Becoming a writer
27 March 2011
Email, the Internet, Facebook and newspapers – whether in print or online – are the enemies of writing. Reading is the enemy of writing.
The Literary Life (Part 2 of 2)
23 March 2011
Writers are always complaining they don’t have enough time to write, even those who are “full-time” writers. I used to find that puzzling, but now that I have joined the ranks of full-time writers, I understand better. The question, “When do you write?” is not a silly question. This is why writers are careful to broach it only with close friends. The answer has something to do with what I write – and a lot to do with whether I write at all.
The Literary Life [Part 1 of 2]: A day to bottle?
21 March 2011
Is there a way of bottling the good reviews? Steeping them in brine? Or, given the wintry day, flash-freezing them so that there they'll be ready to cheer me up all over again another day?
Photo: Linda Leith
The Social Network: A good film, but not a great film
20 March 2011
Would anyone have bothered making The Social Network – or praising it – if it weren’t for the fact that Zuckerberg ended up with $26 billion?
From Tom Ložar: "It totters when she licks it with her tongue" / Trema se lei con la lingua lo lambisce
17 March 2011
Translation is not something we do for the lazy who cannot be bothered to learn the language of the original. Translation is so that you can read a poem you've already read … for the first time again.
Mavis Gallant, Home Truths & the Anglo Literary Revival
12 March 2011
The best stories I have ever read about Montreal are the Linnet Muir stories that appeared in The New Yorker in 1978 and 1979. Set mostly in wartime Montreal, the stories dip back into the more distant past of Linnet Muir’s—and Mavis Gallant’s own—childhood memories of Montreal in the 1920s.
"In Other Words" posts, Globe Books
11 March 2011
From Samuel Beckett to Nelly Arcan, and from Scottish writing to Blue Metropolis, literary posts from "In Other Words" on Globe Books.
Arguments for brevity, the possibility of wit
11 March 2011
It’s not as though we have such precise notions of the length of a novel, which has been described as a narrative fiction of “a certain length.”
From Erika Ritter: "You're not Uncle Bunny! Uncle Bunny is good and kind!"
11 March 2011
Who can forget Hancock's saggy, saturnine face in a bunny costume he was forced to wear while working as a toy store clerk--until he was outed by a child shrieking in a very English accent, "You're not Uncle Bunny! Uncle Bunny is good and kind!"?
From far away, from right here
5 March 2011
It used to be that you could get better Hungarian sausages in Montreal than you could in Budapest. So many of the Hungarians have left, taking with them their flourless cakes and their cafés, so I’m not sure that’s still true, but others have arrived to take their place. Ingredients are now available here to make dishes from across the globe, and there are now Iranian, Russian, Georgian, Polish, Italian, Tamil, Vietnamese, Peruvian, Mexican, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Lebanese, and Ethiopian restaurants all within walking distance.
