fact

All
dispatches
essays
reviews
columns
Alberto Manguel
Not Finishing

"A library is never finished, only abandoned." Alberto Manguel on incompletion, voluntary interruption and the pleasure of the day before.

JANE RULE
Obsession

"Asked to write a character sketch, I wrote three pages on Ann’s hands. The paper was returned with every line crossed out and a question mark at the end."

Jan Feduck
Hurricane Diary

Jan Feduck faces Frenchish food, vomit and guys from Ontario when her ferry from the Magdalen Islands is caught in a hurricane.

JILL MANDRAKE
Still Stupefying

Jill Mandrake is blown away by South of Elfrida by Holley Rubinsky, a journey into "the land of guilt and sorrow."

roni-simunovic
Second Chances

Roni Simunovic reviews Seconds by Brian Lee O'Malley, a graphic novel about getting second chances whether you deserve them or not.

Stephen Osborne
Harrowing

"This is not a documentary; it is, however, an overpowering aesthetic and emotional experience, a true happening"—Stephen Osborne reviews Susan Sontag's film Promised Lands.

Jesmine Cham
Technology Creeps On

Jesmine Cham talks scaremongering, tinfoil hats and invasive technology in this review of Technocreep by Thomas P. Keenan.

Stephen Henighan
Iberian Duet

The assumption of mutual comprehensibility between speakers of Spanish and Portuguese creates a culture of mutual ignorance.

Dylan Gyles
Philosophy and Chloroform

Dylan Gyles reviews Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? by Dave Eggers, the story of a disillusioned young man grappling with life, the universe and metaphysical truths.

Michael Hayward
All My Troubles Seemed So Far Away

Michael Hayward reviews Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday, a "a window into the vanished world of the Austro-Hungarian Empire."

Eve Corbel
Seized

Eve Corbel reviews Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington, in which two girls are taken from their family by Western Australia government officials in 1931.

Michael Hayward
Smoke and Mirrors

Michael Hayward reviews American Smoke by Iain Sinclair, an account of the author's road trip across North America in search of traces of the Beat Generation.

roni-simunovic
Based Loosely

Roni Simunovic reviews Based on a True Story by Elizabeth Renzetti, the bizarrely fascinating tale of a washed-up soap star's struggles with unemployment and substance abuse.

Lily Gontard
Wild Woman

Lily Gontard reviews Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, a memoir about crisis, redemption and hiking.

Dylan Gyles
Floating

“Don’t try to make anything happen,” the calm voice said. Dylan Gyles visits a sensory deprivation float tank.

roni-simunovic
Bird Metal

Roni Simunovic investigates Hatebeak, a death metal band with an African Grey parrot vocalist.

KELSEA O'CONNOR
Strange Things Come From The Woods

Kelsea O'Connor reviews Through the Woods by Emily Carroll, a collection of comics full of "ghosts, parasites, dead brothers, mysterious strangers and murderous husbands."

Stephen Osborne
The Saddest Place on Earth

“I walked into the garage, and found a teenage boy in a tank top and shorts." Kathryn Mockler's poems eschew meaningless metaphors for direct language.

Michael Hayward
Talking Ducks

Michael Hayward reviews The Old Castle’s Secret by Carl Barks.

Alberto Manguel
A Novel for All Times

Alberto Manguel's column from Geist 93 about how the most important Turkish novelist of modern times took over fifty years to reach English-speaking audiences.

Jian Ghomeshi
The Ghomeshi Files

A short list of Jian Ghomeshi's short lists from 1982.

Daniel Francis
We Are Not a Nation of Amnesiacs

"Canadians have long been convinced that we do not know much, or care much, about our own history, but a new study suggests that this truism is not true."

Michael Hayward
Behind Closed Doors

Michael Hayward reviews My Struggle Book 1: A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgård.

Stephen Henighan
Fighting Words

A look back at World War I as the first great twentieth-century pollution of language.

