There's a new entry on Lumisilla mailla, the blog I write with my friend Susanna. I'm really enjoying making this blog with her. It feels like the cardboard "mailboxes" my childhood best friend and I kept on our front porches, and we'd write notes to each other and run across…
My Humber writing mentorship is over, and it's hard to talk about what I've learned since May. It's hard to talk about writing development without sounding foolish. What can I say that doesn't sound obvious, over-simple? And maybe a little boring? In fact, I rarely talk about it at all,…
My oldest friend is visiting home, and we spend the afternoon discovering new pathways in the park, discovering washed-up bones and watching people fish in the river. We follow that river and find a spot to sit, and we sit talking for a very long time, as we tend to…
I had a bulleted list of highlights written out about my seven-hour day spent at the International Festival of Authors (mostly) with Teri, but for some reason it all seems so personal. I think it has to do with the feeling of being a fan in the way Teri so wonderfully…
It's a cloudy, dark day today, though warmer than it has been. It's quiet. Somewhere around 4pm, there was suddenly nothing else I wanted to do than read an old favourite, The Mayor of Casterbridge. At one point in my life I would have called this my favourite book. I don't…
My husband shared this great NY Times article with me, called The Power of the Particular: My best theory is this: When we are children, we invent these detailed imaginary worlds that the child psychologists call “paracosms.” These landscapes, sometimes complete with imaginary beasts, heroes and laws, help us orient…
After high school, I got a job at an artificial flower warehouse by the airport. It was my first real job. I took two buses that always smelled of coffee, and squeezed in amongst people trying to navigate a newspaper within their own sliver of personal space. I loved it.…
1) A long morning walk with my dog, remembering what a cool breeze feels like. 2) Reading the paper at my parents' kitchen table. Opening my laptop to write. 3) The familiar sounds of my childhood home - the fridge humming, the kitchen floor creaking, an upstairs door closing as…
My friend has loaned me a book. The author is half-Filipino, just like my friend and me. I read it eagerly. It feels familiar. The author's writing style reminds me so much of my friend's, and I relish the glimpses of the suburban neighbourhoods we grew up in. I read…
"Grammar is a piano I play by ear, since I seem to have been out of school the year the rules were mentioned. All I know of grammar is its infinite power. To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as…
