fact

All
dispatches
essays
reviews
columns
Peggy Thompson
Rollicking and honest: LIKE Me

Review of "Queers Like Me" by Michael V. Smith.

Helen Godolphin
Pinball wizardry

Review of "Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game" written and directed by Austin Bragg and Meredith Bragg.

Kathy Page
The Exquisite Cyclops

A writer roams her sleepscape in search of the extraordinary subconscious

Meandricus
Wordy goodness

Review of "Rearrangements" by Natan Last, published in The New Yorker December 2023.

Michael Hayward
Circled By Wolves

Review of "Cabin Fever" by Anik See.

Cornelia Mars
On MOtherhood: Transforming Perceptions

Review of "Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood" by Lucy Jones.

KELSEA O'CONNOR
WEST COAST FORAGING

Review of "Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast: British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest" by Collin Varner.

Adrian Rain
Schrödinger’s Kids

The log jam is tall and wide and choosing wrong means we don’t make it home

Kendra Heinz
Big Dread at West Ed

Review of "Big Mall: Shopping for Meaning" by Kate Black.

Anson Ching
A history of outport rivalry

Review of "The Adversary" by Michael Crummey.

Emily Lu
Love Song for Mosquito

Violence could not reach them only when they were distant as the moon, not of this world

Anson Ching
Fables Galore

Review of "Galore" by Michael Crummey.

Peggy Thompson
Beautiful and subversive books

Review of "Jo Cook and Perro Verlag Books by Artists: The Unreadable Sacred," organized by the Simon Fraser University Art Gallery.

Michael Hayward
A play is a play is a play

Review of "Gertrude and Alice" produced by United Players of Vancouver.

JEROME STUEART
The Dead Viking My Birthmother Gave Me

“The first time I met him, he caused me to float to the ceiling"

Kris Rothstein
Intelligence Girls

Review of "Censorettes" by Elizabeth Bales Frank.

Dayna Mahannah
The Academy of Profound Oddities

The fish is a suspended phantom, its magenta skeleton an exquisite, vibrant exhibit of what lies beneath

Patty Osborne
From Russia With Love

Review of "Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea" by Teffi (trans. Robert Chandler).

Helen Godolphin
ON Piracy (And petrified oranges)

Review of "Our Flag Means Death" created by David Jenkins on HBO Max.

Joseph Pearson
No Names

Sebastian and I enjoy making fun of le mythomane. We compare him to characters in novels. Maybe he can’t return home because he’s wanted for a crime.

JILL MANDRAKE
ONCE A PUNK BAND, ALWAYS A CULTURE BEARER

Review of No Fun (the band) and reissued music by Atomic Werewolf Records.

Kelly Bouchard
After the Flames

A wildland fighter witnesses an old burn's second act

Joseph Weiss
An Anti-war Godzilla

Review of "Godzilla Minus One" directed by Takashi Yamazaki.

Michael Hayward
Songs of battle

Review of "Canzone di Guerra: New Battle Songs" by Daša Drndić, trans. by Celia Hawkesworth.

Robert Everett-Green
Checkered Past

For me, the jacket is a piece of menswear history that I can actually put on, and a link to the tragicomic tale of an underachiever with a famous name.

JEROME STUEART
Road Trip

A collection of Jerome Stueart's Greyhound sketches, including one Vitruvian bus driver.

Eve Corbel
The 99: Bus Without Pity

How did the 99 B-Line bus route come to be the locus of the most heartless transit rides in Greater Vancouver?

Katie Addleman
Greyhound

The driver said, “Are you fit to travel, sir?” and the crack smoker said, “Are any of us fit to travel?"

Stephen Osborne
Insurgency

Stephen Osborne discusses the past, present and future of literary magazines in Canada.

Luke MacLean
Je M'Appelle Raphael

Possum-style or straight up dirty.

Michał Kozłowski
Centre of the Universe

Michal Kozlowski reports on the state of publishing: s'mores, Titantic metaphors, Celtic jigs, steak canapés and mechanical bull riding.

Stephen Osborne
Last Steve Standing

Stephen Osborne says goodbye to Stephen Harper.

David Albahari
Dangerous Times

David Albahari visits Canadian cities and remembers a slogan from the former Yugoslavia: Get to know your country in order to love her.

Rhonda Waterfall
Les Joyeux Lémuriens

“Thank Christ,” says Dieter when I finally wake up. “I thought you were dead.”

Mary Leah de Zwart
Eaten by Dog, Run Over by Train

Wally, the orange tabby: Fell out of travel trailer going over Pavillion Mountain, may be living happily at farm on top of mountain.

