Dear Canada Council / Our Starland
Dear Canada Council is an illustrated plea for plane tickets, in which the narrator details her plans to “found a town.” Complete with Incas, crickets, and a small family of deaf-mutes, her written request doubles as what also might be the craziest love poem you’ve ever read. Awestruck and sleepless in Hamilton, she is haunted by visions of celebrity reporter Brian Linehan, obsessed with a young boy she saw once on the TV news, and just wants to do better, get married, and wear a sash, a red mayor’s sash. Can’t Canada Council help her out?
Our Starland is a story broken into small, dreamy pieces. Flash by flash, its characters navigate through a night in the fruit picking diaspora of the Okanagan Valley. Hitchhiking, nightwalking, these characters remember the constellations wrong, leave their daughters alone, and sleep outside, once again, but with a sleeping bag this time.
“Less a narrative than a stream-of-consciousness or poetry, Holton weaves together an odd assortment of images including the late celebrity reporter Brian Linehan, a family of deaf-mutes and the Incas, with simple illustrations that Seth Scriver fans will love. Flip the book over and there’s Our Starland. Here, a group of characters spend a night hitchhiking in the orchards of the Okanagan Valley…. Once again, Conundrum Press makes a gorgeous artful book that’s just a little out of the ordinary.” — The Coast
“Emily Holton is multi-talented, a true artist.” — Rover Arts
“Broken hearts and arts grants are increasingly synonymous but Holton’s unique talent manages to bring a sense of fun back to both.” —eye
Also by Emily Holton: Little Lessons in Safety