Author Archive
In Books We Trust: On Reading and Building Identities
For those of us who have found ourselves marginalized and rejected at some point in our lives because of who we are, books can offer a refuge from which we may attain some understanding of ourselves and the world.
“The wolf finally frees itself”: Talking With Brianna Albers
Bodies in literature always bear the first marks of difference. What isn’t recognized as “normal” (meaning, not perceived as male, cis, straight, white), always verges on the monstrous, to be rejected or feared, or at the very least cloaked in mystery.
Author Worship
The Canadian literary scene has been tumultuous lately, following Stephen Galloway’s dismissal from UBC following allegations of sexual assault.
The Resistance Will Also Be Literary
November has been a heavy month. The results of the U.S. elections came in; Leonard Cohen passed away; and on Sunday 13th, France commemorated the 1-year anniversary of the Paris attacks.
Anonymity, Truth, and Authenticity: the Ferrante Papers
I’ll admit that I do believe in knowing about the author when I’m reading a book. The limits of an approach that is basically all about the text, and nothing but the text – so that taking into account biographical or historical elements, in short replacing the text within
Books, Magazines, and TV Guides
You can’t make someone love books if they never could afford to access them in the first place, and you can’t sustain any kind of passion for reading if you don’t have the means to do so.
Waiting for Hopper
Woman in the Sun is located in the large hall next to the elevators on the sixth floor of the new Whitney Museum. The good thing is that most people go straight for the exhibition so that the space in front of the painting isn’t crowded.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Folk Tales
My reading list of late includes a lot of folk and fairy tales, reappropriated and retold: Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Warrior Woman, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Call it my not-so-secret fondness for narratives that deconstruct and rewrite their source material.
“Why not now go towards the things I love?”: The Aftermath of Being Queer
Some part of me broke last Sunday. I kept scrolling this week through the news articles that listed the victims of the Orlando massacre, the pain in my heart growing with each name. It seems we’re being denied time and space to mourn.
À La Recherche de l’Amérique Perdue: Fantasizing America
To say that the French have a love-hate relationship with the United States is an understatement. We’ll be tssk-tssking Americans for their alleged anti-intellectualism and Puritan mores, while unabashedly dreaming Technicolor dreams of New York and California and happily binging on series. There’s also a strong mainstream appetite for