Description: Pretty good at writing stuff
It has been about two years since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of North America, and, as a result, altered the landscape of the writing and publishing world. In Toronto, and many parts of Ontario, we’ve been on a rolling series of lockdowns and closures. All that aside, we have all been trying to do our part and keep each other safe and sane during this last while, and sometimes, that just means trying to keep on going and treasuring things we took for granted.
While I don’t think most who read this will have taken books for granted in general, they’ve surely seen the way things can get lost in the static when literary communities have to move exclusively online, especially in an era of dwindling book coverage and other sad shenanigans in the Canadian literary industry. However, I have been saying that these last few years and those ahead of us are filled with promise as far as what is being published here, and what might shape our literature to come.
So, I decided to make a list of books that came out during the pandemic, and especially highlight those that were greatly hindered by the lack of press and events and touring that might usually accompany publication and help the authors make a dent. Much as I did almost two years ago, with that list of stories to tide people over, I wanted to share this list of pandemic-published books so that we celebrate the authors that kept on grinding and working at their craft during all of this, and those who saw the