Somewhere in the sweat and ache and muscle I carved a new shape for myself that made more sense.
RICHARD VAN CAMP
Look Out, Not In
Mary Schendlinger on "How the Girl Guides Won the War" by Janie Hampton.
Joe Bongiorno
Last Laughs
Justin Trudeau and Greta Thunberg attend the Montreal climate march.
CONNIE KUHNS
There is a Wind that Never Dies
"If you are still alive, you must have had the experience of surrendering."
Lenore Rowntree
Straight, No Chaser
Women in '50s chic, men in sports jackets, and all manner of musical instruments at a suburban home in Toronto.
Margaret Nowaczyk
Room for More
Narrative text, written and spoken, refines a doctor’s ability to hear a patients’ stories.
Patty Osborne
Canadian Dystopia
Patty Osborne on an engrossing world where nothing monumental happens.
Michael Hayward
Cycling the Himalayas
Michael Hayward on the elation and freedom of long-distance cycling.
Stephen Henighan
Flight Shame
Without air travel, family networks might have dissolved long ago.
Alberto Manguel
The Defeat of Sherlock Holmes
There’s something not quite right about the grid on which the game is played.
Michael Hayward
Walking, with Writers
Michael Hayward on the journeys documented by writers.
Michael Hayward
Pre-Potter Wizardry
Michael Hayward and 50 years of writing from Ursula K. Le Guin.
Anson Ching
Passing on the Sport
Anson Ching on the hardest board game to learn.
Daniel Francis
Who Cares Who Ate John Franklin?
Daniel Francis on John Franklin, John Rae and the Globe and Mail's enthusiasm for cannibalism.
KELSEA O'CONNOR
Drool-worthy
Kelsea O'Connor on many aspects of food, from culinary extinctions to kombucha microbiomes.
Michał Kozłowski
Waiting for Trudeau
Pansy shoes and power suits on parliament hill.
Lorna MacKinnon
Weekend with Dorian
Storm prep for a category 2.
Beth Rowntree
7 lbs. 6 oz.
I looked in her purse and found nothing but scraps of paper so covered in writing there was hardly any white left on the pages.
Kathleen Murdock
Text That Breaks
Kathleen Murdock on the physical and meaningful structure of text.
Michał Kozłowski
Road Trip Supreme
Outlet Malls, Janis Joplin, The Godfather and Taco Bell—on the scent of Ameryka.
JILL MANDRAKE
One Ring Circus: Extreme Wrestling in the Minor Leagues
The question you have to ask yourself when you finish reading One Ring Circus: Extreme Wrestling in the Minor Leagues, by Brian Howell is this:do I want to become a minor league wrestler? The answer is yes.
Phrase books are tools of cultural globalization—but they are also among its casualties.
Stephen Henighan
Collateral Damage
When building a nation, cultural riches can be lost.
Stephen Henighan
Transatlantic Fictions
Coming to harbour in a new world.
Alberto Manguel
Arms and Letters
Science and the arts fulfil their functions to help us survive through the imagination.
Stephen Henighan
Reheated Races
Dividing and conquering local populations confines them to manageable administrative units.
CHERYL THOMPSON
Dismantling the Myth of the Hero
In a world dominated by heroes, difference is not tolerated.
Alberto Manguel
Achilles and the Lusitan Tortoise
“Have patience” and “Tomorrow” are two inseparable locutions in the Portuguese tongue.
Stephen Henighan
All in the Same CANO
For a brief period the band CANO gave shape to the dream of a bilingual Canadian culture.
Stephen Henighan
Residential Roots
"The hemispheric context reveals the roots of the residential school system...Destroying Indigenous cultures was a positivist policy from Patagonia to Dawson City."
LISA BIRD-WILSON
Occupation Anxiety
Lisa Bird-Wilson on UNDRIP, reconciliation, and the anxiety felt by Indigenous people in Canada.
Stephen Henighan
Not Reading
What we do when we absorb words from a screen—and we haven’t yet evolved a verb for it—is not reading.
Alberto Manguel
Library as Wishful Thinking
Libraries are not only essential in educating the soul, but in forming the identity of a society.
Stephen Henighan
Lethal Evolutions
Our society is formed on the assumption of a healthy immune system.
Stephen Henighan
Confidence Woman
The woman who called herself Tatiana Aarons gave me an address that led to a vacant lot.
Alberto Manguel
Léon Bloy and His Monogamous Reader
Dogged dedication grants a reader vicarious immortality.
