It’s Here! Issue 30: Summer 2015 Hits the Web!

Dear Friends, Writers, Editors, At long last, we’re pleased to bring you Issue 30: Summer 2015. Better late than never—and better great than merely good. This is a monumental issue for the magazine. Not only is it our 30^th edition—a milestone in itself—but it’s also the first issue to feature curated work from two guest editors. The Guest Summer Editors series has begun with gusto, and Issue 30 has fiction curated by Doretta Lau and poetry selected by Katherena Vermette. Each of these amazing young authors has also gifted us with an introduction and orientation to the work they’ve selected, providing keen insight into why, and what, and whom, they chose. Issue 30 also features our fourth Svpplement: “‘À la prochaine fois’”: 1995 and Literature in Post-Referendum Québec,” lovingly edited and assembled by Puritan staffer Jason Freure. As with all our Svpplements, this effectively doubles the size of the issue, making it true (electronic) doorstopper. So please raise a toast with us (wherever you are), and enjoy a wonderful summer blockbuster. Here you’ll find stories chosen by Doretta Lau by writers Souvankham Thammavongsa, Asha Jeffers, Jamila-Khanom Allidina, Samantha Leese, Jacob Geiger, Holly Flauto Salmon, and Francine Cunningham. Then check out Katherena Vermette’s poetry selections: Rosanna Deerchild, Randy Lundy, Scott Nolan, Janet Marie Rogers, Joanne Arnott, Tanis MacDonald, Lee Maracle, Marlin M. Jenkins, Scott Wordsman, Michelle Good, Hilda Mann, and Monique Woroniak. As with every Puritan issue, this edition features amazing works of non-fiction by authors both established and those quickly gaining a reputation. Erín Moure speaks with Oana Avasilichioaei in “Limbinal and Its Peformances” and David St-Lascaux sits down to talk with Gregory Pardlo in “Holding Hands with a Stranger.” Stewart Cole investigates Ben Ladouceur’s Otter in “Affect(at)ion,” Neil Surkan interrogates Erín Moure’s Kapusta in “Unheimlich Maneuvers,” Paul Barrett examines Shane Book’s Congotronic in “Maroon of Modernity,” and Scott Marentette works through Karen Solie’s The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out in “How the silent energy coursed between us.” After you’re finished with our regular issue, drift over to the Svpplement—but first read Jason Freure’s spirited introduction to set the cultural scene. This additional expansion features an original short story by Anna Leventhal and an excerpt from David Scott Hamilton’s English translation of Captive, Claudine Dumont’s Anabiose. As for poetry, you’ll find Alexander Rock’s translations of French poems by Catherine Dorion and Hugo Beauchemin-Lachapelle, Scott Marentette’s translations of French works by Philippe Haeck, Marcel F. Raymond, and Scott Chamberland, as well as original English poems by Melissa Bull, Jesse Eckerlin, and Jay Winston Ritchie. Stellar works of non-fiction round out the themes explored in the preceding work. We’re excited to present Geneviève Robichaud’s “Some Thoughts on the Wrapping Text,” Guillaume Morissette’s “English as a Second Language in Which to Have Anxiety Meltdowns,” and André Forget’s “The History of the Decline and Fall of Quebec According to Denys Arcand” We close out with two Heather O’Neill-centric pieces: editor Jason Freure’s interview with O’Neil, “A 19-Year-Old’s Referendum,” and Myra Bloom’s review of The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, “A Product of Its Time.” With Issue 30: Summer 2015 and our Summer 2015 Svpplement, The Puritan now heads into another fall, where we eagerly anticipate the results of our Fourth Annual Thomas Morton Memorial Prize in Literary Excellence—judged by Ian Williams and Miriam Toews—and another can’t-miss issue. For now, though, a brief respite. Time to relax and drink in the last of the season and spend time with the several hundred pages here. Thank you for reading through the final faltering days of this very important summer.