Stories
The Wonderful World of Oz. Or Tuffy, as the case may be
Tuffy Truesdell originally shows up in wrestling databases in 1937, although his first recorded match with an alligator is listed ten years later. On March 7, 1947, Tuffy defeated A Wrestling Alligator in Wichita, Kansas, in seven minutes flat. By June 5 of that same year, the alligator had a name. In a show at […]
Book Review: In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje
When I read that the Oak Leaf Steam Baths was about to be demolished, I got in my car and drove over to Bathurst Street to take a final look. One of my favorite parts of Michael Ondaatje’s classic novel, In the Skin of a Lion, is set in the baths. It’s just a scene, a […]
Book(s) Review: Stroll by Shawn Micallef and The Suicide Magnet by Paul McLaughlin
Back in the day, a wrestler named Tuffy Truesdell lived on Ferrier Avenue in east-end Toronto, not far from where we live now. I never knew him, but the uncle of one of my in-laws did. The wonderfully-named Tuffy kept a succession of alligators in his basement, all of them called Rodney. He wrestled them […]
Feeding the Little Free Libraries one final time
The last of my backlist books found their way into Little Free Libraries a few days ago—this time with the help of a small assistant. They’re now known around here as Tiny Libraries, and my autumn project of giving away four boxes of books sent by a bankrupt publisher has come to a slightly-belated close. […]
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All
May you find sunshine this December, and some roses in the snow.
Book Review: The Body in Question by Jill Ciment
I’ve been called for jury duty two times. The first time was pretty routine. I sat in a crowded room for a day before being told I could go home and didn’t have to come back. The second time, a clerk told us they were selecting a jury for a murder trial, a complex case […]
What You Get Is So Much Stranger Than What You Expect
I know it’s eccentric, distributing your backlist titles in Little Free Libraries. But when one of my publishers went under, I was left with eighty copies of two of my books, a novel and a memoir that I left in the basement—for years. Then, as I wrote last time, it occurred to me to slip […]
Flaneusing Around Toronto’s Little Free Libraries
On a lovely warm fall day, I set out on a walk with my friend Alicia to take a tour of Little Free Libraries in her neighbourhood. With intent. In our backpacks were copies of two of my books from a publisher that had gone belly-up, hmmm, more than a dozen years ago. At the […]
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 […]
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