Stephen Henighan
Plague
What we can—and can’t—learn from the plague
Stephen Henighan
A Pen Too Far
On March 5, 2006, a group of people gathered in a small Ontario city in the expectation of having books signed by an author who was not present.
George Fetherling
The Daily Apocalypse
The newspaper wars aren’t what they used to be.
Stephen Henighan
Taíno Tales
A package-deal paradise reputation curtails gringo knowledge of Dominican life.
Alberto Manguel
Art and Blasphemy
Faith seems to shiver when confronted by art.
Alberto Manguel
A Fairy Tale for Our Time
What can the Brothers Grimm teach us about the state of our economic system? Everything.
Alberto Manguel
Literature & Morality
Must artists declare their moral integrity?
Stephen Henighan
Flight Shame
Without air travel, family networks might have dissolved long ago.
Alberto Manguel
The Defeat of Sherlock Holmes
There’s something not quite right about the grid on which the game is played.
"I follow my penis around town for a while, wandering aimlessly through all the women—why do I ever leave this city?"
JACOB WREN
A Kind of Dream Therapy
"And my theory about professional artists was as follows: Artists are not necessarily the most creative or inspired individuals in any given community."
KELSEA O'CONNOR
99¢ Bin
A list of things you can get for 99¢.
MITIARJUK NAPPAALUK
Examinations
“Sanaaq! Qumaq’s blood is too weak and the same is true for Aanikallak’s. They’ll both have to go to hospital!” From Sanaaq by Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk, the first ever Inuit novel.
Drunk Family Dog Trip
Leonard Cohen, a troupe of French-Canadian clowns, a person with an antiquated profession, an unusually tall municipal bureaucrat, Gordie Howe and others coalesce in these randomly generated CanLit premises.
MICHELLE ELRICK
Ethelbert: Ten Days in May
Excerpt from Michelle Elrick's Then/Again.
RAWI HAGE
Empty City
Ten thousand bombs had fallen and I was waiting for death to come and scoop its daily share from a bowl of limbs and blood. I walked down the street under the falling bombs. The streets were empty. I walked above humans hid
Enchantment & Other Demons
CHRIS CASUCCIO
Elephant
sat behind the trailers with julie eatingthe peanut butter sandwiches peter’swife made that morning by the park sink
KEGAN MCFADDEN
Easy
it’s easy: you pour a mug of beer & then a shot of bourbon. you light a match
Drawn & Quarterly
Drawn & Quarterly Volume 5
GALE SMALLWOOD-JONES
Down East
My old pal Chuck asked me and my sister Stella to drive down east with him. We weren’t doing anything else at the time and so we jumped at the chance.
BILLEH NICKERSON
Dorothy Stratten’s Tent Trailer
When I overhear my parents talkabout the death of Dorothy Stratten,the Playboy playmate first discoveredin a Vancouver Dairy Queen,I somehow confuse her with the womanwho sold my family our tent trailer.
Rhonda Waterfall
Director, Saviour, Surgeon
In his hotel room the director took a mouthful of Scotch, swallowed a Viagra and then headed off to the gala.
BENJAMIN WOOD
Deleted Scene from a Lasting Relationship
Runner-up in the 2nd Annual Geist Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest.
CHRIS GILPIN
Dear Sasquatch
You're the kind of creature who comes to events like these and sits in the corner writing confessional poetry.
JACOB SCHEIER
Dear Office of Homeland Security
I began to run across 42nd Street, a trail of beer nuts behind me, making my way to TimesSquare, because I thought I should see The Lion King or smoke crack before I die, but could afford neither.
JOEY COMEAU
Dear Neopost
"The chance to put my Credit and Collections Management experience to work for your company is something I am willing to die for."
JONNY DIAMOND
Dave Is Dead
For a man who’d once picked a shard of glass from his cheek while laughing, Dave sure could write a pretty melody.
HAL NIEDZVIECKI
Darker Country
I have never been a success at anything in particular.
Gillian Wigmore
Crematorium
She lives in Prince George. in plastic bags on tuesday nights we load frozen corpses from industrial-sized freezers into the back of the suzuki.
Jill Boettger
Country Music Love
You are clearly preoccupied with love. See the way you siftthrough the lint from your purse, searching for the backing ofan earring. See the runway of broken leaves and bread crumbscollecting under the emergency brake in your car. Messy, messy.
DAVID MILNE
Conversation with Victor Frankenstein
When deprived of sensory input, humans experience miraculous, spiritual things
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