Linda Rogers, Victoria, British Columbia, CANADA

Many Thanks to Linda for the signing and for the delightful afternoon of reading from her latest book  "Crow Jazz" at the Martin Batchelor Gallery

Thanks to Rick for the great tunes too . . 

Crow Jazz

Short fiction

Linda Rogers

A long-awaited dazzling first collection of short fiction from one of Canada’s most accomplished poets. These incandescent stories in Crow Jazz come from tree level, the corvid community, where sex and death are celebrated with mirth and compassion. They have clever crow energy, selecting beak-sized twitter-bits from life on Earth below, with an eye to the bigger picture. Highly inventive; children, families, crows and the old bewitch and astonish the imagination. Improvisation, syncopation; all the jazz words come into wordplay. “Mud Pies,” “The Child City,” “Darling Boy,” “The Tea Party,” “Lucy Laughed,” “Elusive Beauty” and “Virginia Sat Down” are a few of the twenty-plus polished tales in Linda Roger’s quirky and clever short fiction collection. A wild breath of fresh air for literary Canada.

About the Author

Linda Rogers is a novelist, essayist, editor and songwriter, past Victoria Poet Laureate and Canadian People’s Poet, and President of the League of Canadian poets and the BC Federation of Writers. She has published twenty-nine books, appeared in a number of anthologies and been awarded national and international literary prizes, including the Leacock Prize, the National Poetry Prize, the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, the Gwendolyn MacEwen Prize and the Milton Acorn Award in Canada; the Cardiff Prize, the Bridport Prize and the Petra Kenney Award in Britain; the Prix Anglais in France, the Rukeyeser Award in the United States and the Voices Israel Award for Poetry.

Rogers has written songs for children with her husband, mandolinist Rick van Krugel (whom Muddy Waters called “the best white blues mandolin player in the world”), who also accompanies readings, and lyrics for various songwriters. Her song for Terry Fox marked the thirtieth anniversary of his run. She wrote the screenplay for the award-winning film Legend of the Dolphins and the play Warhol for the Ontario Gallery of Art. She is currently writing a children's book, Hello. Wiksas? with Kwakwaka'wakw artist Chief Rande Cook, whose primary interest is also in the rights and rites of children.

Rogers writes literary criticism and profiles of many Canadian artists and is currently involved in an ekphrasis project, women poets responding to women painters, with Mexican artist Maria Luisa de Villa.

She teaches, performs and reports from Victoria, taking dictation from her crow friends.