At first, I thought of arranging these four posts into categories—one for poetry and another for short stories, that kind of thing—but instead I have included an assortment in each post. Hopefully there will be at least one book that interests you, suits your reading taste and sparks your
Those of you who are reading here now, but not reading Alistair MacLeod’s short stories, will probably only be interested in the first couple of paragraphs after this introduction. Feel free to skip past the section that I've titled The Underneath, written with those who know the story-or other
As one of her most famous pieces, I was surprised to see that it’s only four pages long. Thinking back, on my younger self, I wonder how much attention I paid to this piece on first encountering this collection. When poetry was simply another unit in English class, I
Spring settled in, slowly at first. Here’s a picture of a mid-April snowfall. We’re in Northern Ontario now, temporarily, where we are spending time with family and where I am working on a new writing project. The landscape is beautiful and there are 330 lakes to explore here. Fewer
After last year’s gulp and gobble of new books, I have been tentative and restless. I touch my tongue to a book in my stacks, then move on, relishing the contrasting flavours but rarely sitting for a meal. Here, in Lorna Goodison’s Controlling the Silver (2005), I found this
