Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Short and Sweet: H Felix Chau Bradley + Personal Attention Roleplay
H Felix Chau Bradley’s collection Personal Attention Roleplay (Metonymy Press) was recently named a finalist for the 2021 Danuta Gleed Literary Award for short stories. Read on to see why Felix says “writing a short story often feels like solving a puzzle” and catch an excerpt from their story “Surface Dive.”
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Short and Sweet: Sofi Papamarko + Radium Girl
Writer Sofi Papamarko says the “immediacy and instant gratification of short stories” is what draws her to the form. We learn more about her collection Radium Girl (Wolsak & Wynn) and read some of the title story for Short and Sweet.
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“Bringing love to the children of war” – Excerpts from Why Do You Look at Me and See a Girl?
With Mother’s Day this weekend, we look beyond the flowers and platitudes to a celebration of fierce motherhood, embodied in the grandmother of writer Anvi Hoàng and recounted in her book, Why Do You Look at Me and See a Girl? (Guernica Editions). Hoàng’s grandmother Cam escorted her three children – including her mother, Cúc – over 250…
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Short and Sweet: Aaron Schneider + What We Think We Know
Short story writer and lit mag editor Aaron Schneider shares his collection What We Think We Know (Gordon Hill Press), its play with the medium in the form of diagrammatic stories, stories in the form of questions, stories that break apart and metastasize. Including the Journey-nominated “Cara’s Men (As Told to You in Confidence)”, excerpted below.
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Short and Sweet: Chih-Ying Lay + Home Sickness
Taipei-born author Chih-Ying Lay’s collection Home Sickness (published by Linda Leith Publishing and translated by Darryl Sterk) hearkens back to his youth. Says Jade Colbert in the Globe & Mail of the collection: “Psychologically, this is as high stakes as you can get. These stories can be hard to look at sometimes, but it is also hard…
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Short and Sweet: Short Stories for All Tastes
May is Short Story Month, and this year All Lit Up celebrates this under-appreciated form with Short and Sweet, a little series featuring 12 short story collections and their authors, who share brief thoughts on the short form.
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Poetry Muse: Adrian De Leon + barangay: an offshore poem
Adrian De Leon talks about the other poets that inspire him, and how with his latest collection barangay (Wolsak & Wynn), he was urged to “write in the broken language of diaspora,” all in this instalment of Poetry Muse. Learn more and read the poem “dung-aw” from the collection below.
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Poetry Muse: Carlie Blume + Gigglepuss
Carlie Blume lists her poetry muse(s) behind her collection Gigglepuss (Guernica Editions) as “a collective of all the empathetic, hard working women in my life”: most notably her grandmother, who made the incredibly difficult, incredibly brave decision to pursue MAID. Carlie shares a poem from the collection inspired by her grandmother: “Waiting for Palliative Care.”
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Poetry Muse: Gillian Sze + Quiet Night Think
In today’s Poetry Muse, Gillian Sze discusses how motherhood, or, “becoming a point of origin for someone else”, was the start of an interrogation of her own beginnings, and in turn, the start of her collection Quiet Night Think (ECW Press). Learn more about Gillian’s muse(s) for the book and hear “Instructions,” a poem from the collection.
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Poetry Muse: Keith Garebian + In the Bowl of My Eye
In today’s instalment of Poetry Muse, multi-award-winning poet Keith Garebian shares the natural and human-made world outside his condominium window in his latest collection In the Bowl of My Eye (Mawenzi House), as well as the poems “Study of Lake 1 & 2” from the book.
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Poetry Muse: Meredith Quartermain + Lullabies in the Real World
Meredith Quartermain and her collection Lullabies in the Real World (NeWest Press) make up today’s Poetry Muse feature. Read how the collection is in part a conversation with other poets like bp Nichol and hear Meredith read “Styx” from the book.
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Poetry Muse: Lori Cayer + Searching for Signal
Today’s Poetry Muse featured poet is Lori Cayer, discussing her latest collection, Searching for Signal (Signature Editions). She shares a gripping poem from the collection inspired by her late father, and tells us why poetry wasn’t so much a choice of form as it “never occurred to me to write anything other than poetry.”
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Poetry Muse: Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch + The Good Arabs
Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch shares their second collection The Good Arabs (Metonymy Press) in this latest instalment of Poetry Muse. They discuss working amidst other artists and creators, exploring the tensions and linkages between the micro and macro, and share their poem “The Cycle.”
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Poetry Muse: Andrew Faulkner + Heady Bloom
Our next Poetry Muse featured poet is Andrew Faulkner and his collection Heady Bloom (Coach House Books). He tells us how the book’s muse is the big-size bottle of Advil Liqui-gels, inspired by a persistent headache, shares the “nostalgic millennial” music found amongst his poems, and advises aspiring poets to “spend as much time as you can in…
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Poetry Muse: Salimah Valiani + 29 leads to Love
Today’s Poetry Muse’s featured poet is Salimah Valiani: activist, researcher, and author of29 leads to Love (Inanna Publications). In our Q&A, Salimah shares how in her new collection she traces love in 29 different ways, and how her muse for this collection is al-jinn, which can take either a human, animal, or other natural forms.
Got any book recommendations?