STORYWORLD

The Beauty of Your Face  by Safar Mustafah is a compelling and authentic novel that not only explores the complex struggles of a culturally conflicted daughter of Palestinian immigrants, but also touches on universal themes such as identity, loss and the pain of a middle child rejected by her mentally fragile mother. The book follows dual storylines of Afaf , principal of a Muslim school for girls just outside Chicago, opening with the shocking arrival of a  xenophobic shooter who kills girls at random. The eventual tense standoff between Afaf and the shooter frames the more in-depth story of her earlier life leading to this point.   A bright, intelligent teenager, Afaf negotiates the difficulties of life as the daughter of secularized parents in a town where she faces casual but cruel racism on a daily basis. When a tragic loss causes major family upheaval, she struggles to find a place to belong when she’s spurned by all her classmates and even her own mother ...

Though the summer of 2020 has kept us close to home, for many of us it's offered a golden opportunity to explore places we may have taken for granted in our mad dash to fly around the globe. Summer here in Manitoba, Canada, has turned out to be a glorious one despite the occasional thunderstorms so I decided to take advantage of the incredible weather and explore some of the beautiful sights of my home province. Manitoba's staggering size of 647,797 sq.km (101,593 sq. km of that is water) and relatively small population of 1.38 million people makes it easy to find remote, unspoiled areas by driving only a short distance. With a widely varying landscape from arctic tundra and the Hudson Bay coastline in the north, to dense boreal forest, prairie farmland, and white sandy lakeside beaches in the central and south regions, you can take your pick of amazing sights and experiences for even a short day trip. Here's a few highlights of some of our day trips: THE WHITESHELL ...

CITY OF FALLEN ANGELS   by Paul Buchanan Set in Los Angeles in the sweltering summer of 1962, this classic ‘noir’ detective novel beautifully captures the blistering heat and languorous mood of 1960's LA.   Private eye, Jimmy Keegan, used to be a hotshot crime reporter, but is now a lonely, middle-aged private eye,  haunted by the recent suicide of Marilyn Monroe and grieving the death of his mother.  When he’s approached by a mysterious man with a lucrative assignment that involves finding a young woman, he turns down the job but is surprised when the same woman turns up on the doorstep of his mother’s Hollywood Hills cottage. Soon events take a bizarre turn when man is killed and Keegan finds himself the prime suspect. Keegan is a likeable and sympathetic character at a low point in his life. Alone and doomed to a solitary existence, his most meaningful relationship turns out to be the little dog, Nora, that he inherits from his mother. Bu...

Since April is National Poetry Month I decided to offer you a selection of poems for your viewing and listening pleasure. I challenge those of you who claim not be be poetry lovers to take a look and listen to this eclectic and spellbinding collection. Some are read by the actual poets and some by actors you may or may not recognize. Poetry is food for the soul. Poetry has the power to move you emotionally and intellectually. As the great poet T.S Eliot said, "Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood," so don't worry if you can't grasp the meaning of every phrase, just soak up its beauty! Hope you'll revel in these lush creations and their celebration of language, imagery and the senses. Just click on the title to go to the video. Enjoy! Still I Rise  by  MAYA ANGELOU: Watch a young and playful Maya Angelou present this inspiring poem about personal power. A Letter to Remind Myself Who I Am  by  SHANE KOYCZAN Forget the isolation bl...

Right now our lives might seem like they resemble scenes from a dystopian novel. We're confined to our homes, either alone or with loved ones, looking for ways to occupy these long hours. So, if you can tear yourself away from the endless streams of newsfeed and the worry about what might happen in the days ahead, let your mind escape to something more stimulating. Here's a list of books, movies and TV shows that might help: BOOKS Thrillers You can't go wrong with Irish writer, Tana French. THE LIKENESS : Cassie Maddox has transferred out of the Dublin undercover squad. Months later she's summoned to a murder scene. The victim is her double and bears the identity of Cassie's last undercover alias. Cassie is forced back undercover to find the killer. THE TRESPASSER : Tough no-nonsense cop Antoinette Conway has clawed her wayup the ladder against all odds and despite constant harassment, but when a pretty, blonde murder victim turns up and Antoinette feel...

Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown In her new novel,  Recipe For A Perfect Wife,  Karma Brown explores the idea that things haven’t changed that much for women in the last fifty years when it comes to marriage, and the perfect, stay at home wife of the 50’s actually has more in common than we’d like to admit with her counterpart in 2020. Told from dual narratives of two new wives—Nellie, in the 1950’s and Alice in 2018, the story is a little slow to get going. Brown begins with Alice making a move from the big city to the suburbs with Nate, her husband. Alice as a character is difficult to get a handle on at first and tends to come off as unsympathetic and secretive. But once Nellie is introduced, the story really takes off as she her attempts to fashion herself as the perfect wife for husband, Richard. Perfectly groomed, with seamed stockings, lipstick and cocktails waiting at the door for her work-weary husband she conjures up numerous bizarre (to ou...

As we head into the holidays and possibly into a mad frenzy of shopping, cooking, eating and entertaining, it's a good idea to make some quiet time for reflection and most importantly of all—for reading. This year I've spent a whole lot of my time working on the revisions of my novel THE SAVAGE INSTINCT, which is to be republished in a second, very different edition 2020 by Inkshares, but I've also enjoyed reviewing books for NetGalley and Legend Press, a UK publisher. I've shared below some of my great reads of the year. Hope you can find the time to read one or buy as a gift for friends or family. Happy holidays! FIVE WIVES by Joan Thomas Local Winnipeg writer, Joan Thomas was the most deserving winner of this year's Governor General's Award for fiction with her novel FIVE WIVES, a fictionalized account of the lives of the real women left behind when their husbands were killed in a misguided attempt to contact the Waorani, a reclusive tribe from t...