Stories

Book Review: The Banker and the Blackfoot

February 20, 2023

Fort Macleod banker John Cowdry was nicknamed Sorreltop Jack for the reddish-brown colour of both his hair and his horse. He got the nickname from his friend, Crop Eared Wolf, Makoyi-Opistoki, who in 1900 would become chief of the Blood nation of the Blackfoot confederacy. I wrote last time about J. Edward Chamberlin’s memoir, The Banker and the […]

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Crop Eared Wolf, Makoyi-Opistoki (1845 – 1913)

February 15, 2023

Crop Eared Wolf was a small man. He’d been shot in the leg in 1865 when he was about 20 years old on a raid against the Cree, and it left him limping. The injury also meant he rode with long stirrups the way white settlers on the Plains did, the Northwest Mounted Police officers […]

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A Manslaughter Charge: Trauma Begetting Trauma

February 5, 2023

Please see the latest update on this story here: https://lesleykrueger.com/sentence-hearing-in-michael-finlays-death/ Police have released the name of a suspect wanted for manslaughter in the death of our friend, Michael Finlay. Michael died on January 31, a week after he was randomly assaulted on Danforth Avenue in Toronto. The suspect has been named as Robert Robin Cropearedwolf, […]

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Michael Finlay (1949 – 2023)

February 1, 2023

Our friend, Michael Finlay, died yesterday after being taken off life support. As I’ve written, he was randomly attacked on the Danforth in Toronto last week by an unknown person who pushed him over. I didn’t publish Michael’s name at first at the request of his family. But he was a long-time journalist with many […]

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Random Violence is Far Too Close to (Everybody’s) Home

January 28, 2023

Update January 31, 2023: After an MRI showed no brain activity, our friend is being taken off life support. We’re gutted. I hope that re-publishing this photo will help identify the person suspected of assaulting him. It’s so ironic. All his working life, our friend tried to help society’s disadvantaged and struggling and lost. Now […]

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One Broken Ankle, Many Moments

January 4, 2023

I broke my ankle on the winter solstice, which I hope means it will grow stronger as the days grow lighter and longer. No dramatic hockey accident, although I usually play hockey twice a week. The sad fact is, I tripped while carrying too many Christmas presents down the stairs. As I fell, my ankle […]

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Book Review: Dead-End Memories by Banana Yoshimoto

December 12, 2022

I have a morning routine I try to keep to. Sometimes I’m too pressed to do much more than turn off the alarm, sigh and get up. But if I can, I wake up before dawn and wash my face, make a cup of tea, meditate for a while as the tea cools, do Wordle, […]

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How to Sell Your Backlist

December 1, 2022

I love writing. Love it when people read my books. Hate doing a lot of the things you have to do to connect the books to readers. I’m not shy, and since I worked as a journalist for years, I have no problem at all doing interviews. In fact, I loved doing a podcast a […]

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Book Review: Finding Edward by Sheila Murray

October 14, 2022

Sheila Murray’s brilliant book, Finding Edward, was nominated for the 2022 Governor General’s Award for Fiction. She subsequently won the 30th Annual Hamilton Literary Award, and the CBC named it one of the best works of Canadian fiction last year. This is Murray’s first novel, although that’s hard to imagine when reading it. As well as […]

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Pandemic Stories: A Bearded Guy Asks

September 15, 2022

It happened to me for the first time mid-morning today. I was headed west on the subway to a dental appointment, sitting near one of the doors. The car was almost empty, only four of us, and I was the only one wearing a mask. A couple of stops along, one of the others got […]

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I’m So Sick of Opinions

September 2, 2022

When I was a kid, my parents sometimes listened to talk radio. People phoning a blowhard host and venting. Him venting. It was always a he, and so were most of his callers. I hated it, especially when we were driving somewhere with the windows closed and the radio blasting. Now, with social media, it’s infinitely […]

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Passings: Deaths in the Family

August 15, 2022

I’ve been thinking about the word “plangent” lately, a word with mourning tolling inside it like a bell. The weather has been perfect lately in Toronto, one breezy summer day following another, the sky a high light blue, the air warm and dry. But it’s mid-August and our short Canadian summer will end before long. […]

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