Nightwood Editions

02/05/2025

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STAGES OF TANNING WORDS AND REMEMBERING SPELLS by Tawahum Justin Peter Bige
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"Tawahum’s poems invite us into the homeland that is the body and the complex rawness of human identity. This collection teaches us what shatters and what binds, what rises to the surface when we seek connection, and what we might discover in the valleys of hunger and holiness that wait for our careful attention. Stages of Tanning Words and Remembering Spells is an urgent and vivid testament to the sacredness of wounds and the cracked and luminous glow of the unfiltered human spirit. These are words to be tasted, inhabited, and felt to your core."
—Jess Housty, author of Crushed Wild Mint
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Pre-order NOW. Publishes APRIL 15, 2025.
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Cover art by Jonas Bige

01/23/2025

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EXISTING MUSIC by Nick Thran
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“Whether quick on the pivot or ‘slightly less slow
than adagio slow,’ Nick Thran’s subtle, meditative poetry combines the moves of an acute point guard with those of a thoughtful flaneur browsing coffee shops and helping to run bookstores. Each poem in Existing Music works its own charm, finding its own apt ‘marriage between dance and speech,’ at once homegrown and riveting.”
—Don McKay
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Pre-order NOW. Publishes APRIL 15, 2025.
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Cover by the ultra-talented Natalie Olsen.

12/16/2024

No cats were harmed in the making of this book 🤝

“What would you do if a three-and-a-half-pawed, no-eyed cat with a bloody squirrel’s tail hanging from its mouth turned up at your apartment one day, and when you opened the door it dropped the tail at your feet and scooted between your legs and over to your wool sweater—the corn-like one with a ring of grey triangles around the middle that was knit special for you by the shopkeeper of the hardware store down the street, because of all of the business you’d provided her over the years in the form of key-cutting—and began pulling up the fibres with the real claws of one paw and the imaginary claws of the other, until it decided the garment was good enough for lying down upon, and curled itself into a circle, and didn’t close its eyes, because it couldn’t, and gave its own tail a few rough licks, and then, presumably, fell asleep?

I named him Scoot.”

So begins R.I.P. SCOOT, a hilarious, heart-wrenching literary mystery in which Sara Flemington blends stories of both nonsense and profound truth—the kind we use to make sense of love and loss in an uncertain world.

PREORDER now! Filling bookstores March 2025 😻

11/21/2024

We’re thrilled to announce that Rita Wong is the recipient of the Latner Griffin Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize! Her collections FORAGE and UNDERCURRENT are both published with Nightwood Editions.

About Wong’s work, the judges write:

"Rita Wong’s immediate and necessary poetry takes the breath away. Wong is a poet of total commitment. Her poetry lives on the page, and she sometimes claims the margins as well. We can feel her heart in her words in ways that are both playful and blunt, razor-sharp and lyrically beautiful. Frankly political and decolonial, Wong accompanies her warrior’s poetry with intense meditations on heritage and ecology, often in the same moment. Wong’s body of work is remarkable, transformative, and inspiring."

Congratulations, Rita!

11/15/2024

Don't miss the launch of THE BEARS AND THE MAGIC MASKS by award-winning poet Joseph Dandurand and illustrator Elinor Atkins at Iron Dog Books on November 20 at 6:00pm. Free to attend!

10/02/2024

CRUSHED WILD MINT has been on the BC Bestsellers list for 52 straight weeks! If you haven’t read it yet, this is your sign ✨

A huge congratulations to Jess Housty on their Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award.

Big shout out to Nightwood authors Cathy Stonehouse, whose poetry collection Dream House was a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and Brandon Reid, whose debut novel Beautiful Beautiful was a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.

09/11/2024

If you're in the Ottawa area next week, don't miss David O'Meara's launch of his debut novel CHANDELIER with live music by Megan Jerome.

09/10/2024

Vancouver Island readers—don't miss Amy Mattes, author of LATE SEPTEMBER, at an author reading and conversation event this weekend.

If you haven't read Late September yet, find this gem at bookstores, libraries and nightwoodeditions.com now! 🛹🔥

09/06/2024

jaz papadopoulos will launch their debut poetry collection, I FEEL THAT WAY TOO, with Melanie Siebert at a special In Conversation event with Elee Kraljii Gardiner at next week!

09/04/2024

We're thrilled to see Tim Blackett's story "Tina Slinn" from GRANDVIEW DRIVE included in Book of the Month's Volume 0 this season 👏

If you haven't read Grandview Drive yet, find this gem at bookstores, libraries or nightwoodeditions.com now!

09/04/2024

From the award-winning poet Joseph Dandurand comes the fourth book in his Kwantlen Stories Then and Now series.

Beautifully illustrated by Elinor Atkins, THE BEARS AND THE MAGIC MASKS is for all the young readers out there.

Publishing late October. Pre-orders available now at nightwoodeditions.com ✨🐻

09/03/2024

Congratulations to David O'Meara, who has been appointed the new Anglophone Poet Laureate for Ottawa. Catch him at the Ottawa Writers Festival on October 1.

David's debut novel CHANDELIER is landing in bookstores now!

08/15/2024

08/06/2024

I HATE PARTIES is fifty poems to dance (awkwardly) between q***r and anxious spaces. Kayla Czaga, author of Midway and For Your Safety Please Hold on, calls it "as wildly entertaining as it is deeply felt."
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I HATE PARTIES is hitting bookstores soon! Order now from Nightwood Editions, your local bookstores, libraries or online retailers.

08/02/2024

We read from Joelle Barron's new collection EXCERPTS FROM A BURNED LETTER (Nightwood Editions), a collection that brings the q***rness that figures from history and fiction previously kept hidden to the fore.

https://alllitup.ca/two-poems-excerpts-from-a-burned-letter/

08/01/2024

Lambda Literary Fellow jaz papadopoulos offers a poetically critical look at how sexual assault trials impact survivors in this stunning debut collection.
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Amber Dawn says the "sharp and unflinching precision of verse . . . illuminates our interconnectedness with each other, with land and water, and with the sensory experiences that remind us we are alive."
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I FEEL THAT WAY TOO is hitting bookstores soon! Order now from Nightwood Editions, your local bookstores, libraries or online retailers.

07/30/2024

From the award-winning poet David O'Meara comes a highly-anticipated debut novel which Booker prize-nominated author Elaine Feeney says is "humorous and wry . . . with characters so real they are at times all too relatable" and Giller prize-nominated author Menaka Raman-Wilms calls "a striking book that will linger long after it’s finished."
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CHANDELIER is hitting bookstores soon! Order now from Nightwood Editions, your local bookstores, libraries or online retailers.