Books

Jorrie and the Skyhorse

Salish Sea Publishing , October 2019, 293 pages
ASIN: B07PNK9LQ3

Excerpt – Reviews

“Strange creatures slip through the dangerous Five Gates that open onto remote Satter Island. When Jorrie runs away from home to Satter Island, she bonds–inconveniently and irrevocably–with a wolfhound. After the dog is blasted with a fatal curse, Jorrie, aided by an ancient skyhorse, must reclaim her magical talent in time to try to save the dog and herself. But untaught, and on the run from a dark magic user who wants her dead, can Jorrie regain her power fast enough?”

Einstein’s Cat

Wolsak and Wynn , October 2012
88 pages | ISBN 978-1-894987-67-7

Excerpt – Reviews

“Whether considering the Skeena River or the foibles of an onscreen diva, Zoë Landale creates vivid and unforgettable poetry. Shot through with bright colour and sharp natural imagery, this is not a calm, contemplative collection. Indeed, Landale punctuates her own poetic musings with a director’s cut, a counterpoint of sly, often acerbic observations on her own lines.A fascinating and intricate work, Einstein’s Cat is a collection that is sure to reward repeat readings.”

Slice Me Some Truth

co-edited with Luanne Armstrong
Wolsak and Wynn, September 2011
402 pages | ISBN 978-1-894987-60-8

Reviews – Preface With Categories of Creative Nonfiction – Table of Contents

“ Slice me some truth: An anthology of Canadian creative nonfiction is a ground-breaking survey of today’s creative nonfiction in Canada; a complex and captivating field of writing that the editors spent four years exploring in the creation of this book.
Covering the areas of memoir, personal essay, literary travel, nature writing, lyric essay as well as researched literary journalism and cultural criticism, Slice me some truth thoroughly explores the depth and breadth of creative nonfiction writing in Canada, highlighting brilliant writing from thirty-six authors from across the country.”

Once a Murderer

Wolsak and Wynn, April 2008
96 pages | ISBN 978-1-894987-23-3

Reviews – cbc poems from enRoute

“A gritty, original collection on a subject rarely addressed: the surprising affinities between crime and poetry. To gather material for a mystery novel, Landale accompanied RCMP officers on patrol. In Once a Murderer, the novel’s protagonist has stepped out of prose fiction into poetry that is consuming and seductive. A running subversive commentary on love, crime and poetry appears in the margins, giving depth and flesh to the voices.”

Blue in This Country

Ronsdale Press Spring 2001
ISBN 978-0-921870-81-4 (0-921870-81-7)
6″ x 9″ Trade Paperback, 88 pages

Excerpt – Reviews

“Zoë Landale’s new collection of poetry is remarkable for its fusion of rocky hardness with the luminosity of coastal British Columbia. As a poet, Landale has the lyric ability to evoke the particular with such warmth and grace that one cannot help becoming aware of a spiritual dimension, as when she says: Daily we swirl over our ordinary shoulders the cloak of prophecy worn with becoming. The B.C. coast is the setting for Landale’s account of the domestic world, with its warmth of hearth and heart. She describes the joy of parenting, animals, and the pleasure of baking. But the domestic scene can also overwhelm the woman at its centre, causing her days “to grow swollen / as cauliflowers [dangling] like distorted skulls / at the end of each arm. Within her interior settings, Landale carves out the ambiguous space of adult love that causes joy and pain, sometimes at the same time — “we cuddle,” she says, “and cannot close / the salt gulf of the bed.” Yet always in Landale’s poetry, the pain of the “salt gulf” is described with such grace that the language itself offers healing power. The poems ultimately refuse the negative; their beauty empowers the listener.”

The Rain is Full of Ghosts

River Books, 2001
ISBN 1-895836-81-6
6″ x 9″ Trade paperback, 244 pages

Excerpt

The New York Times Review of Science Fiction and Fantasy says, “A new voice in magic realism brings us a moving and colourful first novel in the tradition of Keith Maillard, Robertson Davies and Margaret Laurence.”

Ingeborg leaves a mysterious past in Denmark to work as a deckhand on West Coast fishing boats. Her only companion is the enigmatic Family Ghost, who visits her in the form of a talking Canada Goose.

Burning Stone

Ronsdale Press, Spring 1995
ISBN 978-0-921870-31-9 (0-921870-31-0)
6″ x 9″ Trade Paperback, 106 pages

Excerpt – Reviews

“In her third book, Zoë Landale explores the darkened rooms of family myth and history. Focusing on family members from the past — matrons, suicides and brilliant eccentrics — she investigates their lives and the shadowy but potent power they exert over the present. Discovering at first only bitterness and anger, Landale pushes further to see these ghostly figures in the light of their own aspirations. Especially powerful is the description of the earlier women of Landale’s family — strong yet struggling to find their own voices. Burning Stone enacts a journey into the light, the generation of understanding and forgiveness within the family.”

Colour of Winter Air

Published by Sono Nis Press (1990)
ISBN 10: 1550390074 ISBN 13: 9781550390070

Excerpt

“What is most impressive about Colour of Winter Air is the ability of the writing to probe so effectively both the inner and outer human worlds. Though firmly rooted in everyday experience, these poems constantly reach to generate an expanded and expanding vision that combines meaning and emotion, reality and possibility, in a powerful display of both wisdom and hope.
Zoë Landale’s words reveal and illuminate not only the lives we lead, but the often-hidden existence hind our day-to-day activities, and a better future glowing below the mundane surface of things.”

Shop Talk

Published by Arsenal Pulp 1985
ISBN-10889781699

Trade paperback, 128 pages

An anthology of poetry by the Vancouver Industrial Writers’ Union, ed. Zoë Landale.
David R. Conn, Glen Downie, Phil Hall, Zoë Landale, Erin Moure, Tom Wayman, Calvin Wharton and Andrew Wreggitt

Harvest of Salmon

Published by Hancock House, 1977
ISBN 0 -919654-75-4

Hard cover, 222 pages

“ Harvest of Salmon is the story of how a young couple who know nothing about fishing find themselves with a commercial salmon troller. The book recounts their transformation from bumbling amateurs to keen professionals. In addition, there are many stories and observations along the way on the life and hardship of professional fishers–particularly on the West Coast of Canada. The long hours, hard physical work and unpredictable weather are the reality behind the dream many people have of commercial fishing. However, what shines through is the enjoyment Landale has in her work.”