Book related writing
An arsenal of eroticism Small Canadian press publishes two new books celebrating the complexity of sex “Why should anybody buy a book of lesbian S/M smut that was originally published in 1988, especially if the author is now using male pronouns and sporting a rather impressive beard, if I do say so myself?” The foreword…
Outwrite! Acclaimed author Nalo Hopkinson comes to the Cap In some form or another, the Agitate collective has been around Ottawa for five years, organizing events, throwing parties and workshops, spreading their fingers as so many other similar groups do in order to eventually find each other and join hands. Their latest effort is a…
Winds of Dune in Ottawa The most famous epic in science fiction history comes to the nation’s capital At this point in its existence, the epic mythology born from Frank Herbert’s original Dune books is three million words long. “My father wrote maybe a million words and Kevin and I two million,” according to Brian…
Updating the classics The undisputed master of science fiction, Ursula Le Guin, visits the Cap Ursula Le Guin’s latest work, Lavinia, isn’t a simple revision of Virgil’s Aeneid, an iteration of the story that corrects a perceived wrong “like what [Margaret] Atwood does with Penelope. She… feels that Penelope doesn’t get a fair chance, nor…
Generation A A Canadian literary icon unveils his latest work at BC Scene “You know, you’re actually the first interviewer I’ve ever spoken to about Generation A.” It’s helplessly vain, but I can’t help but be thrilled hearing Douglas Coupland say these words. As part of his BC Scene appearance in Ottawa, Coupland plans to…
A long journey back Wayson Choy returns to the Ottawa Writers Festival It’s an ironic curiosity that the events that inspired Wayson Choy’s latest memoir, Not Yet, were initially caused by his troubles breathing, given the double meaning of the word “inspire.” In 2001, asthma and a heart condition conspired to almost kill Choy, in…