Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Under the Cover: Surviving City Hall
As a former city councillor and newspaper columnist in Nelson, BC, Donna Macdonald spent 19 years in and around city politics. Here, she shares the story behind writing her memoir: how decades of experience and insight resulted in a book infused with passion for local government in Surviving City Hall (Nightwood Editions).
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Writer’s Block: Christopher Gudgeon
For this edition of Writer’s Block, we ask author, poet, and screenwriter Christopher Gudgeon a series of questions about writing, and get a series of responses that made us chuckle, even laugh out loud. We’re now even more pumped to read his newly released book The Encyclopedia of Lies(Anvil Press).
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This Week in Lit Events: February 27th-March 5th
After a week with no events on our radar, This Week in Lit Events is back with a doozy of literary spectacles for you to clean your spectacles and see.Are you hosting an event featuring an author whose titles are available on All Lit Up? Send the event details, including author, book, date, time, and address to hello@alllitup.ca to…
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In Review: The Week of February 20th
Whether you’re going to mainline the Oscars tomorrow night or eschew them in favour of a great book, we have suggestions for both camps in today’s week in review.
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Real life, real mess: do we privilege realism in Canada?
The Heresy of Naturalism is the proposed title of a critical work by X Trapnel, a character in Anthony Powell’s novel A Dance to the Music of Time. Trapnel writes fiction:”People can’t get it right about Naturalism. They think if a writer like me writes the books I do, it’s because that’s easier, or necessary…
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Black Voices: Donna-Michelle St. Bernard
For Black History Month, we’re featuring black authors, their latest work, and their writing process. Today playwright and emcee Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, whose latest published play A Man A Fish (Playwrights Canada Press) explores environmental sabotage, shares her writer’s block coping strategies, what she can’t live without, and other interesting insights, below.Photo by Denise Grant.
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Five Life Lessons from The Blue Knight
For Pink Shirt Day—a day dedicated to raising awareness of issues related to bullying—we’re highlighting Raymond McGregor’s The Blue Knight (BookLand Press) for its salient anti-bullying themes told through the story of Owen, the teenage protagonist who is chastised by everyone in his village. Below are five lessons from the book for children and adults…
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Quoted: Gwen Benaway’s Passage
Poet Gwen Benaway talks about the epigraphs that inform and inspire her newest collection, Passage (Kegedonce Press), a rumination on her history of experiencing colonial violence and an affirmation of her Two-Spirit identity.
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In Review: The Week of February 13th
It’s the Family Day long weekend for about half the country, and we know we’ll be putting our extra day to good use: maxin’ and relaxin’. But before we sit back, we bring you our weekly round up of literary highlights. Happy weekend!
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Top 10: Social Justice Booklist
In advance of World Day of Social Justice on February 20, we’re fully embracing the SJW* moniker and recognizing books that further conversations around social justice. Check out our top 10* picks!*as if this is a pejorative term*the order of this list is not a reflection on our SJ priorities
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Black Voices: Cara-Lyn Morgan
For Black History Month, we’re featuring black authors, their latest work, and their writing process. Today Cara-Lyn Morgan, who in her in latest poetry collection What Became My Grieving Ceremony(Thistledown Press) explores her ancestral cultural roots—both Metis and Afro-Caribbean—shares with us some sage advice, book recommendations, and more.
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Love Letters by Poets from Where the Nights Are Twice as Long
Collected in Where the Nights Are Twice as Long: Love Letters of Canadian Poets edited by David Eso and Jeanette Lynes (Goose Lane Editions) are letters and poems from over a 120 Canadian poets (including Leonard Cohen and Pauline Johnson!), and is uniquely presented in order of poets’ ages at the time of writing. Below we…
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What Book Should You Date this Valentine’s Day?: An ALU Infographic Matchmaker
We’ve rounded up sixteen bookchelors that we think will be the perfect match for those without a book this Valentine’s Day. Start in the middle of our Scientifically-Proven* infographic and answer questions until you come upon your true lit love. As an extra bonus, all these featured books are 15% off (but only until Sunday, February…
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This Week in Lit Events: February 13-19th
Hi, Valentines! Our single literary listing is a blowout of a festival on BC’s Galiano Island: the Galiano Literary Festival!Are you hosting an event featuring an author whose titles are available on All Lit Up? Send the event details, including author, book, date, time, and address to hello@alllitup.ca to be included in our listings.
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In Review: The Week of February 6th
It’s the weekend before Valentine’s but the type of dating we lovingly embrace is of the book variety, so this weekend we’ve piled our stack higher than usual with four new(ish) reads about different kinds of love and friendship. And we made sure to stock up on chocolate for book-binging endurance. Read on for our…
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