At the Jubilee Cinema, the manager carries an imitation pistol in the John Dillinger style.
Rhonda Waterfall
Les Joyeux Lémuriens
“Thank Christ,” says Dieter when I finally wake up. “I thought you were dead.”
Matt Snell
Laying on Hands
In Peterborough, Pastor Billy cures arthritis, back pain, bone spurs, lymphoma, stage four liver cancer, sleep apnea and atrial fibrillation
Stephen Osborne
Last Steve Standing
Stephen Osborne says goodbye to Stephen Harper.
Margaret Nowaczyk
Knitting Class
During World War II my grandmother ran contraband, hunted pigeons.
Jeff Shucard
King Zog and the Secret Heart of Albania
The secret heart of Albania is imbued with compassion and a desire to help those in need
Véronique Darwin
K to 7
Veronique Darwin revisits her childhood journal, from hearing ghosts in kindergarten to staring at hotties in grade seven.
Stephen Osborne
Julia’s World
I went to the babysitter’s to pick up Julia, who was two and a half years old, and she said that she had been “a little bit sad for a while” because her mother, who had a new part-time job and had dropped Julia off a few hours earlier, had gone away for “quite a long time.”
CB Campbell
Joe and Me
Playing against the fastest chess player in the world.
Luke MacLean
Je M'Appelle Raphael
Possum-style or straight up dirty.
Sara Cassidy
Flying the Coop
You can’t break eggs without making an omelette.
Michał Kozłowski
Pleasant Artistic Experience
An intrepid Geist correspondent narrowly avoids being stabbed by a moose-antler letter opener in Whitehorse.
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.
Joe Bongiorno
Piledrivin’ Patriots
On parle français icitte!
Marko Sijan
Peace on Earth
"My father believes the world is coming to an end, yet he commits his life to curing the sick." Dispatch by Marko Sijan.
Stephen Osborne
Pathfinder Deluxe
A young man comes into possession of a 1957 Pontiac, modelled after one owned by a legendary pianist.
Stephen Osborne
Other City, Big City
On the last day of October in Toronto a man in an art gallery said: “Showers should be coming in around 4 pm. They don’t always get it down to the hour like that.”
Robert Everett-Green
Ordinary Weekly Deaths
If Toronto were like Baghdad, thirty-nine res
Katharine O'Flynn
On the Track
I started walking, seriously. It was the bone scan that got me going. The healthy solid green was spongy with rotting black holes.
Henny-B
Nobody's Girl
The main reason that I open up my doors to people on the street is so that they would have a place to sort of come home.
Linda Solomon
Nobody’s Fault
In multi-cultural Vancouver, strangers come together at a moment of crisis.
Véronique Darwin
New Normal Board Games
Use the board games you unearthed during isolation to reinventclassic games for our times.
Jane Silcott
Natty Man
His look is self-concious, but well done.
Chelsea Novak
National Boyfriend
At a taping of George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, Chelsea Novak meets Canada's boyfriend.
On the curve of the contagion and on the measure of Montreality.
Stephen Osborne
This Postcard Life
Spiritual landscapes and unknowable people captured on film, used to convey a message.
Kristen den Hartog
The Insulin Soldiers
It was as though a magic potion had brought him back to life.
MARCELLO DI CINTIO
The Great Wall of Montreal
The chain-link fence along boulevard de l’Acadie— two metres high, with “appropriate hedge”—separates one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Montreal from one of the poorest.
Bill MacDonald
The Ghost of James Cawdor
A seance to contact a dead miner at Port Arthur, Ontario, in 1923—conducted by Conan Doyle himself.
Daniel Francis
The Artist as Coureur de Bois
Tom Thomson, godfather of the Group of Seven, drowned in an Ontario lake under mysterious circumstances, and ever since, his reputation has been the stuff of legend.
Carellin Brooks
Ripple Effect
I am the only woman in the water. The rest of the swimmers are men or boys. One of them bobs his head near me, a surprising vision in green goggles, like an undocumented sea creature. I imagine us having sex, briefly, him rocking over me like a wave.
Stephen Smith
Rinkside Intellectual
Stephen Smith investigates the hockey lives of Barthes, Faulkner, Hemingway, which were marked by dismissal, befuddlement and scorn.
J. Jill Robinson
Hot Pulse
I am sorry I caused you pain. But I thought it was okay.
HOWARD WHITE
How We Imagine Ourselves
When Geist first approached me with the idea of speaking here, I made it known that of all the things I ever wanted to be when I grew up, being an after-dinner speaker was very low on the list.