Evel Economakis
White Night Patrol

"The seven of us sat around a small, wobbly table in the living room and stared at each other between shots of rotgut vodka."

David Albahari
Voices

My friend, who writes poems and stories, tells me in the café that he finds it more and more difficult to deal with the writer inside him.

Margaret Nowaczyk
Knitting Class

During World War II my grandmother ran contraband, hunted pigeons.

Michał Kozłowski
Pillars of Salt

"The tour guide said: every hour you spend down in the mine adds three minutes to your life." Michal Kozlowski reports from 300 feet below ground.

Stephen Osborne
Sleight of Hand

Stephen Osborne plunges into the pedestrian flow and encounters panhandlers, magicians and a cyclist praying to a monument of Edward VII.

Lindsay Diehl
Honolulu

Lindsay Diehl encounters choppy waves, a beautiful man in a hot tub and a pendant shaped like a curved tongue on a trip to Hawaii.

Michał Kozłowski
Publishing Life

The zine scene—comics, wrestling, skateboarding and music.

Stephen Osborne
Dream Counsels

"The soiled side of the shirt is the great baggage of dreams"—Stephen Osborne dreams of Hemingway, Harper and profiteroles.

CARIN MAKUZ
Bride of God

On her first communion, a young girl searches for peace of mind in a world of purgatory, UFOs and the Lennon Sisters.

VINCENT PAGÉ
Milton Acorn Googles His Own Work

"Could I forget: the look that tells me you want me"—Vincent Pagé creates Google autocomplete poetry.

Veronica Gaylie
London Double

Veronica Gaylie encounters invisible lamps, uncooperative clerks and a cushion with a bear and/or badger on it during a trip to London.

David Albahari
Two Homes, One Wolf

If a house were a good thing, the wolf would have one.

Christopher Gudgeon
Waiting for Our Lord God Jesus Christ…

…in the Maple Leaf Lounge at the John G. Diefenbaker Airport in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Eve Corbel
Old Women Cry at Weddings

Eve Corbel on marriage and what comes after the wedding: the monster mortgage, the dreary housework, the contemptuous in-laws and more.

Daniel Francis
Re-hanging the National Wallpaper

When I lived in Ottawa in the 1970s, I used to enjoy passing lazy afternoons at the National Gallery looking at the pictures. I remember how surprised I was when I first encountered the Group of Seven collection. These paintings were completely familiar—I’d seen them in schoolbooks and on calendars, posters, t-shirts, everywhere—yet at the same time they were completely unexpected.

Robert Hunter
Launching Greenpeace

A first-hand account of Greenpeace's first expedition to stop U.S. underwater nuclear testing on September 15, 1971.

Peggy Thompson
Fact
Rollicking and honest: LIKE Me

Review of "Queers Like Me" by Michael V. Smith.

Helen Godolphin
Fact
Pinball wizardry

Review of "Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game" written and directed by Austin Bragg and Meredith Bragg.

Meandricus
Fact
Wordy goodness

Review of "Rearrangements" by Natan Last, published in The New Yorker December 2023.

Michael Hayward
Fact
Circled By Wolves

Review of "Cabin Fever" by Anik See.

Cornelia Mars
Fact
On MOtherhood: Transforming Perceptions

Review of "Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood" by Lucy Jones.

KELSEA O'CONNOR
Fact
WEST COAST FORAGING

Review of "Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast: British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest" by Collin Varner.

Kendra Heinz
Fact
Big Dread at West Ed

Review of "Big Mall: Shopping for Meaning" by Kate Black.

Anson Ching
Fact
A history of outport rivalry

Review of "The Adversary" by Michael Crummey.

Anson Ching
Fact
Fables Galore

Review of "Galore" by Michael Crummey.

Peggy Thompson
Fact
Beautiful and subversive books

Review of "Jo Cook and Perro Verlag Books by Artists: The Unreadable Sacred," organized by the Simon Fraser University Art Gallery.

Michael Hayward
Fact
A play is a play is a play

Review of "Gertrude and Alice" produced by United Players of Vancouver.

Kris Rothstein
Fact
Intelligence Girls

Review of "Censorettes" by Elizabeth Bales Frank.

Patty Osborne
Fact
From Russia With Love

Review of "Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea" by Teffi (trans. Robert Chandler).

Helen Godolphin
Fact
ON Piracy (And petrified oranges)

Review of "Our Flag Means Death" created by David Jenkins on HBO Max.

JILL MANDRAKE
Fact
ONCE A PUNK BAND, ALWAYS A CULTURE BEARER

Review of No Fun (the band) and reissued music by Atomic Werewolf Records.

