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 …
Tag: writing
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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Turn over a New “Tree and Leaf” this New Year with J.R.R. Tolkien!
Happy New Year to all my followers! Today, I continue my series on J.R.R. Tolkien with a tribute to Tree and Leaf, one of his lesser known works--a book that contains an implicit New Year's message. . What's your New Year's resolution? Chances are, if you've made one at all, you've made a decision regarding …
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13 Things I Learned Writing My First Novel: Battles of Rofp
I hope you all had a merry Christmas. Now, while you're still warm with Christmas feeling (perhaps you are snug by the fire with a cup of hot cocoa, or a drink of rum and eggnog, experiencing a similar but not altogether identical feeling of warmth) let me take you down to Memory Lane to …
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Top 10 Things I Learned While Studying English Literature at McGill University
Is it even possible to canonize all the things I have learned in my three and a half years studying literature at Canada's best university to 10 items? I believe my critics will be able to deconstruct the bejesus out of this list. They'd probably base their argument on how I privilege my subjectivity over …
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“Ice Breaker”
Last Monday, the Fall edition of the McGill student literary journal STEPS was published, with my poem in it! . It's a reflection on arctic blizzards and hallucination--seeing things in randomness when there's no one else around to contradict you. . Bonus marks: Can you spot the allusions to Frankenstein and Don Quixote? If you …
The Beets
Nothing like a good pun to lighten the mood on a Friday evening--or a Monday morning ... whenever you happen to read this. Fairly self-explanatory, but I would encourage anyone who takes a peak at this to learn more about the Beat Generation. Ever put some Jack Kerouac in your salad? I hear it's tasty...
Eternal Guarantee
Every once in a while, two events in your life happen simultaneously and in their juxtaposition, a humorous situation appears in your imagination. I had just finished reading Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry and started a job as a salesman. Anyone familiar with the myth of King Arthur, especially as retold by Kay, and …
“What Walmart Smells Like”
Being forced through the automatic doors of a Walmart one evening last winter with my family, I decided to deconstruct the experience of the torture that is globalized shopping by paying close attention to the most potent, yet misunderstood of the five senses. I hope you enjoy this post, as a break from my usual …
Is Fantasy Heresy?
“War begets war. Destruction begets destruction. On earth, a century ago, in the year 2020, they outlawed our books.” -Edgar Allen Poe, in Ray Bradbury's “The Exiles.” Edgar Allan Poe fights rocket men on a Mars mission to annihilate everything fantastic or non-realistic, in Ray Bradbury's short story “The Exiles.” Bradbury's short story stands with …
Matthew Rettino 