Two new books: Lost Boy from a Line of Heroes, a memoir by Gordon Miller and Daily Covid Comic by Michael Vickers

Lost Boy from a Line of Heroes, a memoir by Gordon Miller

In August, 1943, Gordon Miller’s mother, Alice and his eleven-year-old sister, Lillian, flew from the town of Gogama in Northern Ontario to visit family in Biscotasing. The small plane in which they were travelling crashed on landing in Lake Biscotasing, killing its passengers. That tragedy altered life forever for twelve-year-old Gordon and his father, James Wishart Miller. 

Gordon Miller brings to life a bygone period and the transition to urbanization of Canada’s north. For more than two hundred years his Indigenous, Scottish, Irish and English ancestors played many roles in Canada’s fur trade, as voyageurs, trappers, and traders with the Northwest Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Gord’s memoir looks back on an era of trading posts, trap lines and canoe brigades in Canada’s North, and to some of the characters like Archie Belaney (Grey Owl) and Tom Thompson, who were lured North by its “romantic” ethos.

His strong story-telling is enhanced by photographs, drawings, poetry.

Gordon Miller is a writer and visual artist of white and Indigenous descent, living in Oakville, Ontario. He is a member of Mattagami First Nation. He experienced part of his life as an invisible minority with an internal and unacknowledged otherness. Since embracing his multicultural roots, he has achieved a spiritual and cultural rebirth reflected in his art and writing.

Lost Boy from a Line of Heroes is available from GoodMinds.com, distributor of Fist Nations, Metis, and Innuit Books – here.

 

Daily Covid Comic by Michael Vickers

Funny and melancholy, familiar and quirky, universal yet highly personal, Daily Covid Comic is a unique archive of the highs and lows of 89 days of isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic from March 16, 2020 to June 12, 2020. Each day artist Michael Vickers documents the experience of his time spent burrowed away with his partner Elyse and their cat River while in their 500 s.f. basement apartment in Toronto, through poignant and relatable illustrations, poems, and descriptions of the historic experience. An archive of a historic moment and a window into an artist's world in isolation, this special book features daily illustrated journal entries, along with a signed introduction by the artist.

Michael Vickers is a Canadian artist whose practice exists in the space between sculpture, painting, installation and now comic book making. His work has been exhibited locally and internationally, including presentations at Volta Basel, Mercer Union, Dutch Design Week, Clark House Mumbai, Art Toronto, DesignTO, Patrick Mikhail Gallery and collaborative installations at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Gardiner Museum. 

He is the recipient of various grants from the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts, and has completed residencies everywhere from a pod in the middle of the desert in Joshua Tree, to a concrete room in Mumbai.

Daily Covid Comic is perfect bound and digitally printed with a risograph feel on 100lb high quality paper. At 8.5 x 11 inches the book mirrors the artist's sketchbook.

A portion of all proceeds are donated to Wildseed – Centre for Activism and Art and the Schizophrenia Society of Canada Foundation.

A signed, artist edition of Daily Covid Comic is available here. 

See Brian Henry’s schedule here,  including online and in-person writing workshops, weekly writing classes, and weekend retreats in Algonquin Park, Alliston, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood, Georgetown, Georgina, Guelph, Hamilton, Jackson’s Point, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Southampton, Sudbury, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.