Carr Pilgrim
I became an Emily Carr pilgrim while living in London, where I learned that she had spent eighteen months in the East Anglia Sanatorium in Suffolk. At the time, I […]
Prismatic Identities
A review of Clark Blaise’s This Time, That Place: Selected Stories by Mark Sampson With a career as long and varied as Clark Blaise’s, it would be virtually impossible to […]
Damages
The Damages by Genevieve Scott (Verve Books, 2024)Reviewed by Jane Christmas I don’t think I’ve ever come across a character for whom I initially felt sympathy only to retract it, […]
Speaking Silver
Louise Ells reviews Lásko by Catherine Cooper, Freehand Books 2023. “What are the things that only you can use to say thank you to life?” –Cooper, Lásko, page 156. The […]
The Heart of a Stranger
Eleanor Proudfoot reviews Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein (Knopf Canada/Penguin RandomHouse, 2023) Reading Study for Obedience (Knopf Canada) made me understand how the label “weird” – while somewhat unimaginative […]
From Redcap to Kappa: Jamie Tennant
Jamie Tennant interviewed by Debra Martens Jamie Tennant is the author of The Captain of Kinnoull Hill (Palimpsest Press, 2016) and River, Diverted (Palimpsest Press, 2022). Writer, broadcaster, freelance writer […]
Winner Abroad!
Canadian Writers Abroad used to announce newsy items on its Facebook page, but now Meta has made that difficult… Congratulations to Sarah Bernstein, last night’s winner of the Scotiabank Giller […]
In Pursuit of Revenge
Review of Chenneville (HarperCollins/Wm Morrow, 2023), by Paulette Jiles Reviewed by Debra Martens Governor-General award winning poet (for Celestial Navigation in 1985), memoirist (Cousins, 1992) and novelist, Missouri-born Paulette Jiles […]
Mandel’s Multibook
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (HarperCollins Perennial), Reviewed by Debra Martens The rules for the novel game have changed. Consistent point of view? Out. Chronology with increasingly […]
Good Jokes, Bad Choices: Monica Heisey Review
Eleanor Proudfoot reviews Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey (HarperCollinsCanada, 2023) Really Good, Actually was… really good, actually! While the title reflects the self deluding protestations of a woman whose […]
Poetry: Blaine Marchand
For work with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Blaine Marchand travelled extensively, on missions to fifteen African countries (his fiction, African Journey, is set in Zimbabwe, but he’s also […]
Collapse of a Country
Collapse of a Country: A Diplomat’s Memoir of South Sudan, by Nicholas Coghlan (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017) Reviewed by Douglas Scott Proudfoot My former colleague, Nick Coghlan, was in the […]
A Ballooning Story
Review of The Aerialists by Katie Munnik (The Borough Press, HarperCollins 2022). Reviewed by Debra Martens. The recent shooting down of four balloons in North American skies has made balloons […]
Homesickness
Homesickness, by Colin Barrett. Penguin Random House UK, 2022, 215 pages. Reviewed by Jane Christmas The word homesickness automatically conjures the usual definition of longing for home, but pull apart […]
Last of the Tenth
The last of the tenth anniversary interviews is with me, Debra Martens, the founder and editor of Canadian Writers Abroad. This tongue-in-cheek interview hails back to an article I did […]
A Writer’s Christmas in Wales
A Writer’s Christmas in Wales by Katie Munnik “I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for […]
Kelly Kaur Goes to the Moon
Does the moon count as abroad? Okay, Kelly Kaur has not been to the moon, but one of her poems will be in a time capsule on the Nova Collection […]
Hogtown: Sampson Reviews City of Pigs
André Forget, In the City of Pigs (Dundurn Press, 2022)Reviewed by Mark Sampson In his earnest, episodic debut novel, In the City of Pigs, André Forget attempts to braid the […]
Naomi Guttman
In the 1970s, it was called the brain drain, but as early as 1890, when Wilfrid Laurier was Oppostion Leader, he spoke of “the cancer of emigration” to the United […]
Ayelet Tsabari
