God’s Middle Name by Jennifer Overton is the compelling tale of one mother’s journey through the uncharted territory of raising an autistic child. Jennifer is the mother of the child with autism. The play, in a series of episodic scenes, follows Jennifer’s family over the course of 10 years: from confusion to a life-altering diagnosis, through stages of denial, anger, depression, bargaining and finally acceptance. Along the way are flights of fancy and a great deal of humour, found both in Jennifer’s own approach to the challenge, and in Nic’s perception of the world around him. Written with sensitivity and lightness of touch, the play does not flinch from describing the grief involved in parenting an autistic child, yet the dominant emotion is one of joy in Nicholas’ accomplishments. JGS. ISBN: 978-1-897289-54-9, $14.95. pb. Drama/Canadian

Naked in the Kitchen by Lynda Martens. As Naked in the Kitchen opens, Psychologist Charlie Campbell, and his wife Beth, are packing their son Michael, off to his first day in college. The parents are a study in contrasts. Charlie, sitting reading the paper, is so calm that he seems passively aggressive. Beth is just the opposite. She’s checking lists offering advice worrying out loud. Their son Michael is torn between the apparent lack of emotion from his father and the smothering of his mother. The tension is leavened with a good bit of genuine humor along with a certain amount of edginess. With Michael dropped off at school, the tensions between Charlie and Beth escalate. Somehow the bonus in intimacy that Beth had expected with Michael’s departure isn’t happening. Old trauma and deep seated pains that were only hinted at in the opening scenes erupt as some surprising new events come to the surface. Back into what’s become a standoff with the parents comes Michael with a new friend from school, Kevin. Although he’s a fellow freshman Kevin does add a sophomoric but thoughtfully comic note of humanity to the tense situation. JGS. ISBN: 978-1-897289-56-3, $14.95 pb. Drama/Canadian

Things That Go Bump, Volume 2 Plays for Young Audiences edited by Kit Brennan is an anthology of recent Canadian plays for elementary school audiences. It is a companion volume to fall 2009’s Things That Go Bump Volume 1: Plays for Young Adults. Through humour and great characters, these 6 plays explore large issues with an entertaining verve. SIG. ISBN: 978-1897109-41-0, $24.95. Pb. Drama.

It is Just That Your House is So Far Away by Steve Noyes. Divorced, adrift, and fast approaching forty, Jeff Mott has come to China, fascinated by the culture and the language. He secures a teaching post in a small town north of Beijing, where he meets a young woman, Wang Bian Fu, and falls in love; however, as they get to know each other, Bian Fu’s family life and emotions seem increasingly more complex and disturbing—there is more to her than he can handle, he senses, something hidden. Nonetheless, they become engaged. As the months pass, Jeff misses his young daughter back in Canada ever more keenly. And then he learns the truth about his Chinese fiancée—a truth concealed behind her considerable deception. His heart divided, he must make a choice, and flies back to Canada, promising to return. Separated, the lovers continue to plan, through their heated and awkward long-distance telephone calls, and through the Chinese characters, the ancient poems and proverbs, mangled in Jeff’s fumbling words. As they head towards marriage, Jeff wonders is it Bian Fu that he loves. or China? Or is it that he has imagined both of them as he wishes, not as they are? As Confucius says near the end of the novel, “It is not that I do not love you, it is just that your house is so far away.” Poignant and ironic, and searchingly funny, It is Just That Your House is So Far Away delivers a Beijing love story and a vision of 1990s China on the edge of globalism. SIG. ISBN 978-1897109-42-7, $19.95. Fiction.

Book 2: Scars, by David Alexander Robertson, illustrated by Scott Henderson, follows White Cloud and the people he encounters, as he struggles to survive against impossible odds. The book also reconnects readers to Edwin, a lost young man on his own quest introduced in book 1, Stone. By learning about the bravery and perseverance of his ancestor White Cloud, Edwin summons his own courage and travels to confront the main source of his despair: the father he barely knows. 7 Generations is an epic, four-part graphic novel series that spans three centuries of one family, from the prairie encampment of Plains Cree in the early 19th century to the urban modern day. HighWater Press (an imprint of Portage & Main Press). ISBN: 978-1-55379-227-7, $12.95. Graphic Novel.

