On the 18th of August, 1903, Dorothy Edwards was born in the mining community of Ogmore Vale in southern Wales, to Edward and Vida, who met when he was a headmaster and she a teacher in the Tynewydd Infants and Juniors Mixed School. Dorothy’s fiction is an ironic choice
In the first week of Covid-19 lockdown, I pulled The Box Garden off the shelf, opened it to read: “That there are no certainties in life. That we change hourly or even from one minute to the next, our entire cycle of being altered, our whole selves shaken with
If Marian Engel had not died mid-career, her name might have been as well known today as Margaret Atwood's today. Instead her name graces an award granted to a Canadian female writer mid-career by the Writers' Trust. A variety of forms, a strong feminist voice, challenging female characters, a fascination
What Jane Ozkowski captures beautifully in Watching Traffic is the very sensation embodied in the debut novel's title: Emily is overwhelmed by motion even while in a state of stillness. Groundwood Books, 2016 It's the summer after high-school gradulation, and Emily is working at a catering company, making egg-salad sandwiches and
As a screenwriter and a playwright, it's not surprising that Tracy Barone's debut novel, Happy Family, reads like a series of scenes. Little, Brown and Company, 2016 The first unfolds on August 5, 1962. "The pregnant girl enters the Trenton Family Clinic, looking like she parted the Red Sea to get
