Book Marks: Conor Kerr invites readers home to Avenue of Champions

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For Conor Kerr, the Avenue of Champions is more than just a road leading to an aging sports facility where a hockey dynasty once reigned. It’s a place the young Métis author called home, a place he wants to return to, and a place that serves as the inspiration for his newest book.

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Also its title, Avenue of Champions explores the relationship of Indigenous and Métis people with the eponymous community and the wider city. He spent years in the neighbourhood, feeding his stories genuine perspective that would be lacking for someone unfamiliar with the area.

“It’s a common thread in a lot of Indigenous people’s lives, this movement into urban centres from rural communities and concentrating areas,” says Kerr. “Safe spaces for Indigenous people look like places with kinship networks.”

The book’s protagonist, Daniel, finds that network along 118 Avenue ,  surrounded by his friends and family. He faces challenges as a young man trying to navigate his way through life, high school and university, eventually on to a career that helps him give back.

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But Daniel isn’t the only character the book focuses on. His grandmother plays a large role in his life and gets her own page space, connecting Daniel to his past. She eventually settled in the Avenue of Champions area after relocating from northern Alberta to Edmonton.

Kerr admits Daniel is partially based on his own experiences, and the same goes for other characters in the book, but not everything from the novel tracks to his life.

“My granny loved making moonshine in her assisted-living in the north side, but she didn’t sell weed brownies. I think that would be hilarious for an 87-year-old Métis woman,” says Kerr.

The Avenue of Champions was published by Harbour in late October, and spent a week on the Alberta Best Sellers List, as compiled by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, spending a week in fourth place for fiction.

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“Reception on the prairies has been so beautiful to see. I have been getting a lot of messages, friends who I have worked with over the years,” says Kerr.

Kerr moved west this summer and is now executive director of Indigenous Educations and Services at Langara College in Vancouver. But he says Avenue of Champions is where he’ll return to when he makes his way back to the city.

Kerr also published a book of poetry earlier this year, An Explosion of Feathers, which earned him a spot on the CBC poetry prize shortlist in November.

For more information about Kerr, and to find his book, visit  conorkerr.ca .

Political columnist releases third title

Former political columnist Mark Lisac is continuing his career as a novelist, publishing his third book last month.

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Red Hill Creek is about a young man tracking down the memory of his father, who died during the Second World War.

Lisac worked at the Edmonton Journal from 1978 to 2005, when he left to produce a well-respected political newsletter, Insight into Government.

Red Hill Creek is available at Audreys Books and Amazon, as well as an ebook through online retailers.

You can find out more about the author at  marklisac.ca .

Timiro Mohamed celebrating at the AGA in January

The former City of Edmonton Youth Poet Laureate, Timiro Mohamed, released Incantations of Black Love, a collection of poetry accompanied by a three-track EP and music video in late September.

Mohamed is a spoken word poet whose work highlights her experiences as a second-generation Somali-Canadian. For this project she worked with fellow Edmontonians D’orjay The Singing Shaman, Kija Lado, Kaz Mega and Faisa Omer.

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Digital copies of the release can be purchased at partytrickpress.com, and a launch party for the project is planned for Jan. 27 at the Art Gallery of Alberta.

For more information about the author, visit timiromohamed.com .

Debut author Samantha Knight

Samantha Knight broke into the publishing scene with her inaugural book, The Girl With Many Names.

Knight is a graduate of the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus and channelled her studies in literature into her first book, examining and reworking classic fairy tales to come up with something new.

The Girl With Many Names was published Oct. 28 by Vanguard Press. You can order a copy and find more about the author at sknightwriting.wixsite.com/home .

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Barbara Langhorst returns home with a new title

Author Barbara Langhorst is back in Edmonton after living in Saskatchewan for two decades, releasing her second book on Oct. 15.

Published by Palimpsest Press, The Winter-Blooming Tree deals with a school teacher who believes she’s starting to suffer from dementia.

Langhorst’s first novel, Want, was shortlisted for the Regina Public Library’s Book of the Year in 2019. She taught at St. Peter’s College in Langhurst, Sask., for 19 years before returning to Edmonton.

For more information about the author, visit barbaralanghorst.com .

French poetry from U of A professor

A University of Alberta professor has published her first book of poetry in French.

Anna Migdal is professor emerita at the University of Alberta, and an internationally renowned specialist of French author Emile Zola and naturalism. While she’s still active in publishing academic works, Déserts noirs is her first book of poetry.

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The book was published by L’Harmattan, one of the biggest publishers in France, and features 50 poems and seven photos of Alberta landscapes taken by Migdal.

The book is available through Amazon, Le Carrefour at Campus St. Jean or through the publisher’s website .

Breakthrough crushes stage 4 cancer

It’s not always a positive experience that brings authors to their craft; Christopher Stewart faced down stage 4 cancer before picking up the pen.

His book, Breakthrough, talks not only about his journey with cancer, but his perseverance and his ability to find beauty and make good memories in difficult times.

Find the book, and more about Stewart at  books.friesenpress.com .

Paul Kellogg digs deep into Russian history

An Athabasca University professor has published a new book looking at the Russian Revolution.

Paul Kellogg teaches in the university’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies and his second book, Truth Behind Bars, is centred around the role of workers’ resistance and the failure of democratic governance after the revolution.

You can find more by the author and his book at aupress.ca/contributor/paul-kellogg .

yegarts@postmedia.com