 8, 2009

Several of Canada’ most exciting young novelists talk dirty with part-time Ninja Sally Cooper

Winter 2009

Adam Sol interviewed by Christine Fischer Guy in Adam’s Prophet (Audio)
March 11, 2009

Fischer Guy talks to poet Sol about his new Biblically inclined novel in verse, Jeramiah, Ohio

Jordan Scott interviewed by Marianne Apostolides in Blert (Audio)
January 26, 2009

Part-time ‘Ninja Apostolides interviews Jordan Scott about the poetics of stuttering around his new book blert

Fall 2008

Nam Le interviewed by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer in Rocking The Boat (Audio)
November 14, 2008

‘Ninja K interviews 5 under 35, and Dylan Thomas Prize-winning author Nam Le about his book of short stories, The Boat

Lee Henderson interviewed by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer in The Man Game (Interview)
November 7, 2008

Bookninja Magazine editor Kuitenbrouwer talks to author Henderson about his unique, compelling new novel, The Man Game

Jonathan Bennett interviewed by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer in Entitlement (Interview)
September 22, 2008

‘Ninja K talks with Canadian-Australian novelist Jonathan Bennett about his new book, Entitlement, which explores the titular concept of what the rich and middle class in Canada feel they are owed

Spring/Summer 2008

Andrew Pyper interviewed by Claire Cameron in Circle of Influence (Audio)
August 15, 2008

Novelists Pyper and Cameron chat about Pyper’s career, his views on categories in fiction, the ridiculousness of the literary “scene”, why his books don’t win literary awards and, of course, Pyper’s just released book The Killing Circle

Barbara Berson, Joseph Boyden, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Lydia Millet and Richard Nash in On “The Reader” (Discussion)
August 4, 2008

Editors Berson (Penguin) and Nash (Soft Skull) join authors Boyden (Three Day Road) and Millet (How the Dead Dream) in a discussion (lead by Ninja K) about the mythical and elusive beast we’re all hunting: The Reader

Marianne Apostolides‘ Subvirtualism (Essay)
July 8, 2008

Hey, whatever happened to surrealism? Bookninjette Apostolides takes a look at surrealism, asking the questions: Is it dead? Has it been entirely co-opted by advertising?

David Orr, Carmine Starnino, and Marcela Valdes on Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives (Discussion)
March 2008

Critics Orr (NYT, Poetry), Starnino (Globe, Canadian Notes and Queries) and Valdes (Washington Post) go to town on the best novel about poetry ever written

Fall 07/Winter 08

Jonathan Garfinkel interviewed by Adam Sol in On Ambivalence (Audio)
February 2008

Poet Sol interviews Garfinkel about his travel memoir of his time in Israel and Palestine

Tom McCarthy interviewed by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer in Mise en abîme
December 17, 2007

Ninja K interviews by email the man The Independent calls “one of the fictional finds of the decade” about his newest novel Men in Space

Michael Winter interviewed by Catherine Bush in Winter’s Wonderland (Audio)
November 23, 2007

Canadian fiction star and notoriously nice guy Michael Winter interviewed by novelist colleague Catherine Bush about the writing of his new book, The Architects Are Here

Alissa York interviewed by Christine Fischer Guy in The Book of York (Audio)
November 3, 2007

2007 Scotia Bank Giller Prize nominee Alissa York is up against some stiff competition with her new novel Effigy. Fischer Guy interviews the rising star about the challenges and rewards of historical fiction

Catherine Bush leads a discussion with Peter Behrens, Barbara Gowdy, Sheila Heti, Lisa Moore in On Empathy (Discussion)
September 10, 2007

Five award-winning authors discuss the concept and use of “empathy” in fiction, from their perspectives as both writers and readers

Spring/Summer 2007

Sean Dixon interviewed by Marianne Apostolides in The Epic of Dixon (Audio)
Aug 13, 2007

Part-time ‘Ninja Apostolides draws out playwright, actor, banjo player, and now novelist (The Girls Who Saw Everything) Sean Dixon. Besides the discussion of the lines between theatre and fiction, there’s also a goodly bit of banjo playing. Yes, you heard it here first.

