Some people are writing more than ever, others aren’t writing at all. Some editors are overwhelmed with submissions, others are extending their deadlines for contests and themes because submissions are down. Writers’ responses to the pandemic are as varied as any other group. As floundery…as dedicated…as anyone. One thing
The laundry hangs on the clothesline in the background, while Alistair MacLeod speaks to his wife Anita about what their life was like when the kids were young. It’s there, in the film “Reading Alistair MacLeod”, that I see Anita patiently waiting, while he pulls out a small stack
Nancy Johnson’s The Kindest Lie (2021) reminds me of Terry McMillan for its focus on Black working women’s lives and Brit Bennett’s The Mothers for its slant towards mothering. The novel looks back, specifically to the election of Barack Obama in 2008: “Their feet felt light and their chests,
It’s ironic, that while so many are longing to safely travel these days, others are longing to stay put and continue to safely reside in their homelands. On the page, throughout last year, I travelled to twelve different cities, prompted by a local artist’s desk calendar, which inspired a
Those of you who are reading here now, but not reading Alistair MacLeod’s short stories, will probably only be interested in the first couple of paragraphs after this introduction. Feel free to skip past the section that I've titled The Underneath, written with those who know the story-or other