Eimear Laffan
Fact
The Trap Door

This invertebrate does not go looking for prey

rob mclennan
Fact
Elizabeth Smart’s Rockcliffe Park

For the sake of the large romantic gesture

Sara de Waal
Fact
Little Women, Two Raccoons

Hit everything dead on, even if it’s big

Margaret Nowaczyk
Fact
Metanoias

The names we learn in childhood smell the sweetest to us

Ian Roy
Fact
My Body Is a Wonderland

Maybe my doctor has two patients named Ian Roy, and I’ve been sent the other Ian’s file

Sara Graefe
Fact
My Summer Behind the Iron Curtain

No Skylab buzz in East Germany.

Sara Cassidy
Fact
The Lowest Tide

Nature’s sanctity is the only portal to the future.

David Sheskin
Fact
PRESS 1 IF

PRESS 1 IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE HEARD THE BIG BANG.

CB Campbell
Joe and Me

Playing against the fastest chess player in the world.

Mazzy Sleep
Heart Medicine

"You have bruises / There was time / You spent trying to / Heal them. / As in, time wasted."

Jennilee Austria
Scavengers

That’s one for the rice bag!

David M. Wallace
Red Flags

The maple leaf no longer feels like a symbol of national pride.

Jeremy Colangelo
i is another

"my point that / i is but a : colon grown / too long"

Danielle Hubbard
The muse hunt

"The following resume / arrived by fax: One ex-military / man, 52, applying / for duty ..."

CONNIE KUHNS
Marriage on the Download

If marriage was a television show, it might look something like this.

Deborah Ostrovsky
Saint Joseph, Patron Saint of Bad Pronunciation

Scrape every last bit of English out of your throat.

Debra Rooney
Comics
Weird Jobs

Who puts those little stickers on the apples in the grocery store?

Stephen Osborne
Waiting for Language

Remembering Norbert Ruebsaat.

Grant Buday
Reduce, Reuse, Reincarnate

Destroying books for the greater good.

Natasha Greenblatt
Scavenger Hunt for Losers

Losers: you have a lifetime to hunt.

Finn Wylie
Shelter in Place

"I never went looking for them."

Tara McGuire
Short Term

Tell me again how long the trip is?

Jill Boettger
Do You Remotely Care?

Fill the room with a flock of moths.

Stephen Smith
The Acknowledgements

Any resemblances to persons living or dead are purely vindictive.

Robyn Ludwig
Black Velvet, If You Please

The secret is in the velvet.

Christine Lai
Fact
Now Must Say Goodbye

The postcard presents a series of absences—the nameless photographer,

the unknown writer and recipient; it is constituted by what is unknown

Gabrielle Marceau
Fact
Main Character

I always longed to be the falling woman—impelled by unruly passion, driven by beauty and desire, turned into stone, drowned in flowers.

Mia + Eric
Future Perfect

New bylaws for civic spaces.

JUDY LEBLANC
Walking in the Wound

It is racism, not race, that is a risk factor for dying of COVID-19.

SADIQA DE MEIJER
Do No Harm

Doing time is not a blank, suspended existence.

Kristen den Hartog
The Insulin Soldiers

It was as though a magic potion had brought him back to life.

Steven Heighton
Everything Turns Away

Going unnoticed must be the root sorrow for the broken.

DANIEL CANTY
The Sum of Lost Steps

On the curve of the contagion and on the measure of Montreality.

Brad Cran
Fact
Potluck Café

It took me a million miles to get here and half the time I was doing it in high heels.

Carellin Brooks
Ripple Effect

I am the only woman in the water. The rest of the swimmers are men or boys. One of them bobs his head near me, a surprising vision in green goggles, like an undocumented sea creature. I imagine us having sex, briefly, him rocking over me like a wave.

MARCELLO DI CINTIO
The Great Wall of Montreal

The chain-link fence along boulevard de l’Acadie— two metres high, with “appropriate hedge”—separates one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Montreal from one of the poorest.

Michał Kozłowski
New World Publisher

Randy Fred thought that life after residential school would be drinking, watching TV and dying. Instead, he became the "greatest blind Indian publisher in the world."