The Gift of Difference: Radical Orthodoxy, Radical Reformation, edited by Chris K. Huebner and Tripp York, with a foreword by John Milbank. When the Radical Reformers demanded the separation of church and state, it was not to privatize their convictions or depoliticize the church, but rather an attempt to recognize Jesus as Lord over all. The theological movement known as Radical Orthodoxy is currently rethinking theology’s influence by secular modernity, thereby making a bold critique of contemporary Christianity. It should not be surprising that Anabaptist theologians have found theological kinship with Radical Orthodoxy. Taking their cues from John Howard Yoder, Henri de Lubac, Jacques Derrida, Stanley Cavell, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Stanley Hauerwas, and others, writers in this volume engage Radical Orthodoxy on topics such as ecclesiology, martyrdom, worship, oath-taking, peace and violence. This is a breakthrough collection of philosophical theology from important voices in the Radical Reformation tradition. CMU. ISBN: 978-0-920718-85-8, pb. $29.50. Religion/philosophy.

Storied Landscapes: Ethno-Religious Identity and the Canadian Prairies by Frances Swyripa. Storied Landscapes is a beautifully written, sweeping examination of the evolving identity of major ethno-religious immigrant groups in the Canadian West. Viewed through the lens of attachment to the soil and specific place, and through the eyes of both the immigrant generation and its descendants, the book compares the settlement experiences of Ukrainians, Mennonites, Icelanders, Doukhobors, Germans, Poles, Romanians, Jews, Finns, Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes. It reveals how each group’s sense of identity was shaped by a complex interplay of physical and emotional ties to land and place, and how that sense of belonging influenced, and was influenced by, relationships not only within the prairies and the Canadian nation state but also with the homeland and its extended diaspora. Through a close study of myths, symbols, commemorative traditions, and landmarks, Storied Landscapes boldly asserts the inseparability of ethnicity and religion both to defining the prairie region and to understanding the Canadian nation-building project. B&W photos throughout. UMP. Pb. ISBN: 978-0-88755-720-0, $26.95. Cloth, ISBN: 978-0-88755-191-8, $55.00. Library E-book ISBN: 978-0-88755-300-4, $70.00. Studies in Immigration and Culture Series, No. 5. Non-fiction.

Touch the Dragon: A Thai Journal by Karen Connelly, 2nd edition. New material including photos, maps, and an afterword by celebrated author Karen Connelly are included in this new format edition of her 1993 Governor General’s Award-winning classic. “Painfully bored” with school, 17-year-old Karen Connelly set off for rural Thailand to spend one year as an exchange student. This is her intensely honest account of living in a beautiful but sometimes infuriating culture. TUR. ISBN: 978-088801-376-7, $20.00. Non-fiction.

Blue Wherever by Barry Dempster. “In the new world, we wake up/to a bone ark bobbing on a blue wherever,” Dempster writes in the title poem of this new collection, his twelfth book of poetry. He connects the intensity of loving someone with the visceral vividness of being alive, as though waking from a beautiful dream and finding the world still sparkling. Granted, there is still loss and loneliness, even huge awols of hope, but the particulars of the outside world remain spectacular despite their ordinariness: cedar wax-wings with their “little caramel whisks/of hairdo above Lone Ranger masks;” the one-eyed horse who “wouldn’t/blame you if you ran, muck flicking/from the soles of your shoes;” the river rocks in the front garden “pretending/the inanimate way is holy,/a stunning coldness in the place of eyes.” Blue Wherever returns us to being in the moment with an intensity and beguilement often reserved for romantic love, and from the various perspectives of observer and creator. Whether it be “Pancake Tuesday,” a lonely “Office Party” or a Sunday drive through strip-mall “Wastelands,” Dempster reminds us there is still much to see— myriad reasons for staying awake and alive. SIG. ISBN 978-1897109-39-7, $14.95. Poetry.

Catchment Area by Jena Schmitt. Like a geographic catchment area, this debut collection draws together influences from poetry, prose, biography, art, architecture and history into a perceptive study of the forces that shape our physical and emotional landscapes. In a voice that is subtle yet distinctly confident, Schmitt describes how at times these forces are quiet as “sleet that turns to rain/ that turns to snow,” and at times unyielding as a child who throws himself down in a tantrum. Catchment Area captures glimmers of that instance when, just as we are about to define the emergent terrain, just when variables such as an earring or glove could solve “any number of unknowns,” the earth shifts—whether due to memory, relationships, natural disasters or war—leaving an absence that cannot be mapped. These poems call on the reader’s own sense of this absence and how it impels us to search for meaning in a world of constant change, where each time we turn on the news we are witness to earthquakes and floods, or suburban homes turned into methamphetamine factories and bronze statues stolen from parks. And so we are brought to a place of possibility, a place to “revel in/ the parts that are/ missing: heart and mind/ like phantom limbs.” Schmitt reveals the watershed point at which each of us stands, where we can go this way or that, where the struggle for articulation and understanding forms our own personal topographies. SIG. ISBN 978-1897109-40-3. $14.95. Poetry.

