Language pulls us along and we swim with the current or against it or diagonally. It's bigger than any of us and has a lot to do with how we think of ourselves, how the young women in Elizabeth House think of themselves and their children. Think of the words in the mouths of powerful people in your own life that have changed you, maybe a little, maybe for a lifetime: Good, Bad, Lazy, Yes, Stupid, Pretty, Fat, Brilliant, Lovely, Never, No, Wonderful.
Read MoreSorry, everyone else, but when Canadians apologize to you it’s not an expression of deference. Unlike “eh”, which means to Canadians what it means to everyone else—it’s an invitation to polite disagreement, the opposite of the British “don’t they?” or “aren’t they?”—the Canadian “sorry” means something more like “Ah jeez, I’ve got to deal with this idiot?” (Say it in a Fargo accent to get the full effect.)
Read MoreI was at a friend’s house and we were talking about death and the statistical probability of heaven, all that deep stuff you talk about over tea on a cold winter’s day. I was thinking about all those viewings I had been to in my lifetime, how the faces of people in their coffins never quite look like they are just asleep. I couldn’t for the life of me fathom what it would be like to not exist.
Read MoreDon Sedgwick has worked in the Canadian book and magazine industries for 35 years as a writer, editor, publisher, literary agent and educator. He is the Executive Director of the new MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of King’s College and also teaches in the university’s Master of Journalism program.
Read MoreI met up with St. Hilaire to talk about the relationship between writers and their readers. We spoke broadly on the subject: authors in relation to the general public, to friends, to publishers, and even to reviewers. We also discussed the relationship specific to her own situation as a writer of erotic fiction.
Read MoreThis year I didn't buy myself a Christmas tree. Instead I bought one for a friend who had a hard year and two kids and not a lot of time to get her own. She appreciated the thought, but time and circumstances conspired against her and the tree stayed wrapped up on the front porch until it was almost time for the trek to her family's home out of town.
Read MoreFinally, I had the temerity to ask what weaknesses he had as a poet. He responded that his mentor Bernard MacLaverty had told him an anecdote about W. Somerset Maugham. When asked the same question at an interview in Paris the English writer had stated: “My books don’t have lyrical quality.” Whenever any critic reviewed any book by Maugham subsequently, after bouts of praise they would always end with “of course, his writing has no lyrical quality.” We spoke no more of weaknesses.
Read MoreThere was no murder, but there was illicit sex, suicide, a trial. It was a big story and so difficult to research that I gave up working on it several times. Too much of the source material derived from smudged editions of newspapers on microfilm. Too much of it was couched in nineteenth-century legalese. But even as I contorted my back over the microfilm reader and strained my eyes trying to decipher poorly reproduced pages of ancient newsprint, the story would not let go of me.
Read MoreThis Really Happened, the popular nonfiction storytelling series, is coming back to Calgary's WordFest on October 16th! With Todd Babiak, Craig Davidson, Ophira Eisenberg, Lisa Moore, and Michael Winter.
Read MoreI’ve been thinking a lot about story, about the patterns that stories take. When I begin to write a book, I rarely know where it’s going. But go it does, on and on, through a trajectory that is both consciously and unconsciously created. It mainly follows the Western story arc–conflict, rising action, climax, denouement. Even though that seems formulaic, when I write that arc stretches above me, like a preordained path that I, willy-nilly, must follow.
Read MoreChicago doesn't disappoint me. I never have the feeling, as I do when I visit New York, that I have missed out on some tantalizing place that has vanished only recently. Chicago's heydays seem so distant, it's as though there is nothing to lament.
Read MoreYes, it's true! carte blanche and the Creative Nonfiction Collective Society have teamed up to bring you a Canada-wide creative nonfiction contest. The winner will receive $500 and her/his text will be published in carte blanche. The winner will be announced in 2014.
Read MoreWhen I was a teenager, I was in a cult. It started at the Mall. There was a novelty store called Natural Wonders where my best friends and I spent all of our time. We latched onto a kindred spirit, Josh, a twenty-something employee who humored us to the point of jeopardizing his minimum-wage job on several occasions.
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