Dan Carruthers’ more recent thriller, Anya Unbound (2017), introduces us to Sean Carson, a recovering widower, who stumbles across a 17-year-old Polish girl on the way to his bush cabin. He discovers she is part of a baker’s dozen of girls who have been lured to North America and are bound for the sex trade …
“She was thinking about the way she’d always taken for granted that the world had certain people in it, either central to her days or unseen and infrequently thought of. How without any one of these people the world is a subtly but unmistakably altered place, the dial turned just one or two degrees.” –Emily …
Boreas always tires of summer on the same day each year, the same day a very special baby girl was born. After a bite off a glacier and a purse of his lips, Boreas draws a deep cold breath and exhales, closing out summer. Like a child blowing a dandelion, his breath sends the trees, …
For 20 years, Robert (Bob) Hayes was the Yukon’s wolf biologist. During those years, he studied hundreds of radio-collared wolves and conducted several long-term wolf-prey studies. He is considered a world expert on moose and caribou predation by wolves and the effects of wolf control efforts on wolves and their prey. Over time, his studies …
As the crew who came here to film an episode of the Canadian television series Murdoch Mysteries a few years ago told me, Dawson is a place that’s just a perfect backdrop for storytelling. The particular episode was a lot of fun to watch them film and then see it on TV later on. It …
The fourth edition of the Dawson Daily News Print & Publishing Symposium, part of the annual Yukon Riverside Arts Festival, is taking a walk on the wild side. This year, the symposium’s popular Dawson Daily News Postcard Story Competition will challenge writers to capture the theme of “gone wild” in just 150 words scratched out …
By the time you read this I’ll be “Exploring the Frontiers of Language” in Skagway, attending this year’s edition of the North Words Writers Symposium. I’ve been at most of these gatherings since the first one in 2010 and have found the trip a pleasant way to begin summer travels with our trailer. North Words …
The following excerpt is based on true events that took place around 1980. What’s Up Yukon’s editorial staff would like to remind you that there are laws in the Yukon against wasting meat. Part One was published on Jan. 29, 2015; Part Two on Feb. 26, 2015; Part Three on April 30. This is the …
A voice in her periphery, one that was indelibly twisted into her memories, rose above the unfolding dialogue in her mind and, like the instinct to swat away a buzzing fly, she had to look. She’d been occupying a tucked-away booth — her books and writing utensils strewn about the table in an organized mess. …
Looking for a book that fits into a backpack for a camping trip? Rachel and Ursula Westfall`s first self-published novella, Estella of Halftree Village, is such a book. At 89 pages, it’s an ideal summer read. It’s the story of Saska the Sasquatch and Estella, a girl born and raised in the Halftree Village, a …
Close to Spider Man: stories, Ivan E. Coyote, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2005 (second printing) 93 pages. What I enjoy about Ivan Coyote’s stories is their unwrapped honesty. The book says these are fictional stories, but they seem so much like memoir that you might feel truth hovering around the floor of every story. Most of …
Coyote Teaches Us About Love in the Time of Collaring Read More »
First Prize PSAC Whitehorse Regional Pride Committee Short Story Contest It’s night. A man walks his black lab in the forest — and when the dog runs in between the pines, he’s almost invisible. The only sound is the man’s footsteps on the snow, the rustle of his jacket, his dog’s breathing. Normally, he enjoys …
May is National Crime Writing Month, and in celebration, Yukoners have reviewed work by finalists in three categories. A Nominee for Best Crime Novel: Arctic Blue Death, by R. J. Harlick (RendezVous Crime) This is a murder story that has a bit of a twist. Meg Harris has an intriguing past, some of which is …
World of Words: Locals review great Canadian crime fiction Read More »
Literature abounds with magic bookstores such as J.K. Rowling’s Obscurus Books where Hogwarts buy their texts, and Mr. Koreander’s shop where Michael Ende’s Bastian Bux steals The Neverending Story. But this column is about real bookstores where real magic happens. My own experience occurred in a Dutch bookstore where I found a German title on …
World of Words: Be enchanted at the Yukon’s magic bookstore Read More »
