i'm obsessed with shorts. short. stories.
Rea i’ve come to the conclusion that true artists are obsessive. they live to create, repeating themselves, over and over again. their work is never done and they are often too shy to show it to many people. over the years, they follow their subjects, seemingly compelled to explore them from 360 degrees. and they rarely … Read more
sweet jesus, i returned home to a letter from Alice Munro. did you know that she tapes her envelopes for good measure? says a lot about her.
i sorted out my messy story that i sorta kinda completed last weekend. parts of it were okay and others were absolute shit. i don’t know what i was thinking when i wrote some of those words. and that is the process. back and forth, back and forth, advancing slowly to story’s end. it occurs … Read more
i’m at The Banff Centre and i can’t sleep. it’s too stimulating. i’m writing my brains out and, all night long, i lie in my bed in a half-awake, half-asleep state. the radiators tell me that somewhere in this building a baby is crying. it’s all good.
i reworked an old essay of mine titled “MEmory” and shortened it so i could submit to CBC Creative Nonfiction contest. it was difficult to do for a variety of reasons, mostly emotional. it’s an essay about my grief after my Mom died and, in it, i’m as honest as i can be. this kind … Read more
the globe and mail no longer has literary editors. it is floating through literary life, unhinged. there will, however, be improved product placement. please note there will be a globe and mail montage-figure puppet in a business suit burning at my house, later this week. anyone in? PS i hear Douglas Coupland is hawking furniture. … Read more
and i don’t know why beyond fear. and conditioning. but every once in a while my stories show up inside my fiction and it’s always a surprise. it happens when i’m in flow. yesterday i wrote about changing my mom’s dressings for the first time, hands shaking. oh, i placed the scene inside a story … Read more
i’m having technical difficulties with podcasting. please return to regular programming while i consult a professional.
i’m working my short-story cycle through Humber College and the structure of it has got me thinking: i don’t know a fucking thing about the structure of a short-story cycle. sure, there’s the various structures for stories that i’ve experienced, largely by a combination of trial and error, modelling, and falling into something by accident. … Read more
that one of my stories has been nominated for a National Magazine Award for fiction. the story is titled ‘The Suitable Dress’ and it ran in the summer 2012 edition of GRAIN Magazine (39.4). not only is it a pleasure to have published in GRAIN, but this nomination is an honour. http://www.grainmagazine.ca/archive.html