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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
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94.7% of kids’ books are crud
Or so said author Mac Barnett, the U.S. National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, as quoted in a May 22, 2026 article in The New York Times. The response to his criticism didn’t go well. If you want to set the world of children’s literature on fire, a few surefire ways to do it exist.… Read more
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Aftermath
Some weeks back, I posted about a book that I’d recently discovered in my local library, Vertigo by Harald Jähner. Its subject was the Weimar Republic, about the years in Germany between the First World War and the coming to power of the Nazi regime in 1933. Upon reading this fascinating book, I took note… Read more
