When I requested Dear Writer, Dear Actress, a collection of letters exchanged between Anton Chekov and Olga Knipper, I expected them to arrive when Bill and Bron and I were reading “Gooseberries”. (Our project page is here.) If they had, my note-taking would have revolved around connections with their friendship and
There is just one more story left in our project—and it’s the shortest, only six pages, the second by Tolstoy. In the course of looking for a cover image, I learned that it was published after Tolstoy’s death, and that it was based on a real person. (Inadvertently, I
In recent Januaries, Bill @ The Australian Legend has been hosting weeks dedicated to Australian women writers for so long that he finally invited the fellas to have a week too. My own interest in Australia was initially sparked in the fourth grade when I was assigned the Platypus
Midway through 2024, I enthused about Casey Plett’s On Community which includes a discussion of how Plett often feels the term is too slippery but it’s hard to find a suitable replacement. Sometimes I feel as though it means the opposite of what I want it to mean, or
If you’re a regular reader, you might recall that my reason for participating in the Toronto Public Library Reading Challenge was my failure to complete it in years past (more about that here and here), but throughout last year I worked towards this goal. I’ve talked about most of
