Hyper-real debut

Sandra Beck, the first novel from local writer John Lavery, is a stunning, engrossing experience. It’s good. It’s really good. Really fucking good. I get antsy when I hear John Lavery’s prose described as “surreal” in reviews because that is the element I find missing from so much contemporary Canadian literature. Writing in the hands of someone as talented as Lavery, who grapples intelligently with its potential, can create whole new kinds of emotion out of the raw material of juxtaposed words or striking images. READ MORE

Personal Review: Barnacle Love

Anthony De Sa’s first book aptly illustrates a lot of the things I find frustrating about Canadian literature. When you think about Canlit in broad strokes, you find that a huge swath of it is coloured with the same themes, the same tropes. There is something about the popular fiction in this country which recoils from variety. READ MORE

Canadian animator draws admirers, critics for updated Looney Tunes

Canadian animator draws admirers, critics for updated Looney Tunes By Bruce Ward and Jeremy Mesiano-Crookston,  Ottawa Citizen May 26, 2010 OTTAWA — The wit and wisdom of that rascally rabbit and his cartoon sidekicks captivated Canadian animator Jessica Borutski when she was a little girl. “I started learning these characters when I was maybe six,”…

Walk the bloodline

Walk the bloodline d’bi.young embodies myth and the power of storytelling in her one-woman tour-de-force blood.claat: one oomaan story Born performer d’bi.young continually hones her technique to connect with all audiences – photo: Paula Wilson “I have a suggestion,” a photographer grumbled during a media photography session at the Great Canadian Theatre Company space. “Could…

Evoking a positive negative

Evoking a positive negative NAC production is a beautiful and complicated piece of real art George Ryga’s play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe is the story of Rita Joe and her boyfriend, Jaimie Paul, who come to the city from their First Nations community in search of a freer life, but are instead destroyed by…

Generation A

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…