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In her second volume of poetry, Madeline Sonik creates poetry through the contemplation and inspiration of the abstruse symbols encountered in the ancient oracular Chinese text, the I Ching (The Book of Changes). The interplay of concept and image that the I Ching offers, as well as the non-causal worldview it implicates, presents a unique place of poetic inquiry. Carl Jung used the I Ching as a method of exploring the unconscious, and pointed out how it worked by allowing chance details to "enter into the picture of the moment of observation and form a part of it." This is what Sonik has attempted to do in each of the 64 poems that correspond to the I Ching's hexagrams. She also uses the I ...
'Afflictions & Departures' is a collection of first-person experiential essays by writer and academic Madeline Sonik. Although Sonik explores some of the salient personal experiences of her young life, the essays in 'Afflictions & Departures' are not traditional memoir. In addition to incidents and feelings recaptured from memory, Sonik seeks out connections between the microcosm of of the daily events of her childhood and the social, historical, and scientific trends of the time. 'Afflicitons & Departures' begins by considering the turbulent and changing nature of the world in the late 1950s and early 1960s-the world in which the author was conceived and born. Like many couples of that era,...
Honourable mention for the Amazon.com/Books in Canada First Novel Award
"Full of mystery and surprise, this debut collection distinguishes Madeline Sonik as one of Canada's most versatile and imaginative up-and-coming writers." -Susan Musgrave
The award-winning author of AFFLICTIONS & DEPARTURES turns her kaleidoscopic lens on England in the 1970s in QUEASY, a series of linked memoirs. While still grieving her father's death and the end of her first romantic relationship, Madeline Sonik moved with her mother from Windsor, Ontario to the seaside village of Ilfracombe in North Devon, England. As a teen at war with herself, nothing could have prepared her for the incredible cultural differences that she would encounter, nor the social and political tumult that was England at the time-- trade union strikes, mass unemployment, IRA violence, and crippling taxes. Waiting tables and working as a chambermaid at local hotels, she talked pol...
The “moving” true story of a woman fighting to give a group of chimpanzees a second chance at life (People). In 1997, Gloria Grow started a sanctuary for chimps retired from biomedical research on her farm outside Montreal. For the indomitable Gloria, caring for thirteen great apes is like presiding over a maximum-security prison, a Zen sanctuary, an old folks’ home, and a New York deli during the lunchtime rush all rolled into one. But she is first and foremost creating a refuge for her troubled charges, a place where they can recover and begin to trust humans again. Hoping to win some of this trust, journalist Andrew Westoll spent months at Fauna Farm as a volunteer, and in this “i...
A literary, genre-bending novel full of heart Cult comic book creator Debbie Reynolds Biondi has been riding the success of her Cold War era–inspired superhero series, Sputnik Chick: Girl with No Past, for more than 25 years. But with the comic book losing fans and Debbie struggling to come up with new plotlines for her badass, mutant-killing heroine, she decides to finally tell Sputnik Chick’s origin story. Debbie’s never had to make anything up before and she isn’t starting now. Sputnik Chick is based on Debbie’s own life in an alternate timeline called Atomic Mean Time. As a teenager growing up in Shipman’s Corners — a Rust Belt town voted by Popular Science magazine as “m...
Through forty-three personal essays, Resonance: ESSAYS ON THE CRAFT AND LIFE OF WRITING brings together insights from writers and publishers across Canada on the practices that fuel their work, and invites readers to join the conversation through a series of engaging writing prompts. The essays collected here include strategies for pre-writing, writing and revision, as well as thoughts on the writing life and the world of writing. Resonance is for any writer of fiction, non-fiction or poetry who has ever wanted a helping hand, a quick chat, or a word of encouragement along the lonely road from blank page to published work. Resonance seeks to build community and extend the practice of creativity to writers everywhere. Literary Nonfiction. Essays.
"Slice me some truth: An anthology of Canadian creative nonfiction is a ground-breaking survey of today's creative nonfiction in Canada; a complex and captivating field of writing that the editors spent four years exploring in the creation of this book. Covering the areas of memoir, personal essay, literary travel, nature writing, lyric essay as well as researched literary journalism and cultural criticism, Slice me some truth thoroughly explores the depth and breadth of creative nonfiction writing in Canada, highlighting brilliant writing from thirty-six authors from across the country."--Publisher's website.
Stone Sightings, by Madeline Sonik, is a compilation of poetry that seeks to unearth a personal experience of the archetypal feminine and the way she manifests in a woman at mid-life. There are ancient patterns we can identify and traverse: loss, love, alienation; but ultimately, the significance of these and their ability to transform us comes about only through finding the way their meaning manifests in our own lives.