Quebec writer Nicole Brossard’s latest novel, Fences in Breathing (translated by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood), confronts a subject favoured by a cadre of contemporary literary darlings, Roberto Bolaño, David Foster Wallace, and John Wray among them: namely, a profound distrust in the magic of fiction. A woman of letters herself, Brossard’s Québécoise protagonist, Anne, labours to […] More »

While a degree in creative writing may not top your career counsellor’s advice for a quick professional turnaround, the formal study of writing was a North American growth industry even before the recession sent more people back to school (or kept them there longer). In an anguished and incredulous Harper’s article, American writer and professor […] More »

Alchemy of Traces There’s a tyrant of a ghost who visited my apartment on Dufferin Street, strangled me with a towel. “I was born before the gold rush, before the flood, before once upon a time. I want to be known in harrowing grief.” In a nightmare, my herm- aphrodite muse whispered, “To lose a […] More »

Girls are expected to behave a certain way. While I’m not exactly sure what that means, I do know that I was once chastised by one of my high school drama teachers for what she diagnosed as “this stupid Goth thing you’re going for”: referring—albeit inaccurately—to my self-styled uniform of inky dyed hair, Salvation Army […] More »

Professional book reviewing is dead in this country. The CBC could revive it. If Clive Owen were a Canadian author, maybe the CBC would finally review books. Katrina Onstad, a film columnist for CBC.ca, begins a recent review: “The International opens with a long, extended close-up of Clive Owen’s face, following which I jotted in […] More »

Québécois artists Pierre Allard and Annie Roy celebrate 10 years of artistic shock and awe Socially Acceptable Acts of Terrorism: that last word seems to just hang in the air. These days, not many organizations would choose to use the “T” word. But when Montreal’s public art duo ATSA (the group’s French acronym) first hit […] More »

Publishers, libraries co-operating to get locally published e-books into the public’s hands If the Association of Book Publishers of B.C. gets its way, the province’s libraries will be making a major acquisition this summer without gaining any weight. The association’s Best of B.C. Books Online project plans to purchase electronic rights to a collection of […] More »

The hype’s died down, but cybercrime still thrives In the 1980s and ’90s, the term hacker struck fear into a public still new to the web — basement-dwelling loafers who were happy to take down a network or website for bragging rights. Since then new online fears have popped up that have reduced hackers to […] More »

“It’s  aggravating to put up with the amount of sanctimony and hypocrisy that’s around,” griped Globe and Mail columnist, longtime activist, and former This Magazine editor Rick Salutin, at the early May launch of Yves Engler’s book, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, where Salutin was the keynote speaker. Engler’s book sheds light on […] More »

Canadian fiction prefers the joinery of farmhouses — not farmhands The preference among Canadian literary awards for historical fiction has created a national literature devoted to burlap sacking instead of life in the sack. The repeat shortlisting of historical fiction, in which a rural or foreign yesterday is somehow more important than today, contributes to […] More »

Jillian Tamaki found that literary juries are still learning how to read graphic novels 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 […] More »