The Restless Tree by France Adams, illustrations by Serge Salvador, translation by Mark Stout from L’arbre aux coeurs. Amélé Dupré’s life is turned upside down the day she finds a heart-shaped seed inside an apple. Through her tender loving care, a sprout emerges from the seed and changes into a sapling that, over time, grows into a sturdy tree—a slightly finicky one, perhaps, but one that is endowed with extraordinary powers. As the days and years go by, a story of deep friendship develops between Amélé and her beloved tree. Together in their imaginary world, they encounter many strange adventures, always filled with love, tolerance and loyalty. PLA. ISBN 978-2-89611-054-4, 11,95 $.

A Criminal to Remember by Michael Van Rooy. Michael Van Rooy’s writing is fast-paced, highly entertaining, and exciting with a mix of quirky humour and dark, dry wit. Spine-tingling moments alternate with edge-of-your-seat action in his Monty Haaviko crime thriller series. This third instalment takes a darker tone from An Ordinary Decent Criminal (ODC) and Your Friendly Neighbourhood Criminal (YFNC). A sophisticated, multi-layered plot keeps pages turning and readers hooked. This time, Monty is tangled in political intrigue, blackmail, corruption, and a long-standing feud in which he becomes a pawn. At the same time, a serial killer threatens the love of Monty’s life–his wife Claire, and soon, escape seems impossible. TUR ISBN: 978-088801348-4, $16.00. Crime fiction.

Baldur’s Song by David Arnason. Winnipeg’s boom-town days at the turn of the nineteenth century come to life through the eyes of Baldur, a boy from Gimli, the Icelandic immigrant settlement on the southernmost shore of Lake Winnipeg. Both city and boy grow from innocence to savvy creatures of business as they mature, fall in love, and survive the politics of a competitive, cut-throat society. TUR. 978-088801373-6, $19.00. Fiction.

The Day-Tripper’s Guide to Manitoba : New Edition by Bartley Kives, is the first comprehensive travel handbook to the province – and an indispensable tool for visitors from abroad, Canadians passing through and Manitobans who simply want to get to know their own backyard. Get the straight goods on cities, towns and natural attractions in every corner of the province, compiled by one of Manitoba’s most tenacious independent travelers, Winnipeg Free Press columnist Bartley Kives. GPP.

The Mosaic Village: An Illustrated History of Winnipeg’s North End by Russ Gourluck.The Mosaic Village celebrates Winnipeg’s most colourful and distinctive area which has produced dozens of famous and infamous Canadians. Beginning with the hopes and dreams of families who came to Canada in search of new lives more than a century ago, The Mosaic Village recounts the stories of generations of North Enders who shopped at Oretzki’s, Gunn’s, and Kern-Hill; who strolled along Main Street, McGregor, and Selkirk Avenue; who joined their friends at the College, the Deluxe, and the Palace. Drawing on interviews with more than a hundred current and former North Enders and extensively illustrated with photos (many never published before) The Mosaic Village evokes the sights, sounds, and flavours of Winnipeg’s most famous neighborhood. GPP. ISBN: 978-1-894283-90-86-1, $29.95.

Touch the Dragon: A Thai Journal by Karen Connelly, new format reprint. New material including photos, maps, and an afterword by celebrated author Karen Connelly are included in this new format edition of her 1993 Governor General’s Award-winning classic. TUR 978-088801376-7, $20.00. Non-fiction.

Families, Lovers, and their Letters: Italian Postwar Migration to Canada by Sonia Cancian. Families, Lovers, and their Letters takes us into the passionate hearts and minds of ordinary people caught in the heartbreak of transatlantic migration. It examines the experiences of Italian migrants to Canada and their loved ones left behind in Italy following the Second World War, when the largest migration of Italians to Canada took place. UMP. ISBN: 978-0-88755-715-6,$34.95. Canadian History/ItalianStudies/Immigration.

