I started reading Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being while on the island of Kauai. Being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean seemed an appropriate place to read a novel set in Japan and the west coast of British Columbia. I finished the novel on a foggy winter day in Victoria. If […]
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Salone 2014: on returning to Sierra Leone
The novel is out, the reviews are wonderful and I’m moving on to other projects, writing and otherwise. I’ve been meaning to write about the notes I’ve been receiving from readers of My Heart is Not My Own. And I will–next time. The comments, from book club participants and readers from across the country, are […]
On privilege, and spawning salmon…
I’ve caught a lot of salmon—my idea of a good day is being out on my boat, somewhere in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, lines down, rod tip bouncing to the strike of a wild salmon. I usually hand the rod to a friend or family member, preferring to handle the net and the […]
Sante Fe blues…
I had thought I would be blogging about the light. To me, the American southwest is all about the light. And the blue, blue skies against the red hills and fall colours. So much for intentions—my visit started with morning coffee with a sociable barista. Business was slow, so we talked—the typical Canadian to American […]
On, debt to life….
I’m not overly superstitious—I walk under ladders, step on cracks in the sidewalk. I know a Russian neurologist, well published in scientific journals, who doesn’t like to acknowledge when “things are going well” as we do in North America—what if, in the telling, you make it not so? In My Heart is Not My Own […]
Interview with Adrian Chamberlain, Victoria Times-Colonist
A stormy afternoon in Victoria–100 k wind gusts coating the windows with saltspray. The house is rocking and I’m thinking of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz just before she was carried away… My plan? A fire and a titch of Scotch whiskey and a few more chapters of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah. Today’s edition […]