At the beginning of this year, I had a transcendent experience. Dark night, reading into it, I finished The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri and rolled over in bed, my arm around the book, holding it close. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt such a strong connection to a novel, this feeling like I […]
Last week, J. tells me, he and Mowat were out on the trail behind our house with a few other dogs and dog owners. They were having a great time – the dogs, that is, the owners would have been hunched inside their down jackets, stamping their feet on the ground to stay warm. Then, […]
Last week, I got rejected. It wasn’t anything personal. Except, you know, it was. I submitted a manuscript I’ve spent several years on, parts of which have won or been long-listed for awards, and the editor of the press came back to me with a thanks, but no thanks. Amid the constructive criticism, he said […]
I first “met” Shawn Syms online, in the mid-2000s, through PWAC. I was attempting to make a living freelance writing in between surfing for killer travel deals and he was generous with advice and suggestions. A long-time journalist and fiction writer, his debut short story collection, Nothing Looks Familiar, came out last September. Says Kathryn […]
I started this past Saturday night sipping dirty martinis with an old friend under a framed map of Rupert’s Land. A bright red swath swept northwest, right over present-day Manitoba and up to where The Pas would be. A scrawled date in black ink said 17-something. From there, I walked a few blocks west on […]
In November, with the gift-giving spirit gurgling up in me, I had an idea. I thought I’d write down a few of my thoughts about writing, about what to first focus on in order to make a convincing world out of words. I’d write this down for you, I thought: my readers and my potential […]
On the last Monday of my Writer-in-Residence gig in The Pas, I got locked inside the library. Not the part with all the books, but the back room, what’s called the Annex. In that space, under the humming lights, with tea made in the staff kitchen, with the sounds of snow-machines flying by on the […]
The first Thursday of each month (second Thursday this month, due to circumstances), I post a Q-and-A with a Canadian author. Read more about who exactly is asking the questions, and if you’re a published writer and want to take part, let me know! This month: Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, whose most recent novel All the Broken […]
Last week, the crematorium where Ulrich had been sent burned to the ground. Once we got over the shock, we said, Of course it did. That has Ulrich’s fingers all over it, my brother said. He wasn’t one to do anything ordinarily. He had a flair for the dramatic. Given the choice, he’d opt for adventure […]
This past Tuesday, December 16, my step-father left a pot of tea steeping on his desk and went for a walk in the woods. He did not return. Out on the rocky path, under the white pines, he died of a sudden heart attack. Nobody ever thought this would happen. I mean, who does? But, […]