BRAD YUNG
Lessons I’m Going To Teach My Kids Too Late

"I want to buy a house. And build a secret room in it. And not tell the kids about it."

Paul Tough
City Still Breathing: Listening to the Weakerthans

I wasn’t certain whether I was in Winnipeg because of the Weakerthans, or whether I cared about the Weakerthans because I care about Winnipeg.

Stephen Osborne
This Postcard Life

Spiritual landscapes and unknowable people captured on film, used to convey a message.

Hilary M. V. Leathem
To Coronavirus, C: An Anthropological Abecedary

After Paul Muldoon and Raymond Williams.

Bill MacDonald
The Ghost of James Cawdor

A seance to contact a dead miner at Port Arthur, Ontario, in 1923—conducted by Conan Doyle himself.

Ann Diamond
The Second Life of Kiril Kadiiski

He has been called the greatest Bulgarian poet of his generation. Can one literary scandal bury his whole career?

Caroline Adderson
Lives of the House

A basement shrine in her 1920s home inspires Caroline Adderson to discover the past lives of her house and its inhabitants.

Ivan Coyote
Shouldn’t I Feel Pretty?

Somewhere in the sweat and ache and muscle I carved a new shape for myself that made more sense.

David L. Chapman
Postcolonial Bodies

Mastery of the self

CONNIE KUHNS
There is a Wind that Never Dies

"If you are still alive, you must have had the experience of surrendering."

Sarah Leavitt
Small Dogs

Emily’s mother had unusually large eyes that bulged slightly and often turned red, and she stared at people in restaurants and stores. Sometimes Emily’s mother commented on these people’s conversations, or laughed at their jokes, as if she were part

Ola Szczecinska
Symbiosis in Warsaw

Ola Szczecinska returns to Warsaw to visit her grandmother, and to keep from losing her memories.

Michael Hayward
Fact
Getting past the past

Review of "A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past" by Lewis Hyde.

Daniel Francis
Fact
writing from an early grave

Review of "Orwell: The New Life" by D.J. Taylor.

Michael Hayward
Fact
The peripatetic poet

Review of "Iron Curtain Journals," "South American Journals" and "Fall of America Journals" by Allen Ginsberg.

KELSEA O'CONNOR
Fact
Haunted House guest

Review of "A Guest in the House" by Emily Carroll.

Michael Hayward
Fact
Beyond the event horizon

Review of "Antkind" by Charlie Kaufman.

Anson Ching
Fact
Sailing the roaring forties

Review of "The Last Grain Race" by Eric Newby.

Michael Hayward
Fact
BELLE ÉPOQUE GOSSIP

Review of "The Man in the Red Coat" by Julian Barnes.

Peggy Thompson
Fact
More precious than rubies

Review of "Rubymusic" by Connie Kuhns.

Debby Reis
Fact
A not-totally-accurate introduction to the azores

Review of the Netflix series "Rabo de Peixe" (2023) created by Augusto de Fraga.

Michael Hayward
Fact
A Russian Brother and his sister

Review of "A Russian Sister" by Caroline Adderson.

Kris Rothstein
Fact
The messy back of history

Review of "My Grandfather’s Knife: Hidden Stories from the Second World War" by Joseph Pearson

Peggy Thompson
Fact
Have Mercy

Review of "Mercy Gene" by JD Derbyshire.

Michael Hayward
Fact
subterranean mysteries

Review of "Underland" by Robert Macfarlane.

KELSEA O'CONNOR
Fact
Championing Trees

Review of "Tracking Giants: Big Trees, Tiny Triumphs, and Misadventures in the Forest" by Amanda Lewis.

Patty Osborne
Fact
Crossing Borders

Review of "Solito: A Memoir" by Javier Zamora

Michael Hayward
Fact
The Two Roberts

Review of "Turn Every Page" directed by Lizzie Gottlieb

Peggy Thompson
Fact
A moment with holden

Review of "Holden After & Before: Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose" by Tara McGuire.

