I was recently interviewed by my friend Teri Vlassopoulos for the Quarantine Review podcast! Not only was I thrilled to be involved with the Quarantine Review again, but I got to virtually chat with Teri while sitting in my surprisingly soundproof closet, balancing my laptop and my microphone, being so…
One February morning last year, I shuffled along a snowy Toronto sidewalk, internally freaking out. I was on my way to the very first meeting of my new writing group. My friend Teri had set it up, and while I trusted her, I didn't know what to expect. Would we all…
I’m half-Finnish, but I didn’t know what a Moomin was until I was an adult.
Maybe that’s not entirely true; I do have a dim memory of receiving a Moominpapa piggybank as a child, but I had no idea what what the character was supposed to be. However, as an adult I did finally learn, and I began also to learn about the Moomins’ creator, Tove Jansson. And I began to like her quite a lot!
My friend Susanna is a Finnish visual artist, and together we share this Tove-admiration. I had asked her if Finland had a good Jansson biography in English, and soon enough, a book more beautiful than I could have imagined arrived at my door.
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There is a middle-aged woman in the building behind mine who I relate to. She has a big comfy chair by the window, and she likes to sit in that chair with her computer or a book or a crossword. There’s a lamp right next to the chair and a…
Overheard, in a book store: “Must it be rhyming couplets?” “Oh, yes.”
