Some artists first learn to draw by tracing the work of others – sentence structure, tone, plot, word play, imagery. Until I found my own voice, I wrote in the voices of other writers that I read from and tried to mimic. If I were to name one most influential title in my early life, […]
Erum Khan is a film and theatre maker. Current and recent projects include: Writer and performer for Noor (The Aga Khan Museum/ Generous Friend); creator and performer for Becoming (Rhubarb Festival & Ottawa Fringe Festival, 2018); assistant director for Acha Bacha (Theatre Passe Muraille/ Buddies); production assistant and collaborator for 7th Cousins; performer and assistant director […]
Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, India. Dec 25 2011. “I have a question,” a middle aged man says, his bald pate shiny against the afternoon light filtering into the Lakeside Terrace room at Harbourfront Center. We are at “Safar: Journeys to South Asia” panel of Toronto International Festival of Authors. He addresses the authors, “Do you […]
I was in transit at Dubai. People watching and collecting stories. There were women in saris, men in dashikis, the pilgrims for Ummrah wrapped in their white cloths: traditional clothing a backdrop against the modern lines of the terminal. The airport’s status as an international hub was evident as conversations in different languages overpowered the […]
How to make chapbooks (the old-fashioned way, rob mclennan It has been pointed out to me that how I physically produce chapbooks is a bit ridiculous. Well, maybe not ridiculous, but certainly antiquated. Occasionally I’ll have an author request I email a final proof of their chapbook before it heads off to the printer, not […]
“The crack’s in me,” I said heroically. – F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Crack-Up”. I drew a picture of myself once as a blue alien figure, without form or face, looking out of a window. From the chest, a rod ran up through the page and down through the ground, piercing the figure in two. I […]
Shirley Camia is a Filipina-Canadian poet. She is the author of four collections of poetry: the forthcoming Mercy (Turnstone Press, 2019); Children Shouldn’t Use Knives (At Bay Press, 2017), 2018 winner of The Manuela Dias Book Design and Illustration Award (Book Design) at the Manitoba Book Awards, and an Honourable Mention in Poetry at The Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence […]
Annick MacAskill’s debut collection of poetry, No Meeting Without Body, was published by Gaspereau Press in the spring of 2018. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Grain, Room, Canadian Notes & Queries, Prism, Versal, Arc, The Fiddlehead, and The Antigonish Review. She has also been selected as a finalist for prizes including the CBC Canada Writes Poetry Prize, the Edna Staebler Personal […]
Jatra, Poush Mela, Shantiniketan, India. Dec 23 2013. This photo forms the basis of the opening scene of a short story I am currently working on. The story is also set in Shantiniketan. It is dusk. Kishmish lies on a patch of grass and stares upwards, attracted to the dragonfly whizzing around his head, […]
Big news: we’ve decided to make our guest blog editorships a permanent thing! Next up is work written and curated by the very excellent Sanchari Sur — welcome, Sanchari! Sanchari Sur is a 2018 Lambda Fellow in fiction. Her work can be found in The Feminist Wire, Room, Toronto Book Award Shortlisted The Unpublished City […]