It’s pernicious, the way we think on memory. I like to make things up and insert them into the past. Some people call that fraud. I call it ‘writing’. In 1997, a madman named Richard Ashcroft fronted a band called The Verve. I don’t think they are making music anymore. In the world today, there…
Fiction / life / Literature / Short Story / Writing
I’m breaking a promise. I said I wouldn’t post fiction here, but I’m going to. This is an old story, a relatively short one, and I happened upon it again today. It’s indicative of the unclean way my writing mind works. It’s unpublishable. It’s not imbued with any meaning that I can detect. It’s just…
Fiction / life / Literature / Short Story / Writing
Hi all, I’m a bit quiet about my writing life and about me in general, for lots of reasons. I’m pretty sure this is me at my most revealing, however. It’s a podcast run by Jon DiSavino at Short Story Today, exploring writing and the stuff I do in the other part of my life.…
Fiction / life / Literature / Short Story / Writing
I hate writing about climate change in fiction because climate change is not fiction, but if the creative act imbues a piece of you into your made-up stories, then so be it. Just go for it. Between being in Dubai for COP28 and recently looking at the state of the climate change mitigation process in…
Fiction / life / Literature / Short Story / Writing
The days start at 7 am and go until 11 pm. The good thing is, we walk a lot, so it’s not like I’m sitting around doing nothing. And all this stuff, in the global south, it doesn’t actually spin in a different direction, but it’s not the same as what we know, either. I’m…
Nine songs from 2023 and into the first month of 2024. That’s what I’ve chosen to write about, as I languish in the US deep south, totally alone. People always talk about past decades and how great the music was. I do that all the time. But the reality is, we have more great music…
I’m terrible at social media, but it has its upsides. One is the people you meet. Actually, that’s the only upside, but it can be a big one. Fred Nolan is a dude. I can’t say it any other way. You can find him on X at @The_Fredwords and at his blog. On X, we…
I love the holidays. Just don’t find enough time to write, and I ache for it in and amidst the wine, the vodka, the heapings of meat, the desert tray. Find my best ideas float to me when I least expect them. I woke up this morning and I was positive about one of them.…
I don’t want to editorialize on the subject of my own story. I’m deeply grateful to Ex-Puritan for publishing it. It’s as pure a story as I’ve written. Please have a read. I’d be tremendously grateful for your feedback. https://ex-puritan.ca/a-moment-for-indra-singh
I really, really should be working, but it’s hard. A story called “A Moment for Indra Singh” finished second in the noted contest. As a result, it’s going to be published on Monday. That’s what matters to me, that someone would take a risk on a risky piece like this, and expose it to the…
The image in this post is the type of thing that makes me want to write more, to go further. To really get out there. Really happy to be shortlisted in the Ex-Puritan’s Austin Clarke Literary Prize in Excellence: https://ex-puritan.ca/news/austin-clarke-shortlists This is what was written on the website about this contest, and about Austin Clarke:…
Can’t remember why I wrote this story, called ‘Toronto Rain’. It’s not like it happened to me, or that I’m in any way similar to either of the main characters. Those main characters have never met. They may never meet. One doesn’t even know the other exists. I think I find the story interesting because…
You won’t read this because time zones. I fail to sleep in Dubai. I thought you couldn’t drink here… I was wrong. The Global South. The Global North. The reality is, no matter how we combat climate change, we’re going to do damage. People will be damaged. We are going to pay more for things.…
Relaying a bit of good news. A story called ‘Ata Vica’ won third place in Grain’s Short Grain Contest and has been published in the Grain 50.1 Fall 2023 edition. Very thankful to Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg for sponsoring this contest, and to the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild for support of the award and of the…
Go to literary festivals. I never used to attend them. I had the following reasons: a) I’m not a real writer, b) everyone there is deserving, I am not, c) I don’t have time, d) Jupiter is not quite aligned with Mercury, and the gravitational divergence is killing me. I went to the Wild Writers…
Trent Lewin 