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Stories About Animals
We’re in the dog days of summer now. Hope everyone’s enjoying some real R&R: at the beach, backwoods cabin, mountain retreat, what have you. Here’s another repeat post from 2020. & & & Regular readers of these posts will find that I often make recourse to the works of Bruce Handy, the author of a… Read more
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The Fantasy Writer (2)
It’s summertime. In fact, it’s now the dead centre of summer and let’s not beat around the bush: the living is still easy. So, here’s another repeat post from 2020. & & & The Fellowship, The Literary Lives of the Inklings by Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2015) provides… Read more
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The Fantasy Writer
As lyricist George Gershwin said, “it’s summertime and the living is easy”. The opportunity for long days on the beach, sheltering away in cottage country or simply forgetting about work, spending time with family, taking it easy and settling down with a good book. In fact, I hope that’s what most of you are doing.… Read more
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Under the Covers
It’s a cliché of writing – or at least reading – the young bibliophile devouring a book in bed, late at night, under the blankets with a flashlight when he (or she) was supposed to be sleeping. Then, when footsteps in the hallway are heard, the light is hastily turned off. But it does happen.… Read more
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The Literature of Place: From Gopher Prairie to Zenith
My grandaughter once asked me to name my favourite author. I found it a challenging question to answer, because I love (and appreciate) so many talented writers. And of course, it wouldn’t take long for me to start expanding such a list to incorporate all the fiction genres I prefer. And so on. I’m sure… Read more
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June 7, 1941
In my March 20 essay, I mentioned in a post script that my mother had passed away at the age of 105. This past week her ashes were buried alongside those of my father in Ottawa’s Beechwood Cemetery. I’ve been wondering how best to acknowledge her here, whether to provide the usual encapsulation of a… Read more
