The cat is climbing the screen door. It is night and when I let her in, I find the air newly warm. April. I am standing in the kitchen, eating a piece of toast because it has been a busy evening, as ……
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Last month, the inimitable Julianna Baggott got in touch with this message: “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to create something that pushes people to think about their No-Trump Vote with real purpose. I was feeling like my ……
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There’s a lot of page space right now devoted to Donald Trump’s false claims in the history of the ‘birther controversy’—Trump has said numerous times that Hillary Clinton’s campaign started the rumour that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the US, ……
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It was in many ways strange to go to Sri Lanka six years after the brutal conclusion to its 26-year civil war. I went with a small freight of questions and expectations, culled from a lifetime of observing the place ……
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I saw the movie Inside Out with my kids months ago and meant to write something about how hard and great it was to see such an accurate depiction of depression, made so lucid and visual. Many people think that to ……
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I’ve just returned from three lovely events in the Toronto area, including visits with large undergrad classes at York and McMaster who have honored me by reading my book—closely. One of the most charming aspects of these visits was how ……
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I am working on my first book-length translation, from Portuguese, the only language I have attempted with any real seriousness to translate. I had been away from Brazil for years, and wanted a way to keep up my language skills. What ……
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As I have written elsewhere in this irregular account of The Writing Life (a.k.a. Thoughts No One Else Would Publish), I have suspicions about the value of meeting a writer in real life and the apparently normal and widespread desire ……
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People frequently comment on how ‘happy’ my kids seem. That may be true, and I’m glad if it is—if they are in fact happy (I think it’s true) and if they strike people that way (which I take to mean ……
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“If you have an idea, just think it If you have one eye, just blink it, If you have a drop of rum, just drink it, Working with what you got.” –So-Called, Sleepover This album has been my workout song ……
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