Author Worship
The Canadian literary scene has been tumultuous lately, following Stephen Galloway’s dismissal from UBC following allegations of sexual assault.
Christmas with Alice Munro
Like many of Alice Munro’s stories, her Christmas stories are occupied with work and explore the subtleties of how work defines identity. Of the three stories I’ll discuss, “The Turkey Season” (1980) is the most explicitly about Christmas, ending with a snowy tableau on Christmas Eve.
The Beauty of Self-deprecation in Andrew Miller’s IF ONLY THE NAMES WERE CHANGED
Fasten your seat belts. Andrew Miller’s alternative lit style is about to take you on a bumpy ride. His memoir in essays, IF ONLY THE NAMES WERE CHANGED, vacillates between hyper-masculine and tender in terrain that traverses parental concerns about raising a daughter, drug and alcohol abuse, and how
Your Turn Now to Stand Where I Stand: Growing Up with Little Earthquakes
I may not have been the only teenaged boy in America in the 1990s to listen over and over to Tori Amos’ 1992 album LITTLE EARTHQUAKES, but it felt like I was.
Anything Goes: Storytelling in a Digital Age
In the age of the Internet, fiction writing is changing yet again. As readers and writers, should we fear the use of technology in books? History says “no.”
Review: WHERE WE LAND by Daryl Farmer
And though all the stories follow different lives and the situations they face, it is Farmer’s simultaneous childlike-wonder and knowing restraint that weave these stories together into one, strikingly cohesive collection.
Grief and Goodbye in Endings
Octavia Butler said, “All good things must begin.” And lucky for us, they do. But “all good things must come to an end,” too.
Poet Activist Spotlight: Mahogany L. Browne
It’s hard to know where to start in describing the many ways that Mahogany L. Browne has given to the poetry community, and more broadly to the current cultural moment.
Feed Yourself: Jonathan Gold’s “A Neighborhood Just West of Downtown”
Very few writers I know got any writing done last month. We posted article after article about how the apocalypse has started or could potentially be avoided, or what great writers have said about fascism and resistance, or how artists can help marginalized groups.
Stand With Standing Rock: Books That Honor Activism
On Sunday, the Obama administration announced that Energy Transfer Partners, the company managing construction on the pipeline, must halt until the Army Corps of Engineers completes an environmental impact study.