JILL MANDRAKE
Fact
POINTS OF INFLECTION

Review of "Some of the Puzzles" by M.A.C. Farrant.

Michael Hayward
Fact
A HOLIDAY IN THE MOUNTAINS (WITH PIE)

Review of "Holiday, 1909" by Charles Chapman.

Anson Ching
Fact
THE BELL KEEPS TOLLING

Review of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway.

Kris Rothstein
Fact
DEFINED BY DUMPLINGS

Review of "What We Talk About When We Talk About Dumplings" edited by John Lorinc.

Jonathan Heggen
Fact
The Common Shaman

Review of "Shaman" by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Peggy Thompson
Fact
Walk Another Path

Review of "Landlines" by Raynor Winn.

Kris Rothstein
Fact
Dogs and the Writing Life

Review of "And a Dog Called Fig: Solitude, Connection, the Writing Life" by Helen Humphreys.

Alberto Manguel
I Believe Because It’s Impossible

Memories lie because they build on memories. I think that I remember something, but in fact I remember remembering it, and so on through countless layers of memory. Every memory is a mise en abyme.

Rob Kovitz
Because a Lot of Questions Are Complex

Begging the question of what can be defined as “form.”

Stephen Henighan
Power of Denial

The crowds learned that they could not act effectively in the present without confronting the past, specifically the historical treatment of indigenous people.

Stephen Henighan
Treason of the Librarians

On the screen, only the image—not the word—can become the world.

RICHARD VAN CAMP
Grey Matters

It all started with a zesty little book about getting old.

Daniel Francis
Umpire of the St. Lawrence

Donald Creighton was a bigot and a curmudgeon, a cranky Tory with a chip on his shoulder. He was also the country’s leading historian, who changed the way that Canadians told their own story.

Alberto Manguel
Pistol Shots at a Concert

The novelist can often better define reality than the historian.

Stephen Henighan
Phony War

"We know that life-altering and possibly cataclysmic change is coming, and we continue to live as we have always done."

Alberto Manguel
Power to the Reader

"Since the beginning of time (the telling of which is also a story), we have known that words are dangerous creatures."

Daniel Francis
Birth of a Nation

Lacking in drama and embarrassingly undemocratic, Canada’s origins owe a lot to old-fashioned politics and not much to European battles or transcontinental railways.

Alberto Manguel
In Praise of Ronald Wright

"Authenticity is the essential quality of all travel literature, imaginary or real."

Alberto Manguel
Fist

Alberto Manguel examines the rich symbology of the fist, a primal symbol of rebellion and grief, across cultures and history.

Stephen Henighan
Cross-Country Snow

"Cross-country skiing offered me the reassurance sought by the immigrant who is excluded from his locality’s history: a viable alternate route to belonging."

Stephen Henighan
Immigrants from Nowhere

Stephen Henighan asks: what if you don't have a tidy answer to "Where are you from?"

Daniel Francis
Time for a Rewrite

Aboriginal people are creating a new version of Canada, and non-Aboriginals can lend a hand or get out of the way—Daniel Francis on the new Canadian narrative.

Daniel Francis
When Treatment Becomes Torture

Daniel Francis discusses Canada's failing mental health care system and its long history of mistreatment.

Stephen Henighan
Offend

The writer who is loved by all, by definition, neglects literature’s prime responsibility: to offend.

Daniel Francis
Acts of Resistance

"Resistance to wars is as much a Canadian tradition as fighting them." Daniel Francis discusses alternative histories, anti-draft demonstrations and the divisive nature of war.

Alberto Manguel
The Armenian Question

"Sometimes, in politics or history, certain words, certain names are sufficient unto themselves: it is as if there were names that once pronounced require no further telling."

Alberto Manguel
Jewish Gauchos

European Jewish artisans on horseback in Argentina.

Stephen Henighan
Campus Confidential

"In the public eye, universities have never recovered from the antics of Donald Sutherland as Professor Jennings in the 1978 film Animal House."