Heather Birrell’s Impossible to Die in Your Dreams (Fiction)
Illustrations by Charles Checketts
July 23, 2007

Bookninja is pleased to present Journey Prize winner Heather Birrell’s new short fiction

Guy Gavriel Kay interviewed by Christine Fischer Guy in Pointing the Divining Rod (Audio)
July 3, 2007

World renowned author of the fantastic Kay is interviewed by Bookninja’s own Christine Fischer Guy about his writing, philosophy and method, as well as his new book with Penguin, Ysabel.

Dennis Lee interviewed by George Murray in Into the Lee (Audio)
May 17, 2007

Dennis Lee, poet, critic, children’s author and Toronto’s first poet laureate, interviewed by Murray about the new direction his adult verse has been taking. Lee reads from and speaks about Yesno, his new strange and wonderful collection.

Winter 2007

Simon Armitage interviewed by George Murray in Armitage Rex (Audio)
May 4, 2007

Armitage begins with a poem and Murray asks him about his North American reception, the climate for poetry and books in general, poetry in education, the use of humour in verse, and his new translations. Armitage’s answers are considered, erudite, and even a little surprising towards the end…

Lynn Coady and Christy Ann Conlin in Home Turf (Discussion)
Illustration by Charles Checketts
April 27, 2007

Spurred on by Rachel Preston’s entry in the Fall 2006 Bookninja Magazine, Coady and Conlin tackle the issue of writing about place, this time from the perspective of native sons, er, daughters.

Donna Bailey Nurse interviews Lawrence Hill in Black Ink (Audio)
March 13th, 2007

Braving sheets of ice falling from the CN Tower, Donna Bailey Nurse and Lawrence Hill infiltrate the CBC building in downtown Toronto to chat about Hill’s new novel, The Book of Negroes.

Derek McCormack’s Stalk Characters (Essay)
February 19th, 2007

In an essay eerily reminiscent of, and owing much to, his fiction Derek tells of his struggles after the publication of his novel with a special brand of pop culture depression.

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer interviews David Wichman in Sex and the Real Girl (Audio)
January 15, 2007

In her latest podcast, Ninja K interviews Annick Press’s David Wichman about The Little Black Book For Girlz, a for-youth, by-youth sexual health book, and the controversy that swells up whenever books about youth and sex are published.

Fall 2006

Rachael Preston’s Miss Appropriation: Writing About What It Appears You Don’t Know (Essay)
Illustration by Charles Checketts
(December 8, 2006)

A stranger in a strange land, novelist Rachael Preston writes about the worries and thrills of recreating Nova Scotia for her novel, The Wind Seller — even though she’s never lived there.

John Terpstra’s Telling the Story, At Long Last (Essay)
(October 23, 2007)

Poet and memoirist John Terpstra knew from the first day he walked into his partner’s home (at 18-years-old) that he had to tell the story of her family’s struggle with muscular dystrophy. Thirty years later, in the highly successful memoir The Boys, he finally did. How did he get there?

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer interviews Trevor Cole in Trevor Aloud (Audio)
(October 17, 2006)

Ninja K continues her podcast interviewing with recent GG-nominted author of The Fearsome Particles Trevor Cole, talking about Cole’s novels, Authors Aloud, journalism and more.

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer interviews Geoffrey Taylor in I(FOA)Pod (Audio)
(October 10, 2006)

Ninja Kuitenbrouwer tracked down IFOA head Geoffrey Taylor and cornered him in his pre-IFOA-hubbub office for an exclusive interview about where Toronto’s Harbourfront series stands, where it’s headed and what to expect this year.

Heather Birrell and Annabel Lyon’s Twilight Zone (Review)
(October 2, 2006)

Fiction writers Birrell and Lyon discuss Deborah Eisenberg’s brilliant new collection Twilight of the Superheroes.

Heather Birrell and Deborah Eisenberg’s Super(whoa)man (Interview)
Illustration by Charles Checketts
(September 27, 2006)

Fictionista Heather Birrell interviews long-time hero Deborah Eisenberg about about America’s “willful childishness”, the shape of her stories, the “professionalization” of writing, and why, when it comes to finding a room of one’s own, it’s best to lie, lie, lie.

