Walking Through Turquoise Laurie MacFayden’s third book of poetry continues to explore the secrets and flirtations mined in her previous titles, White Shirt and Kissing Keeps Us Afloat. The clumsy intricacies of relationships; things you want to shout from rooftops but can’t; that tickle in your gut the first time she calls you honey. MacFayden ponders a one-way […]
Frontenac House
Quartet 2017 launches at the Almanac
Ordinary who would ever believe looking into your ordinary eyes could stop me from breathing; that touching your scars could transport me to the stars who would ever believe two ordinary sets of hands could cartwheel to the moon and back, and again, and back then sleep in an ordinary bed in an […]
Alberta Views reviews Quartet 2014
From Bookshelf, November 2014 issue: […] Laurie MacFayden’s Kissing Keeps Us Afloat relates the experiences of knowing, “by tenth grade,” that one would “never, not ever, be one of the cool kids,” and of recognizing “burgeoning yearnings,” yearnings “we never talked about / the kind two girls aren’t supposed to feel / for each other.” […]
black, er, pink tie occasion for white shirt
Great news today – just learned that White Shirt made the shortlist for the Lambda Literary Awards in the Lesbian Poetry category: “Finalists for the Lambda Literary Award were announced today by the Lambda Literary Foundation in Los Angeles. Books from major mainstream publishers and from academic presses, from both long-established and brand new LGBT […]
Alberta Views tries White Shirt on for size
‘Laurie MacFayden’s White Shirt is the sort of garment that appeals and reveals far more than it conceals. Love, longing, loss and desire drip and swirl like the poet’s own Pollock-inspired cover art. Simple strategies work well here: the Tower-of-Babel adjectival pileup that describes one babelicious mouth in ‘dear life’ leads into other catalogues and […]
Beneath the White Shirt: Passion, tenderness, vivid colour
Lovely review of White Shirt from George Elliott Clarke in Sunday’s Halifax Chronicle Herald: “White Shirt announces itself with stunning cover art by MacFayden herself. The cover art, Allegra, its violent lashings and splatters of paint, testifies to MacFayden’s sensibility: Her work is ejaculations, vivid, colourful, clashing, all indelibly marking the white page. Her first […]
a little bit sweaty
My debut manuscript, White Shirt, was one of 10 titles selected for Dektet 2010, a 10-pack of Canadian poetry published by Frontenac House in honour of their 10th anniversary. The books were released five months ago with launch parties in Edmonton and Calgary at the end of April. Finally, the Toronto leg of the promo […]
Frontenac/Dektet poets climbin’ the charts
Pages On Kensington’s (Calgary) Bestseller List (May 2, 2010) Original Edition Fiction and Poetry 1. Beatrice and Virgil – Yann Martel 2. Other Family – Joanna Trollope 3. Love Market – Carol Mason 4. Hypoderm – Weyman Chan 5. Children of Ararat – Keith Garebian 6. Fallacies of Motion – William Nichols 7. (Sic) – Nikki Reimer 8. Confessions […]
5 minutes avec chemise blanche
on the nightstand: outliers by malcolm gladwell; left hook by george bowering on the iPod: david gray; emmylou harris; the supremes; abba; kd lang; the fugitives; justin rutledge; kate rusby; laura love; rufus wainwright what white shirt had for breakfast: egg, potato, spinach & red bean burrito; two coffees with homo milk SAY WORD / […]
a white shirt goes with everything
Greetings, poetry lovers. My book White Shirt (Frontenac House; $15.95) is hot off the press and now available for purchase. “In this debut collection, best friends scream downhill on their ten-speed bikes; a tree planter spells out her lover’s name in seedlings; and a mysterious entity steps out of the mist in Stanley Park. The […]