Joseph Weiss
Fact
An Anti-war Godzilla

Review of "Godzilla Minus One" directed by Takashi Yamazaki.

Michael Hayward
Fact
Songs of battle

Review of "Canzone di Guerra: New Battle Songs" by Daša Drndić, trans. by Celia Hawkesworth.

KELSEA O'CONNOR
Fact
Pride and prejudice meets Diana Wynne Jones

Review of "The Midnight Bargain" by C.L. Polk

Anson Ching
Fact
the universal human

Review of "The Invention of the Other" directed by Bruno Jorge (2022).

Michael Hayward
Fact
Getting past the past

Review of "A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past" by Lewis Hyde.

Daniel Francis
Fact
writing from an early grave

Review of "Orwell: The New Life" by D.J. Taylor.

Michael Hayward
Fact
The peripatetic poet

Review of "Iron Curtain Journals," "South American Journals" and "Fall of America Journals" by Allen Ginsberg.

Michael Hayward
Fact
Beyond the event horizon

Review of "Antkind" by Charlie Kaufman.

KELSEA O'CONNOR
Fact
Haunted House guest

Review of "A Guest in the House" by Emily Carroll.

Stephen Henighan
In Search of a Phrase

Phrase books are tools of cultural globalization—but they are also among its casualties.

Stephen Henighan
Collateral Damage

When building a nation, cultural riches can be lost.

Stephen Henighan
Transatlantic Fictions

Coming to harbour in a new world.

Alberto Manguel
Arms and Letters

Science and the arts fulfil their functions to help us survive through the imagination.

Stephen Henighan
Reheated Races

Dividing and conquering local populations confines them to manageable administrative units.

CHERYL THOMPSON
Dismantling the Myth of the Hero

In a world dominated by heroes, difference is not tolerated.

Alberto Manguel
Achilles and the Lusitan Tortoise

“Have patience” and “Tomorrow” are two inseparable locutions in the Portuguese tongue.

Stephen Henighan
All in the Same CANO

For a brief period the band CANO gave shape to the dream of a bilingual Canadian culture.

Stephen Henighan
Residential Roots

"The hemispheric context reveals the roots of the residential school system...Destroying Indigenous cultures was a positivist policy from Patagonia to Dawson City."

LISA BIRD-WILSON
Occupation Anxiety

Lisa Bird-Wilson on UNDRIP, reconciliation, and the anxiety felt by Indigenous people in Canada.

Stephen Henighan
Not Reading

What we do when we absorb words from a screen—and we haven’t yet evolved a verb for it—is not reading.

Alberto Manguel
Library as Wishful Thinking

Libraries are not only essential in educating the soul, but in forming the identity of a society.

Stephen Henighan
Lethal Evolutions

Our society is formed on the assumption of a healthy immune system.

Stephen Henighan
Confidence Woman

The woman who called herself Tatiana Aarons gave me an address that led to a vacant lot.

Alberto Manguel
Léon Bloy and His Monogamous Reader

Dogged dedication grants a reader vicarious immortality.

Stephen Henighan
Plague

What we can—and can’t—learn from the plague

Stephen Henighan
A Pen Too Far

On March 5, 2006, a group of people gathered in a small Ontario city in the expectation of having books signed by an author who was not present.

George Fetherling
The Daily Apocalypse

The newspaper wars aren’t what they used to be.

Stephen Henighan
Taíno Tales

A package-deal paradise reputation curtails gringo knowledge of Dominican life.

Alberto Manguel
Art and Blasphemy

Faith seems to shiver when confronted by art.

Alberto Manguel
A Fairy Tale for Our Time

What can the Brothers Grimm teach us about the state of our economic system? Everything.

Alberto Manguel
Literature & Morality

Must artists declare their moral integrity?

Stephen Henighan
Flight Shame

Without air travel, family networks might have dissolved long ago.

Alberto Manguel
The Defeat of Sherlock Holmes

There’s something not quite right about the grid on which the game is played.

Luanne Armstrong
Simple Recipes

Luanne Armstrong reviews "three of the better books of short stories to come out in 2001"—Kingdom of Monkeys, Simple Recipes and Sputnik Diner.

Stephen Osborne
Shoot!

Despite high hopes, Stephen Osborne calls Shoot! by George Bowering his biggest disappointment.

Patty Osborne
Women of the World: Women Travelers and Explorers

Patty Osborne reviews Women of the World: Women Travelers and Explorers by Rebecca Stefoff, a book—complete with maps, drawings and photographs—that describes the travels of nine women.

