A Poet’s Nanaimo
My Name is Margaret
Last summer I was very enthused about Debbie Marshall’s art installation called ‘My Name is Margaret” at the Ladysmith Art Gallery (in Ladysmith, B.C.). Now I get to be enthused all over again as there’s another opportunity to see Debbie’s show in Courtenay, B.C. at...
Collage: Collision and Collaboration
Remember the vision boards we used to make? People, I expect, still create vision boards to dream about an imagined future. Often those images are cut out of magazines and are specific so as to draw what one desires into their life.I remember doing vision boards that...
The Family of Things
Susannah M. Smith’s novel, The Alchemy of Paradise, begins with an epigraph by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche:What have you truly loved thus far? What has ever uplifted your soul, what has dominated and delighted it at the same time? Assemble these revered...
Three Small Things
Recently, I suggested that women in an online writing circle gather three small objects to write about. It’s a tactile approach to writing and memory that brings about some fascinating and satisfying results.With three objects, there can be a beginning, middle, and...
Writing as Devotion and Delight
The word “discipline” is often mentioned when it comes to describing a writing practice. I prefer the word “devotion.”“Our methodology is not as important as our devotion,” Betsy Warland says in Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing.My writing practice, to...
Staff Picks for Invertebrates
“Welcome to Russell Books: an indie bookstore on an island in the Pacific Ocean, where anemones dispense life advice and staff recommend books to mollusks,” reads Guernica Editions’ description of Zoe Dickinson’s debut book of poetry: Staff Picks for...