Girls, Interrupted
Lisa Whittington-Hill

The past decade has seen a rise in documentaries, memoirs and podcasts that revisit the legacies of women wronged by pop culture. With movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp challenging long-standing narratives around female celebrities, it’s no surprise so many believe the representation of women in the media has improved. In her scathingly witty collection of essays, Girls, Interrupted: How Pop Culture is Failing Women, Lisa Whittington-Hill argues otherwise. Pop culture’s treatment of women, writes Whittington-Hill, is still marked by misogyny and misunderstanding. From the gender bias in celebrity memoir coverage to problematic portrayals of middle-aged women and the sexist pressure on female pop stars to constantly reinvent themselves, Girls, Interrupted critically examines how mainstream media keeps failing women and explores what we can do to fix it. A work of searing relevance, this candid and often cathartic debut marks Whittington-Hill as a cultural critic of the first rank.

The Human Scale
Michael Lista

Whether investigating a gruesome triple-murder, a fairy tale marriage gone horribly wrong, or a brilliant con artist, Michael Lista has proven himself one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation. In his belief that crime reporting thrives the closer it moves to the human scale—where every uncovered secret reveals the truth of our obligations to each other—Lista builds his compulsively readable narratives from details (fake flowers, a little girl's necklace) others might pass over, details that provide a doorway into the extreme situations he is drawn to. The Human Scale not only includes Lista's most celebrated magazine stories to date, but comes with postscripts that describe his process in writing each piece, and the fallout from publication. Here is long-form journalism in its most hallowed form: brilliant and bingeable.
National Animal
Derek Webster

National Animal, Derek Webster’s second book of poetry, inhabits a wider public space than his acclaimed debut Mockingbird. In poems that extend beyond the biographical toward the political, Webster’s quiet, sharp-eyed narrator—a man “tripping / my way forward, trying to lead my own life”—watches history being erased in favour of more socially palatable ideas and comforting self-portraits. Uncompromising and substantial, National Animal explores our “civic moment” where "birds sing oblivion / estranged from all things," and meditates, in a final image-rich sequence, on our place in a science-based cosmos.

Dandelion Daughter
Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay

Dandelion Daughter is an intimate portrait of growing up having been assigned the wrong sex at birth. Set against the windswept countryside of the remote Charlevoix region some five hours north of Montreal, Boulianne-Tremblay's autobiographical novel immortalizes her early years as an alienated boy trapped in a world of small-town values. In the midst of her parents' dissolving marriage, Boulianne-Tremblay takes us through the complex adolescent years of self-discovery and first loves, to the harrowing episodes that fuel the growing realization that she must transition and give birth to her new self if she is to continue living at all. One of the first novels of its kind to appear in Quebec, this inspiring story has connected with a wide readership and has been adopted by many schools.
Because
Andrew Steinmetz

An engrossing punk-rock novel about teenage daydreams and sibling dynamics

Teenage brothers Hombre and Transformer spend their days locked up in their suburban Montreal bedroom, writing songs and dreaming of stardom. Hombre, the younger one, is quiet, contemplative, and talented, a poet in the making. His older brother Transformer is stubborn, domineering, and secretly struggling with mental health issues. Their sequestered world is broken open one summer when their mother hires Spit, a girl from the local guitar shop, to help the boys improve their modest skills. But these good intentions set off a chain reaction with tragic consequences.

Set in the early 80s, in a local music scene brimming with post-punk ethos and a disdain for classic rock, Because is a wry and charming depiction of a sibling relationship founded on feverish angst, unspoken admiration, jealousy, and the pursuit of the greatest song they can write from their own room.