Sounds of Ethnicity: Listening to German North America, 1850-1914 by Barbara Lorenzkowski.takes us into the linguistic, cultural, and geographical borderlands of German North America in the Great Lakes region between 1850 and 1914. Drawing connections between immigrant groups in Buffalo, New York, and Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario, Barbara Lorenzkowski examines the interactions of language and music—specifically German-language education, choral groups, and music festivals—and their roles in creating both an ethnic sense of self and opportunities for cultural exchanges at the local, ethnic, and transnational levels. She exposes the tensions between the self-declared ethnic leadership that extolled the virtues of the German mother tongue as preserver of ethnic identity and gateway to scholarship and high culture, and the hybrid realities of German North America where the lives of migrants were shaped by two languages, English and German. Theirs was a song not of cultural purity, but of cultural fusion that gave meaning to the way German migrants made a home for themselves in North America. Written in lively and elegant prose, Sounds of Ethnicity is a new and exciting approach to the history of immigration and identity in North America. UMP. Pb, ISBN: 978-0-88755-716-3, $34.95, cloth ISBN:978-0-88755-188-8, $55.00. Canadian History, German History, Social Sciences / Immigration.

The Eyes of Heaven by Beverley Cooper. Late night, on a lonely Huron County road, fifteen-year-old Eloise Bernhardt has an extraordinary encounter that changes her life forever…
This is a story of a mother and her teenaged daughter who have lost their way, and how they are fighting their way back to loving each other. It’s a story that questions what we believe in, examines how we judge each other, and asks: “What is out there, beyond the stars?” Eloise and her mother, Glen are struggling mightily with the recent death of the man who was both husband and father. Problems escalate for mother and daughter alike when Eloise returns home late one night after a gravel-pit party with some high school friends. Shaken and dishevelled, she tells her mother she saw “a big glowing light hovering above the ground” that momentarily took possession of her. Eloise’s improbable tale makes headlines in the local newspaper after a reporter talks to her under false pretences. What follows, for Eloise and her mother—and for their whole community—is funny, touching, and inspiring. JGS. ISBN: 978-1-897289-48-8, $14.95, Drama/Canadian

Homecoming by Leeann Minogue. Jerry Wilson has always planned to pass his family farm on to the next generation. When Jerry’s broken leg spurs him and his wife Marlene to retire sooner than expected, the couple moves to a new home in nearby Stony Valley and their son Greg comes home from the city to take over the farm. But Jerry and Marlene soon find out that retirement is not always as idyllic as it looks in the commercials… Marlene is not sure how to fill her days, and ends up working with her old enemy Norma to plan the upcoming Stony Valley Centennial Homecoming celebrations. And after a lifetime farming, Jerry has difficulty letting his son make the decisions. Tension builds between father and son until Greg finally hits the breaking point, and packs his bags. Now…Jerry is a proud and stubborn farmer whose land has been in the Wilson family for generations. He’s not about to admit to the community, his wife, or even himself that Greg won’t be taking over the farm after all. At first, lying to Marlene about Greg’s whereabouts just seemed easier than telling the truth. But one lie leads to another, and soon Jerry is driving through Stony Valley with a dummy dressed as Greg riding in his passenger seat… JGS. ISBN: 978-1-897289-49-5, $14.95, Drama/Canadian

The TAXI Project by Emma Beltran, Martha Kuwee Kumsa, Sheng Xue, Goran Simic, with Erica Kopyto and Weyni Mengesha. Based on the lives and writings of four members of PEN Canada’s writers in-exile program, The TAXI Project provides a glimpse into what it means to be forced to leave your homeland to start your life anew. After years of incarceration by the Red Terror in Ethiopia, Seeyyee Seera struggles to become a mother to her children again. Alejandra Pineda remains haunted by memories of torture at the hands of the Mexican authorities for her role in a student uprising. Xiao Hong, amongst the protesters at the Tiananmen Square uprising in China, cannot return to see her dying mother. And finally, Exyou Peric—a Bosnian photo journalist who drives a taxi, the interior covered in Polaroid photos of his passengers. We follow the characters on their journeys: attempting to be heard by a society that doesn’t speak their language, searching for employment, surviving the loneliness of a harsh Toronto winter, and struggling to find the energy necessary to keep on writing. JGS. ISBN: 978-1-897289-47-1, $14.95, Drama/Canadian