Canada Day news roundup

I both enjoy and dislike Canada Day. I enjoy it because while we don’t live in a perfect country, by any stretch of the imagination, we live in a much better one than most — socialized medicine, gun control, social safety nets, funding for the arts, etc. I dislike Canada Day because in many ways it is founded on a pack of lies, cheats, abuses, murders, rapes, and thefts from a wide variety of minorities, with First Nations peoples absorbing the majority of damage. Here in St. John’s, Newfoundland we recently changed our June holiday from “Discovery Day” to the placeholder name “June Holiday” in recognition of the fact that no one from Europe fucking discovered anything — there were already people here who we systematically wiped out. As in: EXTINCT. Because of White colonialism. (America, you need to do this with Columbus Day.) Eventually our June holiday will be renamed to something like “St. John’s Day” (also problematic) or somesuch, but really it should be named in some way after the Beothuk in recognition of the wrongs done. A remembrance day for reflecting on, not celebrating, the legacy of colonialism and genocide inflicted on the first peoples of this land. Canada-wide, I realize it will be many years before this sort of thing happens, but I really hope Trudeau will stop just talking a good game and make some real reparations and changes that make Canada Day worthy of our full attention.

• Michael Crummey wins best Atlantic Canadian novel for his magnificent book The Innocents;
• Nice to see the young folk still producing print journals — these plucky folk emailed me yesterday to announce the first issue of their new ficiton mag — no idea on quality or content, but it sure looks pretty;
• Dan Brown’s ex claims he was douchebag cheater;
• Carty-Williams and Evaristo are the FIRST Black authors to take home British book-of-the-year prizes… let that sink in: FIRST EVER;
• On structural racism in Irish arts and music;
• Hey, nerds! Here are some new Star Wars books;
• In a time when we’re buying lots of anti-racism primers, don’t underestimate the educational power of Black fiction;
• Here we go: courts block Trump’s niece’s tell-all memoir;
• The Millions’ must-read poetry includes ‘Ninja fav Karen Solie;
• How you write in second person;
• How will libraries look on reopening? Britain will tell the tale;
• One of the things I like about BookRiot is their complete lack of pretense and pride… They’ll post any bookish-angle thing they can find… like bookish kitchen utensils;