by Steven W. Beattie

New books examine the stigma of PTSD among Canadian soldiers

The numbers are as sobering as they are troubling. According to André Picard, The Globe and Mail’s health columnist, Canada’s combat mission in Afghanistan yielded 158 casualties among soldiers. That figure is high enough on ... Read More »

April 17, 2017

IFOA’s Geoffrey Taylor honoured by French government as Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

By Steven W. Beattie

Geoffrey Taylor, the director of the Toronto Harbourfront International Festival of Authors, has been bestowed with a particularly prestigious international honour. Taylor has been named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the ... Read More »

March 27, 2017 | Filed under: Awards

Education of Augie Merasty launches One Book, One Province Saskatchewan initiative, days after author’s death

By Steven W. Beattie

A 2015 memoir about a Cree trapper's childhood experiences in a northern residential school has been chosen for the inaugural One Book, One Province Saskatchewan program. The Education of Augie Merasty: A Residential School Memoir, ... Read More »

March 1, 2017

Richard B. Wright, author of Clara Callan, dies at 79

By Steven W. Beattie

Richard B. Wright, whose 2001 novel Clara Callan is a bona fide CanLit classic, has died at the age of 79. Wright, who lived in the Ontario city of St. Catharines, died unexpectedly from a ... Read More »

February 8, 2017 | Filed under: Authors

Focus on Creators open letter tops 2,400 signatures

By Steven W. Beattie

Margaret Atwood, Gord Downie, Alanis Morissette, and Rosemary Sullivan are among more than 2,000 writers, musicians, and visual artists who have signed their names to an open letter asking the government to support the creative ... Read More »

February 8, 2017 | Filed under: Authors, Writing life

Spring Preview 2017: Fiction

By Steven W. Beattie

Fantastic four A quartet of major novels from literary heavy-hitters: State of confusion Pasha Malla’s debut, the 2008 short-fiction collection The Withdrawal Method, won the Trillium Book Award. His debut novel, 2012’s People Park, was ... Read More »

January 30, 2017

Montreal author Sylvain Neuvel followed an unlikely route to success

By Steven W. Beattie

Sylvain Neuvel’s career as a best-selling science-fiction author has its genesis in a toy robot he made for his son. When his boy was two-and-a-half years old, Neuvel, who dabbles in model making and robotics, ... Read More »

December 14, 2016

Books of the Year 2016: Three books blur the distinction between novels and short stories

By Steven W. Beattie

When Mona Awad’s debut book of fiction, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, won the 2016 Amazon.ca First Novel Award, some readers might have had reason to be puzzled. The book, which comprises ... Read More »

November 17, 2016

A chance meeting led to Canadian poets appearing at Edinburgh Fringe

By Steven W. Beattie

It began, in one respect, because a poet was in need of a pen. Though based in Kingston, Ontario, poet Ian Burgham is no stranger to Scotland, having done post-graduate work at the University of ... Read More »

August 15, 2016

Fall Preview 2016: Fiction

By Steven W. Beattie

Translations Québécois reveries In the May 26, 2015, issue of The New Yorker, writer Pasha Malla mused about the status of French-to-English translations in Canada. The occasion was a review of Maxime Raymond Bock’s short-story ... Read More »

July 25, 2016

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