"One way or another we all write out of this place,” comments Patricia Young in Writing Life (McClelland & Stewart), edited by Constance Rooke, a collection of essays by fifty writers, most of them Canadian, about the process and perils of authorship. The book is a Who’s Who of CanLiterati, in which everyone from Margaret Atwood to Michael Ondaatje ponders the subject. This is an inspiring book, and it re-affirms the importance of the writing life, which can sometimes seem more like a grisly fate than a calling. Margaret Drabble argues that the writing life is “a life of crime”; Alistair MacLeod contends that it is “a life of communication which helps us to recognize the great within the small and makes us feel less lonely than we are.” Writing Life allows us a furtive glance into the cloistered world of writers and reminds us that, as Anne Michaels says, “where we arrive, if we arrive, words are the least of it.”

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