'40 Below' project an ode to Edmonton winters
Collection features poetry, essays, and short stories inspired by Edmonton's longest season
Freezing temperatures so harsh you can feel it in your bones. Ice so thick it cracks your windshield, and turns you into a shivering mess.
The end of fall doesn't feel inspiring, but Alberta's longest season is serving as the muse behind a new Edmonton anthology.
Local writers have collaborated on a new book of poems and short stories inspired by winter.
Appropriately called "40 Below", the project is the work of Edmonton writer Jason Norman and is the second collection in the winter-inspired series.
"It was a way to bring writers together in Edmonton originally," said Norman during a Tuesday morning interview on CBC's radio show Edmonton AM. "Writing about a common theme brings everyone together. And there's no shortage of winter themes in Canadian writing.
"Volume two takes that idea and expands it to the rest of the province. So there's writers in it from across the province this time."
Although Norman says there has been a lot of talk lately around celebrating Edmonton's winter city status instead of bemoaning the cold weather, writers involved in the project were given carte blanche.
"If it was a good story and it hit me in the right places, then I accepted it. It didn't have to 'cheer leadery' but it's not bleak by any measure either," said Norman.
"There's some fantastic writing that can make you look at winter differently."
With the help of a grant by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the book is available now online and in bookstores across the city.
More information is available here.