When North Korean spymaster Doha Kim is mysteriously killed in Oxford, his protégé, Yohan Kim, chases the only breadcrumb given to him in Doha’s last breath: “Soju Club, Dr. Ryu.” In the meantime, a Korean American CIA agent , Yunah Choi, races to salvage her investigation of the North Korean spy cell in the aftermath of the assassination. At the centre of it all is the Soju Club, the only Korean restaurant in Oxford, owned by Jihoon Lim, an immigrant from Seoul in search of a new life after suffering a tragedy. As different factions move in with their own agendas, their fates become entangled, resulting in a bitter struggle that will determine whose truth will triumph.

Oxford Soju Club weaves a tale of how immigrants in the Korean diaspora are forced to create identities to survive, and how in the end, they must shed those masks and seek their true selves.

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Continued correspondence reveals loneliness and desperation that stretch far beyond the isolation of solo travel and the typical self-reckoning that comes with it. Composed as a series of illustrated letters, Dear Kenneth is a sensitive work of comic auto-fiction that touches on themes of projection and selfishness set to the backdrop of a months-long trip to Japan. Rendered entirely in graphite and coloured pencil, Degenstein examines the desperate act of taking things and making them into what we need them to be, rather than trying to connect with them in a genuine way; when desperate enough, anything can be projected upon: a person, a poet, an artist, a city. Numbed by medication and burning under the Kyoto sun, the artist is forced to self-evaluate, face the consequences of running from oneself, and confront what it means to make artwork out of misery.

About the Author

Hailing from the prairies and based in Montreal, Cole Degenstein is an artist whose work takes form in illustration, comics, and bookmaking. Tenderness is at the core of his work, which centres itself in storytelling about intimacy, rural life, gay history, and domesticity. His graphic novel 10-10 to the Wind (Fieldmouse, 2021) received the 2024 Cartoonist Studio Prize from the Center for Cartoon Studies for best Graphic Short, and was nominated for an Ignatz Award.

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Layaway Child is a luminous debut short story collection by award-winning writer Chanel Sutherland that explores the emotional landscapes of Caribbean families fractured by migration, especially the harrowing yet resilient journeys of Black girls and women. In lyrical, linked stories, Sutherland traces the lives of mothers working abroad as housekeepers and nannies, and the children they left behind.

From lush island childhoods marked by absence and community, to the cold, alienating spaces of Canadian cities, Layaway Child captures the complexity of growing up between worlds. A mother, newly arrived in Montreal, is kept from speaking to her daughters by her own mother’s misguided attempt to help her let go of home. A schoolgirl becomes a spectacle under the gaze of white classmates. A young girl’s curiosity about the cosmos collides with the confusion of puberty. Sutherland brings deep compassion and sharp insight to each moment, revealing both the beauty of island life and the harshness of immigration’s toll.

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Moe Tremblay is struggling with domesticity. New to Montréal, his wife climbs the corporate law ladder while he stays home with the kids. It sounded like a good idea. Then Dean shows up. Enticing him with tales of grime and glory, he convinces Moe to join his band, Guilt Trip.

This opens the door to a world of aging musician journeymen and a local music scene that is soiled and sexy, alluring and dangerous. The Guilt Trippers is a darkly funny and moving take on modern parenthood, the Montréal music scene, and some of the musicians who call it home.

Philippe Mineau, a life partner and father to two young boys, has worked in a lab coat firing lasers at proteins in Denmark, played accordion for jazz manouche and Forró bands, worked as an illegal migrant fruit picker and farm labourer, and written policy on psychedelic drugs for the federal government.

He currently runs a music studio in Montreal’s Little Italy, plays in the pop rock band Radio Patente, and tries to spend as much of his summers as possible on the water, canoe paddle in hand. The Guilt Trippers is his first novel. He lives in Montreal.

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The stories that make up There’s Always More to Say focus on characters struggling to achieve what they think they should want despite the demands and loneliness of modern life. A puppeteer attempts to reinvent himself as a realtor. Preteen girls strive to become like their absentee fathers. A nanny must decide between her future or that of the family dog. A high-achieving working mother is imprisoned by her antidepressants.

Infused with humour and verve, yet full of warmth, Southworth interrogates the quest for more and what it means when ambition clashes with private reality.

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There are various themes explored throughout these pages connected to some form of memory. Memory as construct that is both built, destroyed, and altered daily, its reliability fleeting. The physical objects that connect us to memory and how these are manifestations and representations filled with artificial meaning yet are often the only things left of us when we’re gone. Nostalgia as crutch and a curse, offering up memories that are self-serving rather than accurate. And how utterly terrifying it is when the memories themselves begin to vanish along with lucidity, as cognitive faculties fail us.

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