Tag: John Brady McDonald

A chat with award-winning author Arthur Slade about his latest middle-grade/YA fantasy adventure, I, Brax: 1. A Battle Divine (A Dragon Assassin Adventure)

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Shadowpaw Press link for I, Brax: A Battle Divine
The Glass Lodge: 20th Anniversary Edition

About I, Brax: A Battle Divine

Brax, hero of several Dragon Assassin tales, finally gets to tell his own story . . .

On a diplomatic mission from Drachia, the country of dragons, Brax and his rider, Carmen, encounter a ghostly vision of the Nameless Goddess, who warns them she is coming to conquer their world.

When the duo arrives at the Akkad empire, they discover that the emperor has been killed by what looks to be a servant of that goddess, and his young nephew ascends to become the emperor. Both Brax and Carmen swear to protect the young man from the Nameless Goddess, which involves fighting creatures in the real and netherworld.

But once they discover the true name of the Nameless Goddess, the hunt is on. Will they be able to destroy her name before she rises to take over their world?

Praise for I, Brax: A Battle Divine

“There is so much fun in this book, even with the big battles, fires, destruction, and evil creatures being unleashed throughout the story. . . . It is a great story from the masterful and ever-entertaining pen of Arthur Slade. A great read in the Dragon Assassin universe!” – Steven R. McEvoy, Book Reviews and More

About Arthur Slade

Arthur Slade was raised on a ranch in the Cypress Hills of Saskatchewan. He is the author of twenty five novels for young readers including The Hunchback Assignments, which won the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and Dust, winner of the Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature. His lifetime of work has also received the prestigious Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence.  All of these awards mean that when he drinks tea he has to raise his pinky. It’s very fancy. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada. 

P.S. He does all of his writing on a treadmill desk. And he listens to heavy metal. At the same time.

A chat with noted Indigenous poet and artist John Brady McDonald about the new twentieth-anniversary hardcover edition of his acclaimed debut poetry collection, The Glass Lodge.

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artbyjohnmcdonald.weebly.com

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Shadowpaw Press link for The Glass Lodge
The Glass Lodge: 20th Anniversary Edition

About The Glass Lodge

John Brady McDonald, MBSFA, a Nêhiyawak-Métis multidisciplinary artist and writer from Treaty Six Territory in Saskatchewan, Canada, is an award-winning author of multiple books who has presented at literary festivals around the world.

Before all this, however, he was a young, urban Indigenous youth, struggling with addictions, the streets, and the pain and turmoil of intergenerational trauma as a residential school survivor and the child of residential school survivors.

While his struggle was not uncommon, what made it unique was that he documented it through free-verse poetry, filling countless notebooks and paper boxes with hundreds of poems over a ten-year period, providing a glimpse into the life of young man who had to overcome so much and grow up way too fast.

These raw, lyrical poems are a glimpse of the birth of a poet, recklessly using language and words with abandon and without restraint. It is the poetry of an individual experimenting with the language, mixing the influences of Shakespeare and Jim Morrison with the teenage-Goth writing style of youth—the base metals from which a lifetime of words was forged.

Originally published by Kegedonce Press in 2004, The Glass Lodge was presented across Canada and the United States at esteemed festivals. Chosen for the First Nations Communities Read program, it was also nominated for the Anskohk Aboriginal Book of the Year in 2005.

Now, here is that seminal work in a brand-new edition, re-edited and restored, illustrated with images of many of the original, handwritten poems, and with author’s notes providing frank, fascinating insight into what gave rise to each of these verses: the outpouring of language that marked the birth of a remarkable writer.

Praise for The Glass Lodge

“The Glass Lodge transcends all the cliches of the angst-ridden Urban Indian. McDonald’s verse is a brilliant fusion of the brutality and hope that is inherent in the Aboriginal experience. I have never read poetry that so closely resembles my own experience as a First Nations man.” – Darrell Dennis, Writer, Tales of an Urban Indian, Moccasin Flats

About John Brady McDonald

John Brady McDonald is a Nehiyawak-Metis writer, artist, historian, musician, playwright, actor and activist born and raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. He is from the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation and the Mistawasis Nehiyawak. The great-great-great grandson of Chief Mistawasis of the Plains Cree, as well as the grandson of famed Metis leader Jim Brady, John’s writings and artwork have been displayed in various publications, private and permanent collections and galleries around the world, including the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

John is one of the founding members of the P.A. Lowbrow art movement, and served as Vice President of the Indigenous Peoples Artists Collective for nearly a decade. John also served a term as vice-chair of the Board of Directors for Spark Theatre, and as a Senator with the Indigenous Council Committee of CUPE Saskatchewan.

The author of several books, John studied at England’s prestigious Cambridge University, where in July 2000 he made international headlines by symbolically “discovering” and “claiming” England for the First Peoples of the Americas. John is also an acclaimed public speaker, who has presented in venues across the globe, such as the Anskohk Aboriginal Literature Festival, the Black Hills Seminars on Reclaiming Youth, The Appalachian Mountain Seminars, the Edmonton and Fort McMurray Literary Festival, the Eden Mills Writers Festival and at the Ottawa International Writers Festival.

His artwork and writing have been nominated for several awards, including the 2022 Saskatchewan Book of the Year Awards, the 2022 High Plains Book Awards, and the 2023 Lambda Literary Awards. John was awarded the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal (Saskatchewan).