Girls, Interrupted
Lisa Whittington-Hill

The past decade has seen a rise in documentaries, memoirs and podcasts that revisit the legacies of women wronged by pop culture. With movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp challenging long-standing narratives around female celebrities, it’s no surprise so many believe the representation of women in the media has improved. In her scathingly witty collection of essays, Girls, Interrupted: How Pop Culture is Failing Women, Lisa Whittington-Hill argues otherwise. Pop culture’s treatment of women, writes Whittington-Hill, is still marked by misogyny and misunderstanding. From the gender bias in celebrity memoir coverage to problematic portrayals of middle-aged women and the sexist pressure on female pop stars to constantly reinvent themselves, Girls, Interrupted critically examines how mainstream media keeps failing women and explores what we can do to fix it. A work of searing relevance, this candid and often cathartic debut marks Whittington-Hill as a cultural critic of the first rank.

The Human Scale
Michael Lista

Whether investigating a gruesome triple-murder, a fairy tale marriage gone horribly wrong, or a brilliant con artist, Michael Lista has proven himself one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation. In his belief that crime reporting thrives the closer it moves to the human scale—where every uncovered secret reveals the truth of our obligations to each other—Lista builds his compulsively readable narratives from details (fake flowers, a little girl's necklace) others might pass over, details that provide a doorway into the extreme situations he is drawn to. The Human Scale not only includes Lista's most celebrated magazine stories to date, but comes with postscripts that describe his process in writing each piece, and the fallout from publication. Here is long-form journalism in its most hallowed form: brilliant and bingeable.
The Civilizing Discourse
Evan Jones

“If I can impart one final message, beyond the usual declarative to read poetry and buy poetry books,” writes Evan Jones in his introduction to The Civilizing Discourse, “it is to listen to poets. The real ones offer wisdom and a perspective at odds with prevalent visions.”

In a series of passionate, enlightening, frank, engaging, and sometimes astonishing conversations, thirteen poets—many acknowledged masters—open up about their writing processes, their childhoods and marriages, their regrets, as well as their hopes for and frustration with poetry. From Norm Sibum describing his affinity with a waitresses and cabbies to Nyla Matuk’s wrenching investigations into the Palestinian side of her family; from Don Coles’s obsession with alternative universes to Robyn Sarah’s praise for discarded things; from Elise Partridge describing her shift in priorities after a cancer diagnosis to Steven Heighton’s interest in remaining childlike, The Civilizing Discourse is not only a highly readable record of the literary scene today, but, in its celebration of language, will appeal to poetry readers and poets alike.



Poets included: Daryl Hine, Norm Sibum, Marius Kociejowski, Don Coles, Elise Partridge, Steven Heighton, Robyn Sarah, A.F. Moritz, Robert Bringhurst, Anne Compton, Nyla Matuk, Iman Mersal
Because
Andrew Steinmetz

An engrossing punk-rock novel about teenage daydreams and sibling dynamics

Teenage brothers Hombre and Transformer spend their days locked up in their suburban Montreal bedroom, writing songs and dreaming of stardom. Hombre, the younger one, is quiet, contemplative, and talented, a poet in the making. His older brother Transformer is stubborn, domineering, and secretly struggling with mental health issues. Their sequestered world is broken open one summer when their mother hires Spit, a girl from the local guitar shop, to help the boys improve their modest skills. But these good intentions set off a chain reaction with tragic consequences.

Set in the early 80s, in a local music scene brimming with post-punk ethos and a disdain for classic rock, Because is a wry and charming depiction of a sibling relationship founded on feverish angst, unspoken admiration, jealousy, and the pursuit of the greatest song they can write from their own room.

The Four-Doored House
Pierre Nepveu

The Four-Doored House evokes two key women in Pierre Nepveu’s life. First, his granddaughter Lily, who he imagines maturing into a complex world, haunted by her memory of him as he is haunted now by her projected self, navigating an era awash in uncertainty and unease. Imbued with both wonder and disquiet, it is an aging poet’s celebration of childhood, as well as a meditation on his own “future absence.” There follows his celebration of C, the woman with whom Nepveu shares his nights and days. These are love poems dedicated to a companion who has aided him in finding "new phrases that reformulate the impossible.” The culmination of a brilliant career, translated into fluent and thrilling English by Donald Winker, The Four-Doored House is Nepveu’s most enduring work yet.

