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Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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In Review: The Week of March 23rd
Between binging Netflix’s Pandemic and further feeding our worries, we soothed our fears with poetry: reading it, listening to it, and sharing it with you. Scroll on for more on that, as well as an important take on accessibility and books from Amanda Leduc, a virtual chat with author Chih-Ying Lay about bridging Canadian readers…
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Read Harder Challenge #5: Audiobook of poetry
Throughout 2020, All Lit Up-er Tan Light is participating in BookRiot’s Read Harder Challenge—a reading task designed to expand readerly boundaries—and doing so with an indie twist. Each entry in this series will highlight one of her completed challenges along with a list of books from All Lit Up to have you reading harder, too!
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Q&A with Home Sickness author, Chih-Ying Lay
A multi-talented scientist, singer and writer hailing from Taipei, Chih-Ying Lay is the author of Home Sickness (Linda Leith Publishing), a new collection of stories that present a paradoxical yearning for home – the familiar feeling of homesickness – as well as an intense desire to escape from its tethers. In this interview, Chih-Ying discusses…
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The Humdrum Magical: On Accessible Formats in Publishing
Once upon a time there was a girl in a forest. Once upon a time, there was a prince who’d lost his way. Once upon a time, a girl donned a red cape and took her grandmother a basket filled with sweet cakes and wine.Once upon a time, a man who so longed for a child cried out,…
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Two Poems from Sweet Water
In recognition of World Water Day (March 22, 2020) we’re bringing you two poems from the collection Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds (Caitlin Press), the second in a trilogy, edited by Yvonne Blomer. Below, Yvonne shares more about our connection to water as an essential resource to our survival and her call to poets…
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In Review: The Week of March 16th
Social distancing didn’t stop us from featuring some pretty great authors on the blog this week: Raquel Fletcher talks about diversity in Quebec; Brian Orend talks Epilepsy and writing; and Jane Munro contemplates the relationship between deep listening and poetry. Plus we’ve got some strange and surreal book picks to mirror our strange times.
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Inner Ear: Listening for poems
The iceberg of consciousness …Once, I asked workshops of undergraduate and graduate poetry students to complete the following statement: “Learning to write poetry is like ….”The undergrads chose similes involving eyes and hands and minds. They said writing poetry is like “making a patchwork quilt” or “looking for something in the junk drawer.”The grads said…
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Off/Kilter: World Poetry Day
World Poetry Day is right around the corner (March 21st) and there really couldn’t be a better time to bring you three poetry picks from our Off/Kilter column. These collections all offer a window into the surreal nature of our world, and show us how, through this warped reflection, we might find the roots of…
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Under the Cover: Seizure the Day and Epilepsy Awareness
For Epilepsy Awareness Month this March, philosophy professor at the University of Waterloo Brian Orend—who himself has epilepsy—discusses the ups and downs of writing Seizure the Day: Living a Happy Life with Illness (Freehand Books), a guidebook for people experiencing ongoing, chronic illnesses. Here, Brian tells us about everything from feeling like a fraud when he…
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Where in Canada: Who Belongs in Quebec?
Raquel Fletcher, the National Assembly reporter for Global News, has some critical questions for Quebec, the place she calls home since 2016. In her new book, Who Belongs in Quebec? (Linda Leith Publishing), Raquel takes a look at identity politics in Quebec’s national identity, posing the question “what does it mean to be a Quebecer?” Below, she talks…
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In Review: The Week of March 9th
Between terror-reading about Coronavirus, we soothed our fears with reading books and chatting with authors. Scroll on to see what we got up to this week.
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Writer’s Block: Fanie Demeule
We talk with Montreal-based author Fanie Demeule of the haunting, minimalist novel Lightness (Linda Leith Publishing) — which won the Best First Novel Prize in French and has since been translated into English by Anita Anand — about the opposite of writer’s block, her influences, and how her writing rituals mirror what she writes.
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Poetry in Motion: Lost Lagoon/lost in thought
Betsy Warland returns to poetry with her 13th book, Lost Lagoon/lost in thought(Caitlin Press) – drawing inspiration from Mohawk poet and writer Pauline E. Johnson. In this collection, Betsy writes of the Lost Lagoon in Vancouver’s Stanley Park–given its name by Pauline– as a way to explore how urban living alters our sense of the…
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Two Poems from Everyone at This Party
Set in the seemingly-quiet suburbs of Vancouver, Tanja Bartel’s poetry debut, Everyone at This Party (Goose Lane Editions) highlights the lives of people whose everyday is anything but mundane exploring themes of regret, guilt, empathy, fear and failure. Scroll on for two poems from the collection that CBC Books deemed Canadian poetry to watch for in spring 2020.
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Character Study: Operation Stealth Seed
Signature Editions rolls out their casting call of stars to turn George Amabile’s Operation Stealth Seed into a blockbuster hit fit for the theatres. In this book-to-film adaptation, Robert Downey Jr. takes the lead roll as Nicola Cortese, an Iraqi war vet turned city detective who finds himself embroiled in an international conspiracy to control the…
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