Rebecca Rosenblum What do you most enjoy reading, and how often do you indulge in the habit? I read something almost every day—it would have to be a bizarre state of emergency that I didn’t absorb at least some text. Short stories and novels are my staples, mixed in with poetry, plays, and graphic novels. I also adore magazines but try to keep them to a minimum because they will overrun me...
For the third instalment in the TRB’s Reading Life series, Kelli Deeth sat down with Toronto novelist Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer. Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer is the author of the novels All The Broken Things, Perfecting, and The Nettle Spinner, as well as, the short story collection, Way Up. Her work has been published in Granta, The Walrus, and Storyville, where she won the Sidney Prize. She is...
We’re delighted to bring you the second instalment in our Reading Life series, a look into the books at the heart of American author Karen E. Bender’s life and work. Karen E. Bender is the author of the story collection Refund, which was a Finalist for the 2015 National Book Award and shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. She is also the author of...
Welcome to our new series, Reading Life, in which we’ll be asking writers and other makers to share insights into their lives as readers—what they read and how much, where they read and why. Some great authors will be telling the TRB about the books they love, the books they can’t do without, and the reading experiences that have changed them. We’re thrilled to be starting this series with...
After reading Amy Hempel’s “In a Tub,” I felt inspired to reflect on the story. Two years ago, I posted this essay on my blog, A Long Story Short. I eyed my grey, suede moon boots and my white ski jacket in the front closet, smelled snow on the draft seeping through the front door, then climbed the steps of the landing and lay on my back– overwhelmed. When she pushed open the front door at five...
Kelli Deeth interviews Anakana Schofield, author of Malarky (Biblioasis, 2012). 1. What were your first images or intimations of Philomena? My first whiff of Philomena (Our Woman) came in a short story years before I commenced Malarky – she was a voice, much older and much crankier than Our Woman, though similarly confused about her son flaunting his sexuality. 2. Did the story evolve and change...
Reviewed in this essay: A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Alvarez. Algonquin Books, 2012. Throughout her travels into Haiti and Port-au-Prince, novelist and memoirist Julia Alvarez is haunted by the question, “Once we see a thing, what then is our obligation?” She sets out to answer the question in her new memoir, A Wedding in Haiti. Julia Alvarez began her relationship with Haiti in 2001 when she met...
Reviewed in this essay: Maintenance by Rob Benvie. Coach House Books, 2011. Rob Benvie, author of The Safety of War, offers in his second novel, Maintenance, an important investigation into the relationship between place and despair. Benvie’s characters bleakly exist in suburbia — Mississauga — at the turn of the millennium and while they want for nothing material, they crave a life that is more...