Press

On Redemption Ground:

Praise for From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People

On Because:
Because

On The Human Scale:
"Michael Lista brings a poet's heart and a philosopher's eye to the darkest parts of human behaviour. The Human Scale

On Cathedral/Grove:
Praise for Susan Glickman: “These lyric poems have an unassuming grace and clarity.”—Barbara Carey, Toronto Star

News

SEPTEMBER NEWSLETTER (click for link)
We're launching our Fall 2023 Signal Editions poetry on Wednesday, October 4 at Flying Books in Toronto! Join host Carmine Starnino for readings by Susan Glickman from her new release Cathedral/Grove, Joe Fiorito reading from his new collection Quicker Than the Eye and Yoyo Comay reading from his debut book States of Emergency. You can also join best-selling mystery author Sheila Kindellan-Sheehan for the launch of My Brother's Keeper, her latest novel featuring Lieutenant Detective Toni Damiano. The event will be at Indigo Pointe Claire, 6321 autoroute Transcanadienne, on Saturday October 14 from 12 PM–3 PM. Girls, Interrupted: How Pop Culture is Failing Women by Lisa Whittington-Hill will be released next month and launched on November 8th at Supermarket Bar in Toronto. Plus, Michael Lista at Edmonton's LitFest this October and Anita Lahey in Whistler and Waterloo next month talking about her new book While Supplies Last.

JUNE NEWSLETTER (click for link)
We're launching Michael Lista's true crime book The Human Scale June 22 the Monarch Tavern in Toronto. Hope to see you there! June is Pride Month and we're highlighting our most recent LGBTQ+ novels this month: The Family Way by Christopher DiRaddo. Happy 50th to Véhicule Press!Véhicule Press celebrates fifty years of publishing this year, so we thought a party was in order! Thank you to all who attended, to our wonderful co-hosts Nyla Matuk and Mark Abley, to all who participated and wrote such moving words of congratulations, and to all the Véhicule authors out there. It was a magnificent evening!

MAY NEWSLETTER (click for link)
Véhicule Press is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and we're throwing a party! Please join us on Saturday, June 17 at 7 pm at the Casa d'Italia in Montreal for a wonderful evening featuring several of our writers, editors and collaborators. The event is free and open to all. We will be launching Michael Lista's The Human Scaleat Toronto's Monarch Tavern on Thursday, June 22. And we will be launching Andrew Steinmetz's novel Because in Ottawa at the Manx on June 10 and in Montreal at Ursa on June 14. And congratulations to Baharan Baniahmadi for winning the Blue Metropolis/Conseil des arts de Montréal 2023 New Contribution Literary Award for the novel Prophetess!

APRIL NEWSLETTER (click for link)
Join us Wednesday April 19 at La Petite Librairie Drawn & Quarterly for the launch of Dandelion Daughter by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, translated by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch. April is National Poetry Month and we are releasing our Spring 2023 poetry titles: While Supplies Last by Anita Lahey and The Four-Doored House by Pierre Nepveu, translated by Donald Winkler. And we welcome Michael Prior as Signal Editions poetry editor! Plus, congrats to Dimitri Nasrallah's Hotline for making it to Day 3 of CBC Canada Reads!JANUARY NEWSLETTER (click for link)
We are thrilled to share the news that Dimitri Nasrallah's Hotline is a 2023 Canada Reads selection! His inspiring novel of perseverance will be championed by bhangra dancer, artist and educator Gurdeep Pandher during the great Canadian book debate held from March 27-30 on CBC TV, CBC Radio and CBC Books. Congratulations to all the finalists! Baharan Baniahmadi's allegorial novel Prophetess is the Toronto International Festival of Author's virtual book club selection for the March 8, 2023 session. Plus poetry readings: Kaie Kellough and Tawhida Tanya Evanson in Montreal and John Barton on Salt Spring Island!
Discover

Click here to see Kaie Kellough read from his QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Award winning book Dominoes at the Crossroads

Click here to listen to Rosalind Pepall's interview on CBC's All in a Weekend about Talking to a Portrait: Tales of an Art Curator.

In Periodicities’ fifth series of videos, Sadiqa de Meijer reads a few poems from her new book, The Outer Wards. Click here

Read “The Silence of A.M. Klein,” an incisive essay by our editor Carmine Starnino in the April issue of The New Criterion.



SODEC, Québec  Canada Council for the Arts Canadian Heritage
The Canada Council
Véhicule Press acknowledges the generous support of its publishing program from the Book Publishing Industry Development Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage, The Canada Council for the Arts, and the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles du Québec (SODEC).