Mia + Eric
Future Perfect
New bylaws for civic spaces.
Ann Diamond
How I (Finally) Met Leonard Cohen
On a rainy night in October 1970, I crossed paths with Canada's most elusive poet.
JILL MANDRAKE
Elementary
On the merry-go-round, you just shouted out a destination and all the kids pushed until everyone agreed we’d arrived.
Gabrielle Marceau
Fact
Main Character
I always longed to be the falling woman—impelled by unruly passion, driven by beauty and desire, turned into stone, drowned in flowers.
Annabel Lyon
Eye for Detail
What is at the heart of this Edith Iglauer profile by Giller nominee Annabel Lyon? Hint: Ice Road Truckers.
Alberto Manguel
Cri de Coeur
Compared to today's vile heros, Ned Kelly-the Australian outlaw who wrote the angry, articulate Jerilderie letter in 1879-seems as innocent as an ogre-slaughtering hero of fairy tales.
Life in Language
For four decades, Jay Powell and Vickie Jensen helped to revive forgotten languages for many Aboriginal groups along the coast of the Pacific Northwest. Read their story here.
M.A.C. Farrant
Notes on the Wedding
The mother of the groom measures the distance between two weddings: twenty-six years, six thousand miles, and a donkey covered with flowers. It’s outtasight.
Ivan Coyote
Shouldn’t I Feel Pretty?
Somewhere in the sweat and ache and muscle I carved a new shape for myself that made more sense.
CONNIE KUHNS
There is a Wind that Never Dies
"If you are still alive, you must have had the experience of surrendering."
Ann Diamond
The Second Life of Kiril Kadiiski
He has been called the greatest Bulgarian poet of his generation. Can one literary scandal bury his whole career?
DAVID COLLIER
The Last Grain Elevator in Regina
When you live in Saskatoon, you find yourself caring more about the details of grain farming then you did when you lived in Toronto or Windsor.
Stephen Osborne
The Great Game
The British called it the Great Game. The Russians called it Bolshoya Igra. The playing field was, and still is, Afghanistan.
Sabine Rose, the heroine of Witch Ball by Linda Joy Singleton (Llewellyn), is a psychic. She hides her powers from her popular friends and dreamy boyfriend by day and consults with her spirit guide by night.
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.
Patty Osborne
With An Albanian Twist
Patty Osborne on Slow Twisting by Anonymous.
Thad McIlroy
Working for the Weekend
Thad McIlroy on "The Weekend Man" by Richard B. Wright.
Kris Rothstein
Women Who Eat: A New Generation on the Glory of Food
Food and eating are essential parts of our lives but they are seldom given serious thought.
Norbert Ruebsaat
Women With Men
Richard Ford (who I always think is John Ford) writes stories in the third person which read like stories in the first person, and I wanted to find out how and why he did this. I read the first story in his book Women With Men (Little, Brown) in Aust
Patty Osborne
Why White People Are Funny
Review of "Qallunaat! Why White People Are Funny" Zebedee Nungak and Mark Sandiford.
Lily Gontard
Wild Woman
Lily Gontard reviews Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, a memoir about crisis, redemption and hiking.
Kris Rothstein
Whole New Thing
The action in Whole New Thing, a film from Nova Scotia, is also precipitated by self-involved parents. Thirteen-year-old Emerson lives in a remote cabin, where he writes novels, takes saunas and gives massages to his parents’ friends.
Stephen Osborne
White Wampum
Stephen Osborne on Tekahionwake: E. Pauline Johnson's Writings on Native North America.
Michael Hayward
Wildwood
Roger Deakin's Wildwood is a heady romp through the world’s forests and their entangled histories. Reviewed by Michael Hayward.
HAL NIEDZVIECKI
Wish Book
Wish Book (Gutter Press) by Derek McCormack. McCormack looks to the past to shatter the placid show window that the future promises us.
Patty Osborne
Wilderness Beginnings
My deadline for finishing Wilderness Beginnings by Rose Hertel Falkenhagen (Caitlin Press) was December 21 because that’s when my partner David finished an out-of-town job. I’m a sucker for books about homesteading, especially homesteading in the nor
Carrie Villeneuve
When You Leave Town
Carrie Villeneuve reviews a new album from an East Vancouver band that appeals to music fans of all ages.
Stephen Osborne
When Blurbs Are All You Need
This text appeared on the back cover of It’s Never Over by Morley Callaghan, Laurentian Library edition, 1972. (Originally published in 1930.)
Patty Osborne
When the Spirits Dance
When the Spirits Dance (Theytus) by Larry Loyie with Constance Brissenden, the second book in a series of stories from Loyie’s childhood, paints a gentle picture of life in a First Nations community in northern Alberta during World War II.
