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 much in awe of Teri’s …
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 get along? Would I fit …
Semi-Retired Hens: In praise of the best writing group Read More »
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, …
“Freedom is the best thing” – Reading ‘Tove Jansson: Work and Love’ Read More »
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 desk across the room, but …
Overheard, in a book store: “Must it be rhyming couplets?” “Oh, yes.”
The boy crosses the street towards the School for Bad Children. It is cold but his jacket is unzipped and hangs from his shoulders. He calls cheerfully to his waiting teacher, “I just saw some of my old friends but I walked right by them!” And I think of all the worlds of meaning in …
I found an old post from a different blog (called “Wordscience” – not to be confused with another, more talented Samantha!), written in 2010 as I was reading the second volume of Doris Lessing’s autobiography. This excerpt has always stuck with me, and I thought it worthy to share here too: Impossible to describe a …
I’d been hearing about Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic for a long time, about how wonderful and inspiring it was for creatively-driven people. I’d even heard that it was life-changing. And, I admit, when I hear something is life-changing, I tend to shy away. I have a natural distrust of things that make that claim*. However, I …
When you move back to your hometown, nobody warns you about the absence of time. The way you can hold your palm to things that have happened. You can watch them happen again, they do happen again, it’s so easy, and makes so much sense. You don’t even have to try. You remember, and you forget again. You …
As I wrote about last year when I read Ethan Frome, descriptions of meals in books are one of the things that really catch my attention when I’m reading. I like to imagine how all the elements of the meal work together. I read this description recently in Margaret Drabble’s The Ice Age: Sadie brought her …