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dispatches
essays
reviews
columns
Jennifer Gossoo
Things Discovered and Un-

To prove my wolfishness, I shucked my skate shoes and went barefoot on the pine needles

Lascia Tagen
Found in A Little Free Library

Review of "The Mayfair Bookshop" by Eliza Knight

KELSEA O'CONNOR
Building A Fibreshed

Review of "Fleece and Fibre: Textile Producers of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands" by Francine McCabe

Courtney Buder
Revenant

It might be time to find a new cemetery

Stephen Henighan
Power of Denial

The crowds learned that they could not act effectively in the present without confronting the past, specifically the historical treatment of indigenous people.

Stephen Henighan
Against Efficiency

Stephen Henighan argues that efficiency has become a core value that heightens social divisions.

Michał Kozłowski
New World

How do you have a good time in Warsaw? Sing Neil Diamond songs in a karaoke bar.

Soraya Roberts
Silver & Blue

Did you hear that the railway built Canada? That’s probably all you heard


Ginger Ngo
Strathcona

That is how one shows true love

Angela Runnals
Food for Thought

Review of "The Land of Milk and Honey" by C. Pam Zhang

Michael Hayward
Praise the Lairds

Review of "More Richly in Earth: A Poet’s Search for Mary MacLeod" by Marilyn Bowering

Patty Osborne
Inside A Tiny Tornado

Review of "Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk" by Kathleen Hanna

Kris Rothstein
Surviving Hungary

Review of "No Jews Live Here" by John Lorinc

Helen Humphreys
Botany

I want to see what it means, on a deep level, to stay put

Michael Hayward
Schrödinger’s Books

Michael Hayward on anticipating the arrival of Fitzcarraldo Editions

Randy Fred
Truth Walking

Randy Fred on the Indigenous Speakers Series at Vancouver Island University

Dayna Mahannah
The Truth Shall Send You Down Eight Alternate Routes

Review of "How It Works Out" by Myriam Lacroix

D. G. Shewell
Found in a Cave

Review of "The Cave" by José Saramago

Annabel Lyon
Eye for Detail

What is at the heart of this Edith Iglauer profile by Giller nominee Annabel Lyon? Hint: Ice Road Truckers.

Mary Schendlinger
In Memoriam: Edith Iglauer, 1917 - 2019
Michael Hayward
We'll Always Have Paris

Review of "Paris: A Poem" by Hope Mirrlees

Sadie McCarney
Christmas in Lothlórien

It was a gruesome war, Santa added in Papyrus font, but the forces of Good eventually emerged victorious

Sarah Leavitt
3 Girls

Sarah Leavitt is more than just a clever cartoonist; she also paints pictures with her colourful prose.

Sarah Leavitt
English Passengers

A fast-paced seafaring adventure from my father’s bookshelf, in which a wealthy Londoner on a religious mission to Tasmania falls in with a crew of Manxmen smuggling tobacco, liquor and French porn.

Jennifer Gossoo
Fact
Things Discovered and Un-

To prove my wolfishness, I shucked my skate shoes and went barefoot on the pine needles

Courtney Buder
Fact
Revenant

It might be time to find a new cemetery

Michał Kozłowski
New World

How do you have a good time in Warsaw? Sing Neil Diamond songs in a karaoke bar.

Ginger Ngo
Fact
Strathcona

That is how one shows true love

Helen Humphreys
Fact
Botany

I want to see what it means, on a deep level, to stay put

Mary Schendlinger
In Memoriam: Edith Iglauer, 1917 - 2019
Sadie McCarney
Fact
Christmas in Lothlórien

It was a gruesome war, Santa added in Papyrus font, but the forces of Good eventually emerged victorious

Madeleine Pelletier
Fact
Dummies Raising Goats

Time to call a professional

Rose Divecha
Fact
Clearing Out My Mother's House

The large supply of nine-volt batteries suddenly made sense

S.I. Hassan
Fact
Becoming Canadian

I traffic deep time in a great storm, guilty of ignorance and omission

Adrian Rain
Fact
Schrödinger’s Kids

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

Dayna Mahannah
Fact
The Academy of Profound Oddities

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

Kelly Bouchard
Fact
After the Flames

A wildland fighter witnesses an old burn's second act

ERNIE KROEGER
Fact
Acoustic Memory

Memories sneak up, tiptoe quiet as a cat. Boom like a slapshot

J.R. Patterson
Fact
True at First Flight

The unmistakable buzz of an approaching aircraft is enough to send my family onto the lawn

Eimear Laffan
Fact
The Trap Door

This invertebrate does not go looking for prey

rob mclennan
Fact
Elizabeth Smart’s Rockcliffe Park

For the sake of the large romantic gesture

Sara de Waal
Fact
Little Women, Two Raccoons

Hit everything dead on, even if it’s big

Margaret Nowaczyk
Fact
Metanoias

The names we learn in childhood smell the sweetest to us

Ian Roy
Fact
My Body Is a Wonderland

Maybe my doctor has two patients named Ian Roy, and I’ve been sent the other Ian’s file

Sara Graefe
Fact
My Summer Behind the Iron Curtain

No Skylab buzz in East Germany.

