Criticism & Essays

Speaking in the Past Tense: Canadian Novelists on Writing Historical Fiction

In Speaking in the Past Tense, Herb Wyile interviews 11 Canadian novelists about writing historical fiction. Several recurring topics weave through the informal, conversational interviews, but the predominating theme is that of the tension between ... Read More »

April 5, 2007 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Ragged Pen: Essays on Poetry & Memory

By various

Ragged Pen gathers together talks on poetry and memory given by Robert Finley, Patrick Friesen, Aislinn Hunter, Anne Simpson, and Jan Zwicky at the 2005 Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference and fleshes them ... Read More »

March 28, 2007 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

This Is My Country, What’s Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada

By Noah Richler

Several decades ago, a group of CanLit critics began appealing for more evaluative criticism of our national literature. What they meant by this was a stricter examination of how certain texts worked, an emphasis on ... Read More »

December 15, 2006 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Strange Ghosts

By Darren Greer

Strange Ghosts, the new book from Darren Greer, whose novel Still Life with June was awarded the 2004 ReLit Award, is a collection of 16 recent essays that run the gamut from travel pieces to ... Read More »

July 17, 2006 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Dropped Threads 3: Beyond the Small Circle

By Marjorie Anderson, ed.

Despite the subtitle of this third in a series of collections of personal essays by Canadian women, Dropped Threads 3 rarely breaks away from a limited range of concerns and styles. The first-person singular is ... Read More »

May 30, 2006 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Don’t Get Too Comfortable

By David Rakoff

Ex-pat Canadian and long-time New Yorker David Rakoff is an extremely funny man. This, his second release (following a collection of autobiographical essays called Fraud) is for the most part an extremely funny book.Rakoff, a ... Read More »

October 11, 2005 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

★ Raise You Five: Essays and Encounters 1964-2004: Volume One

By Barry Callaghan; $, pp.,

One can only assume that if Barry Callaghan had had any choice in the matter, the occupation of writer wouldn’t have been high on his career wish list. Before Atwood, before Munro, before Ondaatje, there ... Read More »

September 15, 2005 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer

By Stuart Ross

For a quick and dirty breath of fresh air, it’s difficult to beat renegade urban poet Stuart Ross’s latest effort. Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer is a collection of Ross’s impolite, funny, and occasionally ... Read More »

May 24, 2005 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Nothing for Granted: Tales of War, Philosophy, and Why the Right Was Mostly Wrong: Selected Writings 2000-2003

By Mark Kingwell

We have hardly set foot upon the deck of Nothing for Granted, University of Toronto philosophy professor Mark Kingwell’s disappointing and haphazard collection of columns from the National Post, when the author himself rings the ... Read More »

May 17, 2005 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

The Enamoured Knight

By Douglas Glover

Douglas Glover’s extended meditation on Don Quixote, The Enamoured Knight, is simply packed to the brim with marvellous stuff. Not only does he lovingly and with great thoughtfulness delve into the richness of Cervantes’ masterwork, ... Read More »

March 11, 2005 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

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