“That’s the thing about lessons, you always learn them when you don’t expect them or want them.”— Cecelia Ahern I was intrigued enough by the wisdom of this quote — from the Irish author Cecelia… Read More
“Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.”— Margaret Millar This observation is from Margaret Millar, the Canadian-born writer who was a staple of the dime-store book racks that teemed with… Read More
It started with the idea of going to a concert, and it wound up including a few days of getting lost (quite intentionally) in the woods. It also included conquering a fear, getting out of… Read More
“I think that people in the field were magnificent. And they got the stories, and I put troops at risk to get their stories on every night. But the copy people and the editing people… Read More
“Unpersecuted, unjailed, unharrassed writers are trouble for the ignorant bully, the sly racist, and the predators feeding off the world’s resources.”— Toni Morrison I’ve been making my way this week through the wonderful book Toni… Read More
“The future you have, tomorrow, won’t be the same future you had, yesterday.”— Chuck Palahniuk Everyone’s favourite American nihilist novelist (he wrote Fight Club, natch) popped out this observation into a 2007 book called Rant,… Read More
“We were tired of making coffee and not policy.” — Robin Morgan The feminist writer, editor and author Robin Morgan died in New York Saturday, just days after her colleague and fellow activist Gloria Steinem…. Read More
“Forgiveness. Which is maybe where love and justice finally meet. Peace, at last.” — Tony Kushner The playwright Tony Kushner put these words near the end of his epic Angels in America, in the mouth… Read More
“I’ve always been misunderstood because of how I look; don’t judge me by the cover ’cause I’m a real good book.” — Dolly Parton In November 2023, I borrowed the audiobook of Songteller: My Life… Read More
I spent some lovely time this month with Bill Bryson’s wonderful One Summer: America, 1927. Bryson finished the book 13 years ago, and I read it just a year before the centennial of the period… Read More
“Hope is a gift. You can’t choose to have it. To believe and yet to have no hope is to thirst beside a fountain.”— Ann-Marie MacDonald Fall on Your Knees, the novel from which today’s… Read More
Some nights ago, when there was still a bit of heat in the air and golden light outside, Martha and I sat down to watch A Room with a View. I’d hesitate to count the… Read More
Like a lot of people, I didn’t think that much of George Michael at the outset. Wham! was a huge pop act in the early and mid-Eighties, and were hard to escape. Nothing really against… Read More
“Ideas brush past fleeting and insubstantial as moths. But I let them go, I don’t want them. What I want is a voice.”— Joyce Carol Oates Having turned 88 last month, the American author Joyce… Read More
For many years, I’ve delighted in telling people about a library in St. John’s that most folks have never seen — nor even heard of. I’ve written an article for the summer issue of NQ,… Read More