Sara Cassidy
Fact
The Lowest Tide

Nature’s sanctity is the only portal to the future.

Kathy Page
Fact
The Exquisite Cyclops

A writer roams her sleepscape in search of the extraordinary subconscious

Hollie Adams
Fact
A Partial List of Inconvenient Truths

In search of a big picture at the end of the singular world

David Sheskin
Fact
PRESS 1 IF

PRESS 1 IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE HEARD THE BIG BANG.

Soraya Roberts
Fact
Silver & Blue

Did you hear that the railway built Canada? That’s probably all you heard


Annabel Lyon
Eye for Detail

What is at the heart of this Edith Iglauer profile by Giller nominee Annabel Lyon? Hint: Ice Road Truckers.

Sarah Leavitt
3 Girls

Sarah Leavitt is more than just a clever cartoonist; she also paints pictures with her colourful prose.

J. Jill Robinson
One Night at the Oceanview

Did that really happen?  J. Jill Robinson initiates a midnight stand-off between the police and two drunk brothers in an RV Park in White Rock, B.C.

Anik See
Fact
The Crush and the Rush and the Roar

And a sort of current ran through you when you saw it, a visceral, uncontrollable response. A physical resistance to the silence

Rayya Liebich
Fact
Righthand Justified

Language built on sounds of delight, coloured in the gardens of Beirut

JEROME STUEART
Fact
The Dead Viking My Birthmother Gave Me

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

Joseph Pearson
Fact
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.

Minelle Mahtani
Fact
Looking for a Place to Happen

What does it mean to love a band? A friend? A nation?

Christine Lai
Fact
Now Must Say Goodbye

The postcard presents a series of absences—the nameless photographer,

the unknown writer and recipient; it is constituted by what is unknown

Emily Lu
Fact
Love Song for Mosquito

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

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.

Brad Cran
Fact
Potluck Café

It took me a million miles to get here and half the time I was doing it in high heels.

Brad Cran
Fact
Leading Men

"Leading Men” is taken from a work-in-progress, Cinéma-Verité and the Collected Works of Ronald Reagan: A History of Propaganda in Motion Pictures.

Brad Cran
Fact
Empires of Film
Steven Heighton
Everything Turns Away

Going unnoticed must be the root sorrow for the broken.

SADIQA DE MEIJER
Do No Harm

Doing time is not a blank, suspended existence.

Paul Tough
City Still Breathing: Listening to the Weakerthans

I wasn’t certain whether I was in Winnipeg because of the Weakerthans, or whether I cared about the Weakerthans because I care about Winnipeg.

Kathleen Winter
BoYs

Derek Matthews has to be the ugliest boy in the class but I like him. I’ve liked every boy except Barry Pumphrey now. Barry Pumphrey likes me.

Norbert Ruebsaat
Media Studies

These stories and conversations took place in a Media and Communications Studies class at a Canadian college. Students come to the college from many countries, in the hope of enrolling eventually in a North American university.

BRAD YUNG
Lessons I’m Going To Teach My Kids Too Late

"I want to buy a house. And build a secret room in it. And not tell the kids about it."

CONNIE KUHNS
Last Day in Cheyenne

Remembering her father's last days in a hospital in Wyoming, Connie Kuhns struggles with questions of mortality, memory and how to fulfill her father's dying wish.

CONNIE KUHNS
Fifty Years in Review

A new anthology of reviews, interviews and commentary on Joni Mitchell's music reveals the star-making machinery.

MARY MEIGS
Off- and On-Camera

Out on the set, except for the fact that there is always someone to catch us if we stumble, or someone to set up folding chairs for us between scenes, we are beneficiaries of the semi that denies the passing of clock-time. There is nothing to remind

Daniel Francis
Known It All

Review of "Know It All: Finding the Impossible Country" by James H. Marsh.

JILL MANDRAKE
Part of the Crowd

Review of "Crowded Mirror" by Sheila Delany.

Michael Hayward
No Regrets

Review of "Stories I Might Regret Telling You" by Martha Wainwright.

Peggy Thompson
What It Means To Be Human

Review of "All the Broken Things" by Geoff Inverarity.

Michael Hayward
Wanda x 3

Review of "Wanda" written and directed by Barbara Loden, "Suite for Barbara Loden" by Nathalie Léger, translated by Natasha Lehrer and Cécile Menon and "Wanda" by Barbara Lambert.

Patty Osborne
Teenaged Boys, Close Up

Review of "Sleeping Giant" directed by Andrew Cividino and written by Cividino, Blain Watters and Aaron Yeger.

Michael Hayward
Sitting Ducks

Review of "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands" by Kate Beaton.

Michael Hayward
Vanishing Career Paths

Review of "The Last Bookseller: A Life in the Rare Book Trade" by Gary Goodman, and "A Factotum in the Book Trade" by Marius Kociejowski.

