Ursula K. LeGuin is the fucking best

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Thank you Neil, and to the givers of this beautiful reward, my thanks from the heart. My family, my agent, editors, know that my being here is their doing as well as mine, and that the beautiful reward is theirs as much as mine. And I rejoice at accepting it for, and sharing it with, … Read more

(the) album

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the album of my life is one that i didn’t understand. i bought it in a little record shop in Edinburgh in 1979. you know the school trip, the one where a sweaty 15-year-old girl from a small town travels to England? four of us girls got lost in London but that’s another story that … Read more

1991

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in 1991, i worked at The Royal Ottawa as a psych nurse and i admitted a middle-aged man, whose name i cannot recall (not that i can say because i cannot break client confidence) for the weekend. he was a paranoid schizophrenic and for his entire psych life, he’d suffered persistent delusions that the Russians … Read more

one word, one sentence, one paragraph

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in this world of striving for who-knows-what that is known as writing long, i’m reminded of the importance of one. one word, one sentence, one paragraph. one at a time. slowly, an emotional line is drawn and it pulls the reader through. thanks to Alison Pick for reminding me. she read a piece a couple … Read more

the sergeant’s daughter

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here’s a piece of creative non-fiction i wrote about (not) belonging. sometimes i wonder if i don’t belong because i’m a woman but that’s a dark thought on this beautiful sunny day. i think it’s the tired talking. here’s the link: http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadawrites/2014/09/stories-of-belonging-writing-challenge.html#mid=20589651&offset=41&page=3&s=hits%20DESC,%20id%20ASC

top 10 scary books

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The Shining by Stephen King Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin* Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy Lord of the Flies by William Golding Out by Natsuo Kirino Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad The Truth and Reconciliation Commission report on Residential Schools by The Canadian Government The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafta Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor … Read more

on being a (wo)man

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dear imaginary readers of the blog, it’s been a misogynistic couple of weeks. you know, Ursula Le Guin’s essay on being a failed man is thought provoking.  as an older woman, she was born just as women were considered persons. she tried to live as a man and now she’s old, and considering living as an old … Read more