The laundry hangs on the clothesline in the background, while Alistair MacLeod speaks to his wife Anita about what their life was like when the kids were young. It’s there, in the film “Reading Alistair MacLeod”, that I see Anita patiently waiting, while he pulls out a small stack
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
Crooks, Drain, Freeman, Mukasonga, and Philyaw Short Stories in January, February and March Whether in a dedicated collection or a magazine, these stories capture a variety of reading moods. This quarter, I returned to some favourite writers and also explored several new-to-me story writers.
When you have been thrilled by a book, and you discover that someone has written a letter about being thrilled with that same book, even if it was a hundred years ago, it invites a certain companionship. When that letter-writer is writing to the author of that collection, you feel
“All of us are better when we are loved.” The film Reading Alistair MacLeod begins with this quotation. It’s a lovely way to summarize his oeuvre. In the film, Colm Tóibín speaks of the process of discovering MacLeod’s work through editing the Modern Library’s Best 200 Writers project; he