JILL MANDRAKE
The Doors of Perception Had to Close

Review of "The Acid Room: The Psychedelic Trials and Tribulations of Hollywood Hospital" by Jesse Donaldson and Erika Dyck.

Anson Ching
Further Years of Solitude

Review of "Black Sugar" by Miguel Bonnefoy.

Daniel Francis
Future Imperfect

Review of "The Premonitions Bureau " by Sam Knight.

Peggy Thompson
Fact
A moment with holden

Review of "Holden After & Before: Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose" by Tara McGuire.

JILL MANDRAKE
Fact
POINTS OF INFLECTION

Review of "Some of the Puzzles" by M.A.C. Farrant.

Michael Hayward
Fact
A HOLIDAY IN THE MOUNTAINS (WITH PIE)

Review of "Holiday, 1909" by Charles Chapman.

KELSEA O'CONNOR
Fact
A Hockey Romance

Kelsea O'Connor on the self-published webcomic by Ngozi Ukazu.

JILL MANDRAKE
Clouds of Intrigue, Rays of Hope

"Like most people who have seen the stand-up comedy and other stage-work of Charles Demers, I sure couldn’t pass up a book of his personal essays."

KELSEA O'CONNOR
Castles, Countesses, and Cat Women

Kelsea O'Connor on queer lovers, gothic horror and fairy tale themes.

Anson Ching
Fact
THE BELL KEEPS TOLLING

Review of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway.

Kris Rothstein
Fact
DEFINED BY DUMPLINGS

Review of "What We Talk About When We Talk About Dumplings" edited by John Lorinc.

Jonathan Heggen
Fact
The Common Shaman

Review of "Shaman" by Kim Stanley Robinson.

JILL MANDRAKE
My Typewriter’s So Old, It Uses A Pencil

A review of a book of variations by bpNichol.

Peggy Thompson
Fact
Walk Another Path

Review of "Landlines" by Raynor Winn.

Patty Osborne
Fact
A Secret Well Kept

Review of "The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation" by Rosemary Sullivan.

KELSEA O'CONNOR
Fact
The Human Side of Art Forgery

Review of "The Great Canadian Art Fraud Case: The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson Forgeries" by Jon S. Dellandrea.

Stephen Henighan
Power of Denial

The crowds learned that they could not act effectively in the present without confronting the past, specifically the historical treatment of indigenous people.

Stephen Henighan
Against Efficiency

Stephen Henighan argues that efficiency has become a core value that heightens social divisions.

Alberto Manguel
Role Models and Readers

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...

Kristen den Hartog
Solace

Bud was one of the few who’d seen Stewart’s face as it was.

Stephen Osborne
This Postcard Life

Spiritual landscapes and unknowable people captured on film, used to convey a message.

Stephen Henighan
Lethal Evolutions

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

Jeff Shucard
My Week in Tunisia

Enjoy the fresh kebab while your freshly dented fender gets fixed.

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

Andrea Routley
Thank You All For Coming

25 reasons to stop talking to my straight friend.

Jonathan Montpetit
The Art of Shaving Oneself

In search of a unified self.

Hàn Fúsēn
Soy Alérgico

“Excuse me, are you the customer with the peanut allergy?”

Jordyn Catalano
Goodbye and Good Luck

A COVID test in the city of a hundred steeples.

Jonathan Heggen
Mirror Image

Jonathan Heggen on staying on the periphery until the proverbial dust settles.

JILL MANDRAKE
Coach Has a Vehicle

Jill Mandrake on lyrics that make her shout out loud.

Michael Hayward
Ekphrastic Literature

Michael Hayward on plastic art and slow sonnets.

KELSEA O'CONNOR
Scratching the Print-Making Itch

Kelsea O’Connor on 48 printmakers and their unconventional studios.

David Albahari
The Art of Renaming

Why does one culture give a flower a pretty, poetic name, while another culture names it in a seemingly derogatory way?

JILL MANDRAKE
Life in the Tall Towers Lost

Jill Mandrake on living life on the edge—from Etobicoke to Iqaluit.

Anson Ching
An Apartment Block in Angola

Anson Ching on the opening and closing of catastrophes.

KELSEA O'CONNOR
Shocked and Discredited

Kelsea O'Connor on the bible, the Golden Girls and Captain Kirk's Lesbianism.

Hilary M. V. Leathem
To Coronavirus, C: An Anthropological Abecedary

After Paul Muldoon and Raymond Williams.

Jill Margo
Getting Textual

How to perform a textual analysis of a Facebook message, while under the influence of red wine.

Patty Osborne
Forgetting the Question

Patty Osborne on licking fish, erotic hallucinations and the mystery of the missing anthropologist.

Shyla Seller
Round the Clock Coverage

Shyla Seller on Marion Stokes and her collection of 71,716 videotapes.

Michael Hayward
Bordering

Michael Hayward on an armchair travelogue of the troubled borders in the eastern Balkans.

Roni Simunovic
King of Bicycles

Roni Simunovic on the joker playing card through the ages.