"Last week Myrna’s new book arrived at Talewind Books in Sechelt. Ghosts in a Photograph. I’ve been trying to read it slowly, savouring each word, even waking in the small hours to read just a few more pages before trying to sleep again, my head filled with stories, hers and my own. In her Foreword, she talks about the form her books takes, using fragmentary bits and pieces of source materials, song lyrics, hand-drawn maps, biographies, autobiographies, conference papers, scholarly works."
"In the narrative that follows, then, my voice echoes different sources and takes different forms–straightforward narration, storytelling, intervention in other people’s texts, speculation, second-guessing, and argumentation often with my own previously published texts."
"As I read this, I was agreeing with my whole heart. ...So I’m half-way through Myrna’s book, a wonderful and meticulous work of love."
By Theresa Kishkan, author of Blue Portugal and Other Essays, posted on her blog.
"A tribute to perseverance and community, Ghosts in a Photograph works toward common ground"
By K.B. Thors, Alberta Views
"Those fortunate to read Kostash's book will reach their own conclusions about the process that helped transform Western Canada into an agricultural hub, while pondering past events which have precipitated yet another deadly war in Ukraine."
Winnipeg Free Press
"Ever since she wrote All of Baba’s Children 45 years ago, Myrna Kostash has continued searching for her roots. Her latest book continues this journey in a unique way. Using her family albums as a key, she embarks on a journey that’s both physical and virtual, as she delves into the lives of her grandparents all of whom moved from Halychyna (Galicia in Latin) to Alberta at the turn of the twentieth century."
By Marco Levytsky, New Pathway/Ukrainian News
"Ghosts in a Photograph: a chronicle by Myrna Kostash, delights and inspires with her exploration of family lore through the old photographs her Ukrainian Canadian grandparents and parents have left behind."
By Diana Stevan, author of the family saga trilogy Sunflowers Under Fire, Lilacs in the Dust Bowl and Paper Roses on Stony Mountain.
"As with all of Myrna Kostash’s books, her new one, Ghosts in a Photograph, has taught me something vital about who I am, where I come from, what I must know and think about as this person with this background on this land."
By Laurie D. Graham, Crop Samples
"Through her research, she creates a narrative to fill in the gaps and confronts the idea that linear voices can make up one’s personal stories."
By Paula E. Kirman, Prairie Books Now
"Throughout, Kostash weighs the responsibility of bearing two homelands within her: the inherited Ukrainian one and the one rooted in Canadian soil. The result is a sensitive, challenging inquiry that mixes travel with forays into literary records."
Karen Rigby, Foreword Reviews
