The Seaboard Review of Books: Monday Edition
May 11, 2026
In this issue:
Earthen: Stories by Katherine Koller (Fiction)
Night Terminus by Ellis Scott (Fiction)
Closing Act by Chris W. Kim (Fiction, Graphic Novel)
We Walked Him to the Door: My Husband’s Death by MAID By Lori Weber (Non-Fiction)
The Unbeatable Sonya Ballantyne, by Sonya Ballantyne (Non-Fiction, Memoir)
Empties by Neil Surkhan (Poetry)
Thanks for reading this issue of The Seaboard Review of Books!
James M. Fisher, editor-in-chief
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Fiction
Earthen: Stories by Katherine Koller
A woman recovering from hip surgery, an aging apple tree, and two neighbours who become friends after their husbands have died are among the characters in Katherine Koller’s twenty-story collection Earthen: Stories. As the title suggests, many of the stories deal with our connection to nature. A skunk, deer, garden slugs, trees, and other natural entiti…
Night Terminus by Ellis Scott
At first blush the title of Ellis Scott’s debut novel Night Terminus (Rare Machines, an imprint of Dundurn Press, 2026) suggests an ending. But in the first chapter, one character gives this facile perspective far more depth and resonance.
Closing Act by Chris W. Kim
If the only constant in life is change, then surely our failure to manage it is a close runner-up. Using a surreal but endlessly relatable setting, Chris W. Kim’s latest graphic novel, Closing Act, traces an insular community’s battle against time and transformation, rooting the theme in a network of narrowing urban alleys. It’s an artful, engrossing re…
Non-Fiction
We Walked Him to the Door: My Husband’s Death by MAID By Lori Weber
Dartmouth, NS-based, Montreal-born Lori Weber is a YA novelist, and a decorated one at that. The Ribbon Leaf, a historical novel set during World War II, won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for fiction in 2023. By all accounts, Weber is not a memoirist—but write a memoir she did—one that was powerful enough to win the Pottersfield Prize for Creative …
Poetry
Empties by Neil Surkhan
Is parenting a kind of emptying out, a spilling of one’s self into a new and precarious vessel? How much more so in uncertain times, standing as we do in sight of the abyss? In Neil Surkan’s third collection of poetry, Empties, he confronts gaps and openings, dropped calls and vanishing fauna, while attempting to answer his young son’s questions like, “…
Children’s Books
Call for Submissions
Exciting news: Saturday Shorts, our new short fiction section, is really coming together! We’re excited to be publishing “Riot at Legion No. 9” by the critically acclaimed Sarah Mintz, author of NORMA and handwringers, on Saturday, May 23, 2026!
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