Category: United Kingdom
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Finding the Perfect Home
What makes a house a home? Review of Open House by Jane Christmas.
Crowning the Virus: New Skills for the Pandemic
Jane Christmas made the switch from journalism to books while still in Canada, and has continued to write from her home abroad, which has been in the suburbs of Bristol […]
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 […]
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 […]
How to Settle: Theresa Muñoz
Poet Theresa Muñoz was born in Vancouver, where she took a B.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She left at the age of 22 “to see […]
Cusk’s Writing Class
This review of Outline by Rachel Cusk is written by Kim Reynolds in Ottawa, who has launched an indie publisher, Bookgiddy. Rachel Cusk lives in England, and has done so […]
A Maid and her Cow
A recent trip to Durham has caused me to spend more brain cells than I ought mulling over cows and maids. I grew up near Queenston Heights, which was deep […]
Yann Martel
I was very tempted to call this entry “The Martels” because in explaining why Yann Martel should be included in Canadian Writers Abroad, I must mention his parents, Émile and […]
Lit Trip: Duncan’s Grave
People flock to Westminster Abbey to visit the Poet’s Corner, where writers are either buried or have a memorial. What is the satisfaction of these literary pilgrimmages? I too indulge […]
Casting Himself on a Breeze
Interview with Marius Kociejowski
Griot at Solstice
Marva Jackson Lord has been living in the UK for just over 17 years, drawn like so many others by love. The love is a Welsh Englishman named Stephen Lord; […]
Powning in London
I met Beth Powning at a literary lunch at the Canadian High Commission, which was held on the top floor, with fantastic views of Trafalgar Square and environs. Before the […]
British Rite
British Rite of Passage for Fathers One of the many good things about being married is that I read things I wouldn’t otherwise read. Such as the humorous book How […]
Flight Paths
“How do you tell someone that a man fell out of the sky and onto your car, like a Pakistani David Bowie, and that you felt compelled to bring him […]
Spirits
Every December from 1963 for eighteen years, on Gaudy Night, while Master of Massey College, Robertson Davies told a ghost story. These he collected into a book called High Spirits […]
London Short Story
I was sitting at a table in the Waterstones Piccadilly lower cafe, sipping my water and watching people trickle in to the opening of the London Short Story Festival (18-21 […]
A Kitchen Poem
Carla Lamont has kindly given permission to post one of the poems from her collection The Body Banquet. “I am Nigella Lawson” can be found on page three. I am […]
Mulling Over Food, Writing
At the end of April we (DM, husband, daughter) took a short holiday on the Isle of Mull in the Hebrides. As this trip would involve a flight, a car […]
English Winter
Wednesday noon the weather in London today is 5 degrees celcius and 83% humidity with a chance of rain at 10%, cloudy skies. According to the Met office, the weather […]
Colonial Moderns
Review of Modernist Voyages: Colonial Women Writers in London, 1890-1945 by Anna Snaith, Cambridge University Press 2014, 278 pp hardcover (ISBN: 9780521515450). Reviewed by Debra Martens. Modernism is loosely defined […]
Emily in England
Emily Carr was both artist and writer. Something I didn’t know: she took a writing course at Victoria College in the summer of 1934.* Bed-ridden by illness, she wrote towards […]
Emily in Dulwich
Coming out of the Emily Carr exhibition, “From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia,” at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, I heard the family behind me speculating […]
Get thee to a nunnery
CWA contributor Jane Christmas published her memoir, And Then There Were Nuns, in 2013. In the interval, I have been searching for the perfect reviewer. Found one. Both author and […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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. […]
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 […]
Munro’s and Jerry’s Nobel
This post is in celebration of Alice Munro‘s Nobel Prize in Literature. The quick facts: she is the first Canadian writer, the 13th woman, and the 27th English speaking author […]
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