Louise Erdrich and Barbara Kingsolver, Amy Tan and Elizabeth Strout: these are some of the writers whose stories about parenting, and being parented, stand out in my mind. Claudia Dey’s fiction could be included here, too, although her stories spiral around alienation and abandonment—the ways in which those who
My reading this year has a different rhythm. Some year-long projects require only a few pages of reading each week, a chapter maybe. In contrast, reading for work requires bursting through backlists in a week or two. In between, some books have sprawled in that territory between lackadaisical and
This morning, the 23rd edition of Canada Reads program launches. I’ve missed the voice of a career writer in the program in recent years and now, with Heather O’Neill’s inclusion (whose Lullaby for Little Criminals was a previous Canada Reads winner) as a champion, my affection for the program’s
Fofana, Lam, Morrison, Ogunyemi, Scott, Smith and Smyth Short Stories in January, February and March 2023 Whether read all-in-a-burst or over several weeks, these stories capture a variety of reading moods. This quarter, I returned to three favourite writers and also explored four new-to-me story writers.
With this story from Old Babes in the Wood, I read “Our Cat Goes to Heaven”, from Brick Magazine 2004 (“Puss ‘n Heaven” in Issue 73’s table of contents). Each has funny moments but, of course, the stories revolve around the loss of a companion, so they are preoccupied
