TSR Newsletter: January 20th, 2025
Volume 2, Issue 3
Hello, TSR Subscriber! We have five new reviews to share with you today. Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry and an Indigenous title by Tanya Talaga. We also share some encouraging stats and shine a spotlight on a TSR Contributor, Anne Smith-Nochasak.
Featured Post
Chrystia: From Peace River to Parliament Hill by Catherine Tsalikis
In Chrystia: From Peace River to Parliament Hill, Catherine Tsalikis provides a well-rounded portrait of Liberal politician and former journalist Chrystia Freeland’s life, including formative influences, education, and career achievements.
More Reviews
Second Degree: From Med School to Murder by Kayla Hounsell
It would have seemed just another drug deal gone bad. In August of 2015, Taylor Samson walked into the apartment of William Sandeson with a large duffle bag full of marijuana and was never seen again. Sandeson would later admit to shooting Samson and dumping the body, over $90,000 of drugs. What makes this story so explosive is both young men were stude…
The Knowing by Tanya Talaga
“Listen carefully to the voices that come to you from the place before memories are remembered. “Every sound, every beat, has a purpose, a meaning. Everything reverberates: it is heard and it lives, never leaving space and time.” --Tanya Talaga, The Knowing
Total Party Kill: Poems by Craig Francis Power
Craig Francis Power’s Total Party Kill is a genre-defying meditation on addiction, trauma, and recovery, delivered with a rawness that feels both disarming and essential. Drawing heavily on the imagery and mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), Power crafts a narrative that blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, inviting readers into a world where…
TSR Contributor Spotlight
Anne Smith-Nochasak
Anne M. Smith-Nochasak grew up in rural western Nova Scotia, where she currently resides and teaches part-time after many years working in northern communities. She has self-published three novels using Friesen Press's services: A Canoer of Shorelines (2021), The Ice Widow (2022), and River Faces North (Taggak Journey, Book 1). She is currently a member of the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia. Anne can be found reading, kayaking, gardening, renovating, or exploring the woods with her golden dog Shay while her cat Kit Marlowe supervises the house when she isn't writing or teaching. Anne can be reached through her website https://www.acanoerofshorelines.com/ or on X, IG, and FB
Other News
Stats!
Early last December, it was my goal to get two hundred subscribers to our Substack page, either paid or free, by year’s end. The call went out on all social media platforms, including our new Bluesky1 account, and the response was great. We hit two hundred easily, and just over a month later we stand at 245 subscribers, up 47 over the last 30 days. Our new contributors can account for some of the increase (as their social media friends followed us), and good ol’ word of mouth around the CanLit community accounts for a chunk too. If you have liked or shared one of our posts, thank you!
Our weekly newsletter format is going over well, and as such, our “open rate”2 of the newsletter has increased almost 3% over the last thirty days.
If you have any feedback, please comment below, or reply to this email.
Thanks,
James M. Fisher, Editor-in-Chief
@theseaboardreview.ca is our Bluesky handle.
The percentage of people that actually open an email from TSR. Hard to believe that some don’t but they may be accessing new posts via the Substack app instead.