Daniel Francis
Park In Progress

Daniel Francis asks why a high-speed commuter route runs through Stanley Park, Vancouver's precious urban oasis.

Alberto Manguel
Not Finishing

"A library is never finished, only abandoned." Alberto Manguel on incompletion, voluntary interruption and the pleasure of the day before.

Stephen Henighan
Iberian Duet

The assumption of mutual comprehensibility between speakers of Spanish and Portuguese creates a culture of mutual ignorance.

Stephen Osborne
Scandal Season

Headlines featuring crack-smoking mayors and election fraudsters.

Stephen Henighan
How They Don’t See Us

During the 1980s the literary critic Edward Said organized occasional research seminars at Columbia University in New York.

Sheila Heti
Off the Pedestal

Rick laughed. I walked away. I was irritated at Henry, at Lee for getting stoned and being paranoid and leaving without saying goodbye, at Rick, at everyone.

Alberto Manguel
My Friendship With Rat And Mole

The books we love become our cartography.

Daniel Francis
Afghanistan

One thing Canadians have learned from our armed incursion into Afghanistan is that we do not have a vocabulary for discussing war or warlike events.

Stephen Osborne
Road King

Two women on motorcycles: one in the dead zone of Chernobyl, and the other in the cactus country of Kamloops.

Florence Grandview
Eleventh-Hour Spook Show

"You look like you've seen a ghost": a story about the death of a relationship and a trip to the Spook Show.

Daniel Francis
African Gulag

The atrocities were carried out in the name of some version of “civilization” that the Queen represented.

Stephen Osborne
First Time, Last Time

The first time losing a game of Scrabble and the last time taking a train cross-country.

Stephen Osborne
Writing Life

"One way or another we all write out of this place,” comments Patricia Young in Writing Life (McClelland & Stewart), edited by Constance Rooke, a collection of essays by fifty writers, most of them Canadian, about the process and perils of authorship

Ivan Coyote
If I Was a Girl

Femme girls get free Slurpees, but boyish ladies get free cavity searches at the border.

Devon Code
My Prizes: A Memoir

An account of the circumstances surrounding seven literary honours bestowed on a writer.

Alberto Manguel
Neighbourhood of Letters

There are imaginary cities for scientists, vampires, lechers and even bad students—but what about writers?

Daniel Francis
Identity in a Cup

Is it the icons of Canadian pop culture—hockey fights, Tim Hortons coffee, Don Cherry’s haberdashery, Rick Mercer’s rants—that reveal the deepest truths about us?

Stephen Osborne
Pathfinder Deluxe

A young man comes into possession of a 1957 Pontiac, modelled after one owned by a legendary pianist.

JILL MANDRAKE
The Skinny

The UK literary journal, Flash, features concise forms of microfiction: short-short stories also known as "flashes".

Veronica Gaylie
Melon Balls in Space

Shiny bras and worn-in sweaters—the clothes do make the woman.

Veronica Gaylie
Cowichan Sweater

You had to sleep in it and fall in love in it.

Daniel Francis
Come to the Cabaret

The Penthouse, the notorious Vancouver night club, shares a history with several of the city's missing women cases.

Alberto Manguel
Dante in Guantánamo

After fol

HAL NIEDZVIECKI
The Life and Death of Zadie Avrohom Krolik

Hal Niedzviecki com­mem­o­rates his Jewish grand­fa­ther—a heavy drinker, a bad driver and a Polish refugee.

Daniel Francis
War of Independence

World War I, Canada’s “war of independence,” marked a turning point for a young colony wanting to prove itself as a self-reliant nation, but at what cost.

JILL MANDRAKE
Pinspotting

"I hope you will agree that we more sensitive teenagers grew up surrounded by irony." Jill Mandrake calls George Bowering's memoir his most provocative work yet.

Ven Begamudre
Memory Game

A writer talks about personal health issues and their connection to his family history.

Stephen Osborne
Everything Is Perfect

In 1946, a young bride writes home about her month-long sea voyage to her new home on Baffin Island.