Pascale Quiviger
Pascale Quiviger, from Montreal and author of several books and a young adult series, lived in Italy for ten years and now lives in Nottingham, the hotbed of creative writing in […]
Eliza
— Wallflower She’s Not — A Canadian (born 1987) graduates from the University of Victoria, comes to England in 2011 to study Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia […]
War That Ended Peace
Margaret MacMillan’s most recent book, The War that Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War (London: Profile Books 2013) has been released in paperback (Penguin Random […]
Magie Dominic
Magie Dominic is a Canadian of many talents who has lived in the United States for 52 years, having been involved in theatre from the 1960s while writing poetry and […]
Tintern Abbey
School memories of William Wordsworth‘s “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” caused us to rent a car and load in the dog and boots — thus joining a […]
Stones and Stories
The best thing about Manchester is that I walked around its streets by myself for a day and didn’t get lost. There was a moment when I realized I’d just […]
Ron Schafrick Interprets Korea
Remember Mark Sampson and his novel about comfort women in Korea, Sad Peninsula? He agreed to interview writer Ron Schafrick, whose first collection of short stories, Interpreters (Oberon 2013), is […]
A Sentimental Killer
I have often wondered if the United States and Mexico could be considered abroad. When the English went abroad, they crossed the channel and went to a European country; now […]
Viceroy and Writer: John Buchan
I am happy to report that CWA has found another contributor. This piece on author and Governor General of Canada, John Buchan, is by D. S. Proudfoot, an apprentice test […]
Book Sitting
One weekend morning in July we took the Bloomsbury Trail to look at benches that had been created in honour of books, a joint project of the National Literacy Trust […]
When the Lights Go Out
Tonight in the UK, the lights will be turned off between 10:00 and 11:00 pm to mark the anniversary of Great Britain entering World War One. This is one of […]
In the words of
Don’t we all love quotations? A thought seems to sound better in the words of a professional. Apart from sticking one into a speech, we can’t just type up a […]
Devon Inspires Michelle Smith
Michelle Smith started writing about 15 years ago, publishing her first poems in Canadian literary journals (Room, Grain, and The New Quarterly, for example). Her life as an academic in […]
Thomas’s Local Customs
Charlotte Stein is a long-time bookseller. Her first bookstore job, while a highschool student, was in the NAAFI Bookshop on the NATO military base in Rheindahlen, West Germany. In 1988 […]
Fun at Foyles
There was a bookstore on Charing Cross Road in which you could get lost. Because the space was two buildings joined together, the books were to be discovered in cubbies […]
Are Writers Unfun?
It’s Canada Day, and I am thinking about that poet at the Vancouver Olympics: Shane Koyczan, spoken word performer. I think that was brilliant, figuring out a way to put a […]
Charlie and Xixi
Who is Charles Foran? From our talk this spring at his office on Yonge Street just south of St Clair, I learned that this prolific award-winning writer is passionate about […]
Talent… Hustle
On April 28, I met Charlie Foran at his new office in Toronto, to talk about his book, Planet Lolita, and about his biography of Mordecai Richler — Mordecai:The Life […]
Mordecai Richler
Mordecai Richler (1931-2001) left Canada on the Franconia in September 1950 for reasons both cultural and personal. In Charles Foran’s biography of Richler, Mordecai: the Life and Times, Foran suggests […]
Sampson Sad Peninsula
At the beginning of May I was in Toronto shedding hard-won grams on the long subway trip to the archives at York University, and at my sister’s memorial, and happily […]
41 Commonwealth
41 of 53 Commonwealth countries criminalize homosexuality. This statistic led Commonwealth Writers, an initiative of the Commonwealth Foundation, to organize an event to open discussion on this issue: panellists included […]
Light and Levine
The sandy beaches in St Ives, Cornwall, are supposedly the cause of a pink light that glows over the town in early morning and late afternoon. That and the sea air. […]
West London Air Terminal
Isabel Huggan’s piece (Footloose) about living in London in 1966 and travelling around the Continent mentioned the West London Air Terminal.
Isabel Huggan London 1966
During a visit to London in 2013, Isabel Huggan mentioned having had diesel flavoured coffee at the West London Air Terminal. CWA asked if she would write about that time, and she has.
Going Ashore with Mavis Gallant
I’ve been reading some of Mavis Gallant’s early stories, collected in Going Ashore (McClelland & Stewart 2009) with an introduction by Alberto Manguel. Manguel praises several of the stories: “brilliant, […]
Marvellous Mavis, Great Gallant
Mavis Leslie Gallant, née de Trafford Young (1922-2014), died yesterday in Paris at the age of 91. Gallant was famed for her short stories, which were, from her first publication, […]
Chava Rosenfarb
Chava Rosenfarb (1923-2011) is a Canadian writer you should know about. An award-winning poet and novelist, she wrote in Yiddish. While living in Montreal, she began translating her own work […]
Of Goats and the Lyrical
Sonia Saikaley interviews Irene Marques (PhD Comparative Literature). Marques writes in English and Portuguese and teaches at Ryerson and York universities. In 2007 she spent a year in South Africa […]
Paris
During the Christmas holiday we went to Paris for a couple of days. There is much for a Canadian literary tourist to see in Paris, but I limited myself to […]
Elm Cottage, Penn, continued
We got back in the car and drove to the other end of Penn. We turned onto Beacon Hill (Margaret Laurence is pictured walking up it in the James King’s […]
Elm Cottage
Our search for the house where Margaret Laurence and her children lived for ten years in England began in a car on the A4 under a sky pregnant with water. […]
Novella
Malahat magazine’s Novella Prize deadline is February 1. Which raises the question: how does the novella differ from the novel? Well, it is shorter. Malahat calls for a length of […]
Mauricio Segura
Numéro Cinq has published this week a review of Eucalyptus by Quebec writer Mauricio Segura, and an excerpt from the reviewed novel. While reviewer Benjamin Woodward poses the question “What […]
Year’s End
Winter in London is similar to March in Canada, except there is no melting snow. Wind follows rain follows wind. Excitement last weekend over two sunny days in a row. […]
The Winter Gift of Silence
How could I choose an American for CWA’s solstice post? Adam Gopnik lived in Montréal and did his BA at McGill University, then left for New York. Known for his […]
There and Not Back
Is it worth it? After two years of putting out Canadian Writers Abroad (CWA), that’s a question I have to ask myself. The other question is: should I continue? CWA […]
Fun words and not so fun
What is a tweeny? A faddist? Researching Sara Jeannette Duncan for an essay this summer, I came across some startling vocabulary, not quite as fun as boffin but interesting. During […]
Allons-y!
Geronimo! Doctor Who‘s 50th anniversary fell on the same day as the second anniversary of Canadian Writers Abroad. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read what I, and […]
Dust to Dust
How does one become a war poet? Suzanne Steele began by being curious about the exact colour of the Afghan dust when writing “Elegy for an Infantryman” in 2005. She […]
Canadian Writers Abroad 