Kaggsy’s and Lizzy’s fifth annual celebration of Indie publishers in the UK is a regular reminder to celebrate the independent voices in this industry. All month, I’ve been reading with this event in mind, and I am finishing just in time to contribute. (My first post was here. The
Julia is lying on the hotel bathroom floor with a nosebleed, a few hours before her literary reading, from her book of poetry, at an event in northern Ontario. She jokes that she’s a “promising” poet, which means that her fee is lower than that paid to poets who
Even though I am reading more than I was when we first arrived up here, my habits remain changed. I finished the new Thomas King—Thumps DreadfulWater—mystery. This is not the place to begin with the series (Anne, I’m looking at you!) but for loyal readers, who have followed from
“It is August now, towards the end, and the weather can no longer be trusted.” The gentle rhythm in MacLeod’s sentence is responsible for its being a favourite of mine. Such an ordinary opening to such a startlingly subversive –and topical—story. With the findings of the IPCC report and
Usually, this is where I say that 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. Saying, skip The Underneath. But not this time. What remains the same, however,
