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Confessions of a Reluctant Cougar

Sex is casual, but conversation is a serious matter in the outrageous adventures of this contemporary cougar.

In Myna Wallin’s second book, a reluctant cougar tells all. She feasts on young men of all kinds, in a world where sex isn’t dirty but love is coated in grime. In these raucous short stories, she runs the gauntlet of men, including a Harley-riding bikini salesman, a semiotics professor, a foot fetishist, a jaded brand consultant, a homeless man, and a bisexual mime. Written with Wallin’s signature wit, this semiotics of dating is given a postmodern twist.

Myna Wallin is an author and editor born and living in Toronto. She is also an organizer and host of the Art Bar Reading Series. Myna’s first full-length poetry collection, A Thousand Profane Pieces, was published in 2006 by Tightrope Books. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including The Algonquin Square Table Anthology, Contemporary Verse 2, Existere, Eye Weekly, Kiss Machine, In the Dark: Stories from the Supernatural, the Literary Review of Canada, Matrix, Nod, and Rampike. She recently received an Honourable Mention from Contemporary Verse 2 for their 2009 2-Day Poem Contest. Myna also hosts “In Other Words” on CKLN, where she has been interviewing authors since 2004. After receiving her MA in English Literature from the University of Toronto, Myna taught Effective Writing at George Brown College for several years. For Tightrope she has edited Sandra Kasturi’s The Animal Bridegroom, Phoebe Tsang’s Contents of a Mermaid’s Purse, and co-edited I.V. Lounge Nights with Alex Boyd.

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IV Lounge Nights

An anthology of poetry and prose
Published by Tightrope Books

Poetry and prose from 29 contributors.

Edited by Myna Wallin and Alex Boyd.

Published by Tightrope Books.

Read Reviews of IV Lounge Nights at:
danforthreview.com and minibookexpo.com.

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A Thousand Profane Pieces

Poems By Myna Wallin
Published by Tightrope Books

A Thousand Profane Pieces is a first-hand tour through the world of today's woman, for whom desire is no longer a dirty word.

With humour and intelligence, Wallin's poems explore where the sensual woman has been and where she's going. If Candace Bushnell wrote poetry, these are the kind of poems she would write.

"Myna Wallin is no female 'trophy poet,' no poet of the type she sends up in one of the poems ("Trophy Poets") in this highly affecting, highly insightful collection. Smart but uninterested in cleverness for its own sake or pseudo-intellectualism, instead she's genuinely and deliciously (and sometimes scathingly) quick-witted and satirical, and always with a clear eye on bottom-lines of adult experience. Her takes on the dating game, romance and commitment, reaching forty, social interaction between the genders, and pop images of both women and men are often nothing less than extremely funny and wickedly entertaining. But don't be fooled by Wallin's flair for comedy; her writing's informed by a passion that underlies every one of these "profane pieces." It's that honest, that full of feeling, and crisp, subtle word-handling, we don't want the collection to end."
- Russell Thornton, author of House Built of Rain

"This volatile collection continues Myna Wallin's search for being in a world increasingly closeness-challenged, a place where 'Postmodernism flau(n)ts the medium/ruptures contingent reality'. Following on several successful chapbook debuts, A Thousand Profane Pieces further explores this most venturesome poet's wit, soul and passion as she appraises the world in her singularly shrewd, erotic-tinged style. On every page, we swing to strophes of elegance; 'like an Escher drawing,/down and up/a winding staircase that ended/& began on a four-tiered wedding cake.'"
- Dennis E. Bolen, author of Gas Tank and Other Stories

To order your copy of A Thousand Profane Pieces, go to the Tightrope website.

The book is also available at Pages on Queen St., Toronto, and at Book City in the Annex. It is available on order from any bookstore in Toronto. You can also order the book directly from the author for a mere $10 with another toonie for postage. Just go to the contact page and let me know where you would like it delivered and I can tell you where to send the cheque.

Click here to watch a short film of my book launch by Maddy Bourgeois.