Michał Kozłowski
The Mole Chronicles

Michal Kozlowski reviews Andy Brown's debut novel The Mole Chronicles, which charts a sibling relationship involving moles, comic books, swimming pools, kidnapping, culture jamming and more.

Clare Coughlan
The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess

Clare Coughlan reviews her experience seeing (and before that, waiting in line to see) The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess.

S.K. Grant
The Joy of Cooking

"Scallions are eaten raw by self-assertive people": Why S.K. Grant was surprised to discover The Joy of Cooking as a literary work.

Jocelyn Kuang
The Jonathans

Two different novels about family dysfunction—This Is Where I Leave you and The Corrections—written by two different Jonathans. Reviewed by Jocelyn Kuang.

Patty Osborne
The Girl Without Anyone

The Girl Without Anyone is a series of linked short stories by Kelli Deeth, dealing with a teenage girl's budding sexuality, self-doubt and confusion. Reviewed by Patty Osborne.

The Eyre Affair

Karen Schendlinger reviews The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde, two smart, allegorical crime novels starring a detective named Thursday Next.

Patty Osborne
Hunger

It takes Patty Osborne a month to get halfway through the 462 pages of the Giller Prize-winning novel The Polished Hoe, which is only halfway through the 24 hours during which the story takes place.

Sarah Leavitt
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Sarah Leavitt reviews Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Alison Bechdel's first graphic novel full of vibrantly alive, expressive characters and richly satisfying extras.

ARLEEN PARÉ
Between the Door Posts

Between the Door Posts, by Isa Milman (Ekstasis Editions), begins with this quote from Kafka: “How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?”

Eve Corbel
Bannock, Beans & Black Tea

Bannock, Beans & Black Tea by the writer/comix artist Seth, is a small, beautiful, disturbing and touching book in which Seth has compiled, edited and illustrated his father’s stories of growing up poor—really poor—in St. Charles, P.E.I.

Sam Macklin
Asterix the Gaul

Asterix the Gaul (Orion), a comic book classic recently reprinted, tramples over all sorts of contemporary niceties.

Derek Fairbridge
A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album

Ashley Kahn’s book A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album, a lovingly detailed account of the creation of John Coltrane’s classic album of the same name, is a cause for celebration.

Jill Boettger
A Date With Destiny: Night of a Thousand Boyfriends

Just five pages into A Date With Destiny: Night of a Thousand Boyfriends by Miranda Clarke, I can’t decide whether to go to a hotel with an importer/exporter named Chaz, or ditch Chaz and go dancing at Club Neptune with a woman named Danni.

Derek Fairbridge
Da Capo Best Music Writing

The fourth volume in the Da Capo Best Music Writing pulls together some of the finest music writing published in 2003. It is rife with typos, but the articles are compulsively readable and they cover “rock, pop, jazz, country and more."

Sam Macklin
Complete Peanuts

Each book in the ongoing Complete Peanuts series (Fantagraphics) is beautifully designed by the Canadian cartoonist Seth, and features two years of thoughtfully reproduced daily and Sunday newspaper cartoon strips.

Stephen Osborne
Marie Tyrell

“I knew that I would dream that night of the city in flames, the brown-brick towers falling, caving in on themselves (in slow motion, great clouds of burning dust), proud lights flickering out, psssfft, all the messages going dark one by one."

Jill Boettger
Field Guide to Stains: How to Identify and Remove Virtually Every Stain Known to Man

Did you know that you are more likely to encounter Worcestershire sauce stains in winter and that correction fluid stains are most common in April?

Stephen Osborne
The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580

The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580, by Samuel Bawlf, completes the story of European adventure in the north of North America in the sixteenth century.

Stephen Osborne
Snow Walker

Snow Walker, the film made from Farley Mowat’s book of stories, contains much cornball scripting, some wretched dialogue and a ponderous, bellowing soundtrack that equals the worst excesses of Cecil B DeMille’s Bible epics.

Kevin Barefoot
Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Eduardo Galeano’s Soccer in Sun and Shadow (Verso) collects his ruminations on the history and future of soccer, and consists of vignettes describing famous players, unlikely goals and every World Cup final since 1930.

Stephen Osborne
Weave

Lisa Pasold’s poetry collection, Weave, reads as a memoir of the twentieth century in a world bounded by Prague and Peru and the Russian front and the shores of Lake Ontario.

Kris Rothstein
The Nervous Tourist

Bob Gaulke’s description of his travels in Salvador (a region of Brazil), in The Nervous Tourist, evokes the age of imperialism. This modest chapbook contains insightful, engaging and funny writing about the eye-opening experience of travel.