Stories
Book(s) Review, Continued: A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas and Starter Dog by Rona Maynard
Memoirs are my guilty, gossipy pleasure. They don’t offer the worthy, crunchy, authoritative examinations found in non-fiction titles bristling with footnotes. Nor do they have the license of novels to take us flying into imaginary worlds. I think of them as a hybrid, especially after encountering gaps in my own memory. “Remember him?” my husband […]
Book(s) Review: Starter Dog by Rona Maynard and A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas
I lie when highlighting just two titles. I’m actually going to write about three memoirs, not only the ones above but also Abigail Thomas’s more recent book, What Comes Next and How to Like It—a title too long to fit in the headline. All are connected. All involve dogs, and while the dogs are important […]
Adventures in Chile and how to write them
When I teach creative writing, many of my students want a formula, rules, step-by-step guidance. And of course there are structures that can be learned (and modified). Formulas to be studied (and tweaked) along the path to writing a short story, novel or screenplay. Yet it’s crucial to remain open to serendipity, especially once you’ve […]
Two lives collide: The Story of a Friend’s Death (Part Two)
Moments before 3:30 pm on January 24, 2023, the lives of two men fell apart on an ordinary stretch of Danforth Avenue in Toronto. My friend Michael Finlay was pushed into a wooden holiday planter and died a week later of his injuries. The man who has admitted to pushing him, Robert Cropearedwolf, was sentenced […]
Sentence Handed Down in Michael Finlay’s death
Robert Robin Cropearedwolf was sentenced in the Ontario Court of Justice today to three years in prison for manslaughter in the death of our friend, CBC journalist Michael Finlay. Given time already served in custody, Mr. Cropearedwolf will spend 20 months in prison. At the end of that time, Justice David Porter has ordered that […]
Book(s) Review: Semi-Detached by Three Writers
Real estate, the age-old obsession. It’s an ideal subject for writers, and one I think is under-utilized. Because, of course, houses are as concrete as you can get, but also thoroughly symbolic. They’re not just about shelter, but class and status. Where can you afford to live? What will you aspire to or settle for? […]
The Joy of Visiting Korean Spas
Spas, soaking, hot springs. I love them all, and earlier this month drove to a Korean spa in the northwestern corner of Toronto, a non-descript place in an industrial park near Finch and Dufferin. My friend Alicia knows about spots like this from having been a production designer in film, which means she’s explored odd […]
Book Review: Normal Women by Philippa Gregory
I paused on the second-to-last page of Philippa Gregory’s magisterial Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History. In her afterward, Gregory sums up the story she’s just told over 676 pages, a meticulously-researched look at the way opportunity and oppression have ebbed and flowed through the lives of women in England for almost a millennium. And by […]
Saving clothes from landfill one stitch at a time
I came early to the big concrete room, and as I watched, something magical happened. Dozens of women filtered in, filling the space the way people do in a film dissolve. They came alone or in small groups, women of every age and background, most of them smiling, laughing, vibrating with anticipation. Also two men: […]
Sentencing hearing in Michael Finlay’s death
**This is an older post. You can read the latest news about Robert Cropearedwolf’s sentencing here.** I can’t forget a strange moment after Robert Robin Cropearedwolf pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of our friend, CBC journalist Michael Finlay. This was last May following his plea hearing. The judge had left the courtroom, the […]
Alice Munro and Her Secrets
What do we do when learning that Alice Munro’s second husband, Gerry Fremlin, sexually assaulted her daughter Andrea Robin Skinner when she was a child? Also that Munro knew exactly what happened and did nothing about it, not even consoling her daughter, but taking the abuse as an affront to herself. Yesterday’s Toronto Sunday Star ran two […]
Review(s): B.C. Books by Christine Higdon, Wayson Choy and Michelle Good
My latest novel is set in the suburbs of Vancouver, where I grew up. Far Creek Road is like many first novels in being the story of childhood, a bildungsroman–except that it’s my sixth novel and ninth book. As I wrote last time, I started trying to write my real first novel when I was 17. I’d […]
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