Summer 2006

Aislinn Hunter and Sean Horlor’s Just a Small Town Girl/Just a City Boy (Discussion)
Illustration by Charles Checketts

Poets Hunter and Horlor pick up a drunken discussion that began on a patio in Vancouver with Horlor’s challenge: “You live in a relatively large North American city, yet the urban world–and you know what I mean by that–is nowhere in your work. I think you have a responsibility as a writer to explore that, so why aren’t you?”

Kevin Chong’s Mr. Wordwise (Humour)

Mr. Wordwise comes to us much like pictures of Spiderman come to J. Jonah Jameson through Peter Parker. We don’t ask, we don’t question. We just thank Mr. Chong for facilitating the delivery of this excellent and very serious advice for writers and readers.

Adam Sol and Christine Fischer Guy’s The Likelihood of Snow in Turkey (Review)
Illustration by Charles Checketts

After months and months of Turkey’s oppressive muscling, Orhan Pamuk’s Snow gets an inverse omnibus massage from poet Sol and fictionista Fischer Guy

John Degen and Timothy Taylor Playing the Game (Interview)

Novelist Timothy Taylor interviews poet-turned-novelist John Degen about his first book, The Uninvited Guest

Lee Gowan’s Confession (Fiction)
Illustration by Charles Checketts

Novelist Gowan treats us to the first chapter of his work-in-progress, Confession

Fall/Winter 2005

Derek McCormack‘ and Seth’s Christmas Days (Excerpt)
(December 1, 2005)

Every day until Christmas Eve we are running an excerpt from Derek McCormack’s Christmas Days, an advent calendar in words and images, illustrated by Seth

Catherine Bush’s Ever Revise (Essay)
(November 17, 2005)

Novelist Bush writes about her unorthodox decision to massively rewrite her latest book between the publication of the hardcover and paperback versions

Charlotte Gill’s and Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer’s Bushwhacked (Discussion)
(November 6, 2005)

Fiction writers and, coincidentally, tree planters, Gill and Kuitenbrouwer talk about writing, planting, and work ethic

Patrick Lane’s A New Leaf (Essay)
(October 24, 2005)

Canadian literary icon Lane generously reminisces about his personal renaissance, both as a writer and as a man

Brenda Schmidt’s Causing a Scene (Essay)
(October 6, 2005)

Poet Schmidt delves into the advantages and disadvantages, of living in isolation versus living in “the scene”

Summer 2005

John Lofranco’s and Ian LeTourneau’s The Return to Form (Discussion)
(August 17, 2005)

Poets LeTourneau and Lofranco discuss the rise of form poetry in young Canadian poetry

Paul Vermeersch’s Half-Blood or Half-Baked: A Bookseller’s Account (Essay)
(July 17, 2005)

Independent bookseller Vermeersch gives us a blow-by-blow account of the midnight madness that is Harry

Marianne Apostolides’s and Heather Birrell’s The Big O (Discussion)
(May 28, 2005)

Authors Apostolides and Birrell take opposing sides in the ongoing Oprah Book Club argument

Kevin Chong’s My Travel Journal: Mojacar, Spain, February 2003 (Essay)
(May 16, 2005)

Kevin Chong went away on a writing retreat and walks us through his Spanish odyssey

Winter/Spring 2005

Chris Jennings’s and Zach Wells’s Kinetic/Frenetic: Simple Master (Review)
(April 26, 2005)

Poets Jennings and Wells discuss Simple Master, the first book by Alice Burdick.

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer’s Hardcover Logo (Essay)
(April 4, 2005)

Novelist Kuitenbrouwer examines the prestige, economics, and artistic considerations behind the publishing decision to go with hardcover or trade paper original

Zach Wells’s Eyes on the Prize (Essay)
(March 21, 2005)

A look at the world of pay-to-play poetry contests and the magazines that run them

Kevin Chong’s Mr. Wordwise
(March 2, 2005)

The latest installment in what we hope will be Chong’s regular series of advice column madness for the literarily inclined

Bookninja’s Bookninja TV: Bibliotheca (Video)
(February 1, 2005)

Bookninja films an outing to see the Bibliotheca photography exhibit at Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto

Kathryn Gray’s It Could Happen to You… (Essay)
(January 3, 2005)

Welsh poet Kathryn Gray, nominated for the TS Eliot Prize for her first book, The Never-Never, tells us what the experience has been like