Press

On Girls, Interrupted:
"Lisa Whittington-Hill's Girls, Interrupted

On Cathedral/Grove:
Praise for Susan Glickman: “These lyric poems have an unassuming grace and clarity.”—Barbara Carey, Toronto Star

On Quicker Than The Eye:
Praise for Joe Fiorito: "[Fiorito] is a master of sparsity—there are no wasted words here, no lingering sing-song rhymes or repetitive pentameter. Each word is carefully chosen, shaping each line with sometimes delicacy, sometimes bluntness. His pen is a scalpel. With a cool surgical incision he dissects memories."—Michael Sobota, Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal

On The Four-Doored House:
“The striking, densely packed, remarkably translated poems of The Four-Doored House

News

DECEMBER NEWSLETTER (click for link)
'Tis the season to give the gift of books and we have just the thing for every book lover. From pulp fiction to pop culture, true love to true crime. As we approach the end of our 50th year, thank you to everyone who supported our mission of publishing quality Canadian writing. We can’t wait to share our new 2024 titles!

FÉLICITATIONS HOTLINE!
The French translation of Dimitri Nasrallah's Hotline (translated by Daniel Grenier, published by La Peuplade) has made the longlist for the Prix des libraires du Québec! Félicitations Daniel et Dimitri!

NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER (click for link)
Join us on Sat. Nov. 25 at Paragraphe to launch our fall Signal Editions poetry titles Cathedral/Grove, Quicker Than The Eye, and States of Emergency. Looking for a pulp fiction holiday gift? Buy the latest six Ricochet Noir books in a special bundle for only $75! And our books will be at the Salon du livre de Montréal courtesy Saga Bookstore from Nov. 22-26.

OCTOBER NEWSLETTER (click for link)
Join us for the launches of our fall lineup! The Word hosts Spirits in the Dark author H. Nigel Thomas on November 1 in Montreal; on November 8, in Toronto, Lisa Whittington-Hill will be at Supermarket with Girls, Interrupted; then on November 25 at 2 pm Paragraphe welcomes our fall poets and their books Cathedral/Grove, Quicker Than The Eye, and States of Emergency. And on November 3 and 4, we will be at the Concordia McConnell Building Atrium for the Read Quebec Book Fair!SEPTEMBER NEWSLETTER (click for link)
We're launching our Fall 2023 Signal Editions poetry on Wednesday, October 4 at Flying Books in Toronto! Join host Carmine Starnino for readings by Susan Glickman from her new release Cathedral/Grove, Joe Fiorito reading from his new collection Quicker Than the Eye and Yoyo Comay reading from his debut book States of Emergency. You can also join best-selling mystery author Sheila Kindellan-Sheehan for the launch of My Brother's Keeper, her latest novel featuring Lieutenant Detective Toni Damiano. The event will be at Indigo Pointe Claire, 6321 autoroute Transcanadienne, on Saturday October 14 from 12 PM–3 PM. Girls, Interrupted: How Pop Culture is Failing Women by Lisa Whittington-Hill will be released next month and launched on November 8th at Supermarket Bar in Toronto. Plus, Michael Lista at Edmonton's LitFest this October and Anita Lahey in Whistler and Waterloo next month talking about her new book While Supplies Last.
Discover

Click here to see Kaie Kellough read from his QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Award winning book Dominoes at the Crossroads

Click here to listen to Rosalind Pepall's interview on CBC's All in a Weekend about Talking to a Portrait: Tales of an Art Curator.

In Periodicities’ fifth series of videos, Sadiqa de Meijer reads a few poems from her new book, The Outer Wards. Click here

Read “The Silence of A.M. Klein,” an incisive essay by our editor Carmine Starnino in the April issue of The New Criterion.



SODEC, Québec  Canada Council for the Arts Canadian Heritage
The Canada Council
Véhicule Press acknowledges the generous support of its publishing program from the Book Publishing Industry Development Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage, The Canada Council for the Arts, and the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles du Québec (SODEC).