Elizabeth Haynes's Music and Reading Recommendations

Elizabeth Haynes's Music and Reading Recommendations: 

I am drawn to books about revolutionaries and other activist folks who want to change to the world. I recently read the novel Petra, by Shaena Lambert (Random House Canada, 2020) about Petra Kelly, one of the founders of the German Green Party in the 1980s. Full of intrigue, infighting, wins and losses, Petra is exquisitely written, well researched and just heartbreaking. Petra Kelly was and is a Cassandra for our times. 

In 1999, I went to a little music club in Santiago, Cuba to listen to some Cuban jazz. Imagine my surprise when a small blond woman with a flute and sax came out and began playing with the local band. I kept asking the Cubans around me who this amazing musician was (and they were not too shabby themselves) until I discovered she was Canadian jazz musician Jane Bunnett. Since then I have collected most of Jane’s CDs. My favourites are the ones where she works with Cuban musicians:  Ritmo + Soul, Spirits of Havana and Alma de Santiago. I would also recommend the gorgeous jazz piano stylings of Cuban-Canadian Hilario Duran particularly Contumbao which was nominated for a 2018 Juno for jazz album of the year.   

Elizabeth Haynes’s writing has appeared in magazines and anthologies, most recently You Look Good for your Age (U of A Press). Her story collection, Speak Mandarin Not Dialect (Thistledown Press) was an Alberta Book Award finalist. Her novel, The Errant Husband, will be published by Radiant Press in October, 2021. https://www.elizabethjhaynes.com/

Elizabeth's essay "Seventeen Postcards" is featured in the new Summer Creative Nonfiction issue of The Fiddlehead. Order your copy today!