JILL MANDRAKE
What Is America? A Short History of the New World Order
Ronald Wright explores the modern history of our southern neighbour in What Is America? A Short History of the New World Order, reviewed by Jill Mandrake.
Jill Boettger
White Salt Mountain
A curious inscription in a copy of a book called Fir-Flower Tablets: Poems from the Chinese inspired Peter Sanger to write White Salt Mountain (Gaspereau Press), a book that weaves together stories and facts about the life of Florence Ayscough, a lar
GILLIAN JEROME
When We Were Orphans
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf Canada) fell as if by magic into my lap and I read it relentlessly for two days, almost without sleeping, eating, bathing or responding to my partner and daughter. Like all great works of imagination, thi
Cassia Streb
White Jade Tiger
Junior reviewer Cassia Streb (grade seven) sends the following note on White Jade Tiger (Orca Books) by Julie Lawson: "White Jade Tiger is about a girl who goes back in time to 1881 when the Chinese were brought over to Victoria to build the CPR rail
S. K. Page
When Words Deny the World: The Reshaping of Canadian Writing
S.K. Page reviews Stephen Henighan's When Words Deny the World: The Reshaping of Canadian Writing, a penetrating argument for finding new ways of writing and imagining this country and our experience in it.
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.
Sarah Leavitt
We Are On Our Own
Miriam Katin was a small child when she and her mother escaped Nazi-occupied Budapest by faking their deaths and walking into the Hungarian countryside. At sixty-three, Katin has finally told her story, in straightforward, unsentimental prose and lov
RICHARD VAN CAMP
What They Say
Mary Schendlinger on Natalia Ginzburg's narrative of her family during the rise of Hitler and Mussolini.
Ruskin's readers have the power to know that there is indeed room for Alice at the Mad Hatter's table.
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."
Alberto Manguel
Reading the Commedia
An appreciation of Dante's "Commedia."
Alberto Manguel
Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)
There is no way to step back from the orgy of kisses without offending.
Rob Kovitz
Question Period
Rob Kovitz compiles the pressing questions of the day—"How are they gonna beat ISIS?" And, "On Twitter, who cares?"
Stephen Henighan
Becoming French
For an English-speaking Canadian who has been exposed to French from an early age, Paris is the most disorienting city in Europe. It is grandiose, but it is mundane.
Alberto Manguel
Art and Blasphemy
Faith seems to shiver when confronted by art.
Stephen Henighan
All in the Same CANO
For a brief period the band CANO gave shape to the dream of a bilingual Canadian culture.
Daniel Francis
Afghanistan
One thing Canadians have learned from our armed incursion into Afghanistan is that we do not have a vocabulary for discussing war or warlike events.
Daniel Francis
African Gulag
The atrocities were carried out in the name of some version of “civilization” that the Queen represented.
Daniel Francis
Acts of Resistance
"Resistance to wars is as much a Canadian tradition as fighting them." Daniel Francis discusses alternative histories, anti-draft demonstrations and the divisive nature of war.
Alberto Manguel
A Novel for All Times
Alberto Manguel's column from Geist 93 about how the most important Turkish novelist of modern times took over fifty years to reach English-speaking audiences.
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.
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
A Brief History of Tags
A reflection on the complex and often inexplicable process of bibliographic categorizations.
Alberto Manguel
Face in the Mirror
What does it mean to "be" yourself? The face reflected in the mirror is unrecognizable.
Annabel Lyon
Ethical Juices
Parables, cautionary tales, morality plays, allegories—the notion that we can study literary works as texts of ethics is as old as literature.
Stephen Henighan
Ethnic Babies
Stephen Henighan discusses the crude first steps to finding a new way to talk about racial reality.
Daniel Francis
Come to the Cabaret
The Penthouse, the notorious Vancouver night club, shares a history with several of the city's missing women cases.
Stephen Henighan
Chariots of China
A bibliophile's worst nightmare: being stuck on a plane with a terrible book. A book mistaken for a work of serious history.
Stephen Henighan
Caribbean Enigma
Unravelling the mysteries of Alejo Carpentier
Daniel Francis
Canada's Funnyman
A misogynist, a racist and an academic walk into a bar...
Stephen Henighan
Campus Confidential
"In the public eye, universities have never recovered from the antics of Donald Sutherland as Professor Jennings in the 1978 film Animal House."
Alberto Manguel
Burning Mistry
Alberto Manguel examines a modern-day book burning and asks: how is this still happening?