Ayelet Tsabari answers three questions in the ongoing series for the tenth anniversary of Canadian Writers Abroad. Ayelet Tsabari was born in Israel to a large family of Yemeni descent. She […]
For the Love of Birds
Jane Christmas Reviews Woman, Watching (ECW 2022) by Merilyn Simonds Don’t be fooled by the cardinal and binoculars on the cover. This is more than a bird book. In fact, […]
Three Questions for Kate Pullinger
Kate Pullinger, novelist, professor, writer on the cutting edge of technology, has been living in the UK since the 1980s. Although she is a very busy woman, on her return […]
Mavis Gallant
So busy have I been with the tenth anniversary of Canadian Writers Abroad, I overlooked the centenary of Mavis Gallant’s birth. Thanks to Bill Richardson for bringing this to all […]
Bill Richardson Rounds Up Mavis Gallant
I liked listening to Bill Richardson on CBC years ago, and so my ears perked up when I heard him talking to Shelagh Rogers (The Next Chapter) in June, about […]
Marius Kociejowski
I met Marius Kociejowski at his flat in London, UK, but learned about him from a journalist in Ottawa, Roberta Walker. That meeting evolved into the interview, Casting Himself on […]
Mark Sampson
Graduates who leave home to teach English as a Second Language abroad are not a rare species. What is rare is writing a book that enters into the controversial history […]
Stevenson in Nigeria
I made an impromptu trip to Nanaimo, British Columbia, but thanks to Covid fears, didn’t meet up with any local authors (you’ll recall that Robert Hilles lives there part of […]
The Return
Five years into Canadian Writers Abroad, I found Demetra Angelis Foustanellas, who was in Greece at the time. Her first novel, Secrets in a Jewellery Box, was reviewed by Sonia […]
Wheels
Is there anything that says freedom better than a bicycle ride in summer? Imagine losing that freedom, and what can replace it. Below Carolyn Gammon shares her poem, “The Little […]
Writing Migration
I wasn’t expecting to find a link between Theresa Kishkan’s thoughts on Ukraine and Merilyn Simonds’ ornithologist, Louise de Kiriline Lawrence, but there is one: Russia. Read on to see […]
Ivankivtsi Dust
The fall of Mariupol coincides with this article from Theresa Kishkan, whose new book, Blue Portugal and Other Essays (University of Alberta Press, 2022), has an essay about her time […]
The Child Soldiers of Africa’s Red Army
Carol Berger is both an anthropologist and a writer, and she brings these skills together in her examination of the “lost boys,” in her book, The Child Soldiers of Africa’s Red […]
Learning to Listen in Mexico
Astute readers of Canadian Writers Abroad may have noticed that Wayne Grady’s name is twined with Merilyn Simonds‘s. Indeed, they are together in their personal lives as well as their […]
Merilyn Simonds
Readers of Canadian Writers Abroad met Merilyn Simonds through Mexico, in her article, Reading Abroad, which was swiftly followed by a review of her novel, Refuge. In addition to living […]
Darlene Foster in Spain
In our ongoing tenth anniversary series, Darlene Foster answers three questions. Foster is the author of the Amanda Ross travel adventures series for children. (The cover of Amanda in Holland […]
Eliza Reid’s Extraordinary Women
Secrets of the Sprakkar by Eliza Reid (Simon and Schuster 2022, hardcover, 288 pages)Reviewed by Isabel Huggan I suspect that many readers, after finishing Eliza Reid’s engaging and accomplished study […]
Spring Equinox
Apologies to those looking for a poem. Canadian Writers Abroad did not receive the publisher’s permission in time to post a poem on March 20. Meanwhile, spring flowers from Scotland. […]
Surrendering to Gammon
Carolyn Gammon is no stranger to Canadian Writers Abroad, having been profiled by Gabriella Goliger (From Fredericton to Berlin) and having shared her poetry with us (“Fault Line“). Thirty years […]
Coming Up For Air
Sarah Leipciger’s first novel, The Mountain Can Wait (Tinder Press, 2015) was at the time, in London, compared to another novel set in the same part of British Columbia, Freya […]
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