Category: Canadian Literature
Homecoming
It’s been one month since the “abroad” part of my life was left behind when we returned to Canada from Jerusalem. A busy month, a discombobulating month. “Are you happy […]
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Tell Us A Story
“Where we did spend time was out on the land, a remarkable land, a beautiful land, a land not seen to this day by the most adventurous of Europeans, whether […]
Writers Summit
Let’s say you swallow the pretentiousness of the title, with its peaks and important meetings of world leaders, all contained in that word “summit” in the Canadian Writers Summit, held […]
The Art of Frances Itani: Review of That’s My Baby
Review of That’s My Baby by Frances Itani, HarperCollins Canada, 2017, hardcover, 345 pages. Reviewed by Debra Martens. Are artists more accessible to authors as characters because artists, as do […]
Closing 150 with Granta
The literary journal Granta published a special issue on Canada (Autumn 2017) edited by Catherine Leroux and Madeleine Thien. Single-handedly Thien has done more to promote Canadian Literature outside of […]
Mount’s Story
Nick Mount, Arrival: The Story of CanLit (Anansi 2017), 448 pages. Reviewed by Mark Sampson It’s perhaps no accident that the title of Nick Mount’s survey of the so-called “boom […]
Salty 150
Canadian Writers Abroad has kept a low profile through Canada’s 150th celebrations, and finally, serendipity has delivered exactly what’s needed: something from the 100th.
Oh My Canada
Twenty years ago, Antony Millen moved to New Zealand from Nova Scotia with his wife and children, where the small town of Taumarunui has been their home. Millen has taught […]
Home, yet not home
A new writer for a new year. Louise Ells was studying in the UK while I was living in London. Because I liked her written voice, I invited her to […]
Joe’s ID
Imagine believing something about yourself and your family and then having someone tell you it’s not true. This seems to be what has happened to Joseph Boyden. We’ve met Boyden […]
What then?
Remembrance Day. Is it enough to remember those who lost their lives fighting in the First World War? Sharon Johnston’s novel, Matrons and Madams (Dundurn 2015), asks us to consider […]
Nalo Hop
On Saturday 18 June, 2016, at Harbourfront in the Fleck Dance Theatre, author Nalo Hopkinson revealed her quick-step mind to an audience that came in part from the four-day Canadian […]
Falling for the Love of Books
“Let me tell you what it’s like to be edited by Doug Gibson. If he’d edited Shakespeare, there’d be no Shakespeare, it’d all be on the floor.” On the […]
Writer Two Kids
Michelle Smith’s piece on Devon appeared in CWA in July 2014. Author of the poetry book dear Hermes…, she and co-author Faye Hammill recently published the monograph Magazines, Travel, and […]
Carnival
Rawi Hage came to Canada (via New York City) from Lebanon, where his first novel, DeNiro’s Game, is set. Quite the debut it was, pulling in such prizes as the […]
Pay the Rent
In the Spring of 2015, the Writers Union of Canada surveyed 947 writers about their income, and in May released their report on their findings: Devaluing Creators, Endangering Creativity. The […]
Progress in Penang
I met Alison Gresik at our writing group in Ottawa. She was the exciting young writer whose first book, a collection of stories, Brick and Mortar, had been nominated for […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
