By Kimberly Lemaire
“Our lives are built on connections…”
The announcement for the Oct. 15 launch of the Ottawa Independent Writers (OIW) 2023 anthology opened with this phrase, and I was instantly curious. The theme couldn’t be more timely. Humans are social creatures, but our connections have been strained these last few years: by COVID, by politics and by social media. Now more than ever, we need to feel connected to others in this weirdly wired but wireless world—yet every message from the media seems to divide us further.
On this stage we find Connections. The OIW is a group that supports local writers at every stage of their writing journey and it considers this annual anthology, a collection of short stories and poetry written by its members, to be its “crowning jewel.” I was quick to realize why. These stories bind us to each other through community, family, love and the Earth we call home. The connections are new or longstanding, lost or recovered, desired or detested… each one precious.
Book cover courtesy of OIW
I was taken in from the beginning, sinking deeper into the theme with each story: from David Becker’s haunting The Delivery, about lives interrupted, kindness and the discovery of what really matters; to Michele Sabad’s bittersweet I Am Ken’s Beer Stein, about where we’ve been and where we’re all inevitably going.
The stories range from fiction to non-fiction, memoir to fantasy, and they’re written by fledgling and experienced authors alike. You’ll find the most recent works by the award-winning Barbara Florio Graham; the Hemingway-savvy Sharon Hamilton; and Brian McCullough, a playwright with an asteroid named after him. Sprinkled in between are stories and poems from Ottawa writers of all walks, connected to each other by the anthology’s publication as well as its theme, if we want to get meta.
The OIW announcement closed with the apt words, “We all need to be connected to something or someone for our sanity and survival.” Connections is a book that celebrates the links we share.
Get your copy of Connections after Oct. 15 (and learn more about the OIW) from their website.
