Marvyne Jenoff’s seventh book, Tree and Fruit: A Writer’s Life and Work, came out in December 2024. This hybrid memoir has two parts: TREE follows her life growing up in an unusual Jewish family in Winnipeg against the backdrop of the social history of the 1940s and 50s. From the early 1960s in Toronto, it continues with her development as a writer. FRUIT brings together the best of her previously published short fiction and essays.
These quotations are on the back cover.
From TREE
▪ You must never, never do that again! (from "Opposites")
▪ I fell in love with King Lear's fool. (from "Seeing")
From FRUIT
▪ I could tell by the way his body tensed and his voice pierced the air that he was making up new poetry. That wasn't appropriate behaviour in a parking lot. (from "An Evening of Poetry")
▪ Hercules wore a lion skin, but people say one gets treated with more respect in a blazer and skirt. (from "Hercules by My Side")
Marvyne began publishing poetry in literary journals as a student at the University of Manitoba. As an adult she has lived in the Toronto area, where she has also been involved in the visual arts. She has served on boards and committees, including the TWUC National Council for one year. Her poetry and fiction books have been published by Canadian small presses; her poetry has appeared in publications internationally. From 2006 to 2019 she published chapbooks of her fiction and essays under her own imprint, Twoffish Press.
Her latest poetry book, Climbing the Rain, includes poems that span her 60-year literary career as well as her recent poems of love and age.
Books
No Lingering Peace. (Fredericton, Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1972).
Hollandsong. (Ottawa, Oberon Press, 1975).
New Poet's Handbook (editor). (The League of Canadian Poets, 1984, 1985).
The Orphan and the Stranger. (Toronto, Wolsak and Wynn, 1985).
The Emperor's Body (experimental fiction). (Victoria, BC, Ekstasis Editions, 1995).
Climbing the Rain (poetry). (New Westminster BC, Silver Bow Publishing, 2022)
Relations: Family Portraits. (Mosaic Press, 1986).
Tales for an Unknown City: Stories from One Thousand and One Friday Nights of Storytelling. (McGill-Queens University Press, 1990).
Seek It: Writers and Artists Do Sleep. (Red Claw Press, 2012).
Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees. (League of Canadian Poets, 2018)
Community (Gertrude’s Writing Room, 2022)
101 Portraits (SandCrab Books, 2022)
Hologram: an Homage to P.K. Page (Caitlin Press, 2023)
