For the last ten years, every other Friday night Toronto’s comfiest place to kick back and listen to poetry and fiction was the I.V. Lounge.

Myna Wallin and Alex Boyd along with Tightrope books gathered the best pieces from the last five years of I.V. Lounge’s fiction writers, poets and promising talent.

With many pieces like “The End of The World” I.V. Lounge Nights will delight your inner poet and intrigue your inner writer.

For more information about I.V. Lounge Nights or the authors please visit our catalogue.

The word “essay” comes from the French verbessayer, which means “to try.” Essays, therefore, should always be considered works in progress. But the 14 pieces in Best Canadian Essays 2009, culled from literary and general-interest magazines as well as online journals, make such equivocation unnecessary. Each essay features highly polished prose that holds the reader’s attention. And though they vary considerably in subject matter and approach, one thing they share is candidness. (Full disclosure: one of the essays is by Q&Q; Books for Young People editor Nathan Whitlock.)

Curious to find out more about Best Canadian Essays editor Alex Boyd? Check out Open Book Toronto for his Q&A; with Rob Mclennan.

RM:

1 – How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

AB:

After writing poems for over ten years, it was tremendous relief to get a chunk of it off my computer, and into people’s hands, with Making Bones Walk. The new stuff compares to the old stuff in that I still favour purpose and clarity, and differs in that it’s getting a little nuttier. There was a little of that in the first book, in poems like “Bride of Frankenstein”, but there will be more in the second – expect poems about George Orwell robots.

http://www.openbooktoronto.com/articles/alex_boyd_answers_rob_mclennans_questions

Carefully selected by editors Carmine Starnino and Alex Boyd, The Best Canadian Essays 2009 showcases fourteen exceptional essays published in Canadian magazines in 2008. These fourteen distinctive voices unite to represent the diversity and breadth of Canadian nonfiction writing today.