September 18, 2009

Canada’s an urban nation. Why is our literature still down on the farm?

CanLit has the literary equivalent of the Y2K bug—it can’t flip over into this century Most Canadians live in cities. Why is our literature so relentlessly rural? Illustration by Graham Roumieu. When he delivers public lectures, editor and writer John Metcalf is fond of illustrating CanLit’s paradoxical obsession with tales of the rural past by describing the query letter he once received... [More >>]

May 1, 2009

Worth a Thousand Words?

Jillian Tamaki found that literary juries are still learning how to read graphic novels Jillian Tamaki Last year, on October 21, Jillian Tamaki got a phone call from her cousin, the Toronto-based writer-performer Mariko Tamaki. Their muchloved co-creation Skim had made history by becoming the first graphic novel nominated for a Governor General’s Award, in the Children’s Literature (Text)... [More >>]