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Poetry that sustains courage
I came across a two-line poem today, in an anthology I don’t remember requesting from the library (it seems strange that I should have requested it, but here it is: Leading from within: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Lead, Eds. Sam M. Intrator and Megan Scribner). The poem encapsulates something I want to consider […]
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An answer to my own question (which is to say, a response)
I spent the morning in happy disconnection. But now I’ve heard about Newtown, Connecticut. What can be said? What except be kind. Be kind with a steely resolution. Be kind when it isn’t easy, be kind when it hurts. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to each other out there. So in answer to my […]
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Do we need art?
Do we need art? This is the question I found myself thinking about (not rhetorically) as I walked home from dropping my daughter off at preschool this morning, pushing my littlest in our chariot through the snow (we’ve gotten a lot of snow this year). One person who lives between our house and the school […]
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On Gifts and the Given
It’s been ages since I’ve made time for this poor neglected blog of mine. Not that I haven’t thought about it: I have. But life, as it does, has gotten in the way. Still, I want to make space to be here every now and then, tapping out the tentative thinking that arises each day, […]
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Wild Writers Literary Festival
The New Quarterly has launched a new literary festival, the Wild Writers Literary Festival, described on the TNQ site as follows: We’re bringing in some of Canada’s most talented emerging and established writers to share their writing and expertise with readers and writers in the region, fostering a local love of literature. It will take […]
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#YEG
Here’s something new for me: a column for Avenue Edmonton. The editors asked me to contribute something for their #YEG column for the August issue, and this is what I came up with. The August issue came out on my son’s 1st birthday, hence the column’s point of entry. But I’ve been thinking about this […]
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“After the rest of it had gone”
Our bedtime book, at my house, is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland again. My daughter and I have read it together once before and it’s such a pleasure to reread books like this. We recently finished Charlotte’s Web for the eighth or ninth time. It’s so much fun to get to know the language and the […]
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Art, “personal necessity,” and radical particularity–some thoughts on response
I’ve been thinking these days a lot about how to make something that matters. I’ve been working on a novel for six (!) years now, trying to apprentice myself to that genre, that craft–and increasingly I think the work is figuring out how to get the work to happen along the grain of my actual […]
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On winning and losing
Congratulations to all the winners of the Alberta Literary Awards! Find a list of all the winners here. Last time I was at the Alberta Literary Awards, in 2009, I had been nominated for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry, for my first collection, One crow sorrow. My first baby was a year old […]