Pióro

The Globe and Mail has a contest that has caught my attention. They run part of a recent novel for five days and on the last day readers are invited to submit reviews. This routine will go on for six weeks. At the end of each week, ten reviews are drawn and the winners each [...]

Elif called last night to say that Pebbled has been accepted into the Stratford-Upon-Avon International Digital Film Festival. That’s right. Her work is going to the Bard’s hometown. My voice, which is the only part of me in the film, will float into the Stratford air and I’ve still never visited the place. I wonder [...]

An art project can have a life of its own, especially when Elif is behind it.
Two years ago, when Martha and I were marooned in Whitby, Elif called me and said, “Matt, we’re doing something for the Station Gallery.” Out of nowhere, Elif approached the head of the gallery and said that she was a [...]

I got a very gentle rejection letter today, but it still contained a shock. The editor who responded to my query made a language-usage no-no.
Now, I have no intent of needlessly flaming this editor. I am the vengeful type, but she was very conscientious in her reply, leaving me no reason to get snarky. Still, [...]

Dear Scream Literary Festival,
Thank you for wasting my time. I know artsy types are usually late and start times are flexible. That’s why I arrived at the Metalogos reading half an hour after the posted start time of 5pm. The nice lady at the door then said that the performances by Paul Dutton, Nobuo Kubota, [...]

Few in the crowd waiting for David Sedaris were actually wearing corduroy or denim. They sported lighter fabrics for their shorts and skirts. Fifteen minutes before Sedaris was scheduled to read, the available seating was filled up at the Bay/Bloor Indigo store. People leaked into the surrounding aisles. The two women next to me voiced [...]

[If the title of this post leaves you stratching your head, and you have Windows Media Player, watch this.]
I had a terrible introduction to Henry James. I had to work with him on an undergrad short-story assignment. Each student in the class, after calling out a few random numbers, got a sentence from the prof’s [...]

Umberto Eco stoked interest in his new novel tonight at his appearance at the Harbourfront Centre. Throughout his reading from his new novel, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, his interview and the audience questions, he was charming, gracious and outright hilarious. The reading was 66% English and 33% Italian. The part read in Italian [...]

Daniel Green writes a good post on the continued legitimisation of self-publishing. His discussion reminded me of Jim Munroe’s evangelising of the practice since his departure from HarperCollins in 2000. On Munroe’s site is a good economic argument for self-publishing. (Munro calls it “indie-publishing,” but his brand of indie-publishing is quite close to Green’s self-publishing. [...]

And it’s sunny and it’s dusty and the trees won’t have leaves until it rains. Traffic flows like the last drawn out task before the weekend. Avoid, tinker, avoid.
Broken glass lies in bp nichol’s concrete letters. At a nearby loading bay, a man dips his moustache into his coffee. None of this is in the [...]