Kurghan, a time-traveling Scythian blacksmith with a jewellery business in Montreal's Plateau neighbourhood, notices that his son Altai is losing the culture of his people. Kughan longs for nothing less than to feel the wind in his hair again and to ride his horse on a leopard hunt. He wants the same for his son. …
Tag: Montreal
Montreal poet recounts experience as war refugee
"I tell it like it is, but always with empathy. Because I found empathy to be the most important thing."
Congrès Boréal 2018: Differences between Anglophone and Francophone SF
It has been four months since I attended this year's Congrès Boréal, so a write-up on the conference is probably overdue. Nevertheless, I would like to share some of my impressions of my first foray into this predominantly French-language science fiction and fantasy convention. Congrès Boréal is probably Québec's main literary fantasy and science fiction …
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This Montreal poet likes his verses dark, deep, and funny: An Interview with Greg Santos
Greg Santos's collection Blackbirds is a deep, personal reflection on his family, his Cambodian identity, and experience as an adoptee.
Joseph Boyden on his Identity and Origins
Monday at the D.B. Clarke Theatre in the Hall Building on Concordia University campus, Joseph Boyden talked about his identity and origins--both as a writer and a man of mixed Irish-Ojibwe blood. He was accompanied by renowned conversationalist Kate Sterns and Globe and Mail book reviewer Jared Bland, "Who are you?" opened Sterns, a direct …
Poetry Launch at the Veg!
The semester is just about over and it's time for some poetry! The Veg, one of McGill's student literary magazines, is holding a launch later tonight at 8:00pm at Le Cagibi, where I will be reading a selection of poems including my haiku. I will be running a fuller post next week describing the event …
Folklore and Graffiti: A (Potential) Study of Spatial Tactics and Urban Fantasy (Part II)
When we left off last week, I was trying to prove that graffiti interrupts the rational order of the city, as a spatial tactic, and therefore can be compared to urban fantasy, inasmuch as it too subverts conventional "consensus reality." I quoted Bramley Dapple in Charles de Lint's short story “Uncle Dobbin's Parrot Fair,” who says, …
Folklore and Graffiti: A (Potential) Study of Spatial Tactics and Urban Fantasy (Part I)
While conducting my research into urban fantasy, the subject of my SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Committee) grant proposal, I was stricken by a sudden inspiration. A few images and lines from scholarly texts united in my mind and I saw something bold in the connections. While the following essay is in no sense …
Fantasy, Narrative, and The Origin of Species by Nino Ricci
Alex Fratarcangeli, the protagonist of Nino Ricci's The Origin of Species, works on a Ph.D. proposal that could change literary academics: he chooses to analyze literary texts in the light of Darwinism. As its title suggests, the novel is about Alex's relationship to the life of Darwin and his seminal The Origin of Species. On …
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Reflections on Reading and Writing in the Digital Era
Last Friday I attended a talk given by Bob Stein, who develop the first ebooks in 1992. You read that date right. It was 22 years ago, but the craze only began to catch fire with Kindle in 2007. During his presentation Mr. Stein said that he has always been 15 years ahead of tends …
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Matthew Rettino 