Writing
Fiction
Well Preserved
A quick read from the Calgary Central Library’s short story dispenser! Edited by Lisa Murphy Lamb and published in Tap Press Read.
And you decided you’d do well to embrace her words and start a canning business, with labels for jams and jellies that included a photo of yourself ... Read
Gloria
Another quick read from the library's short story dispenser, also in Tap Press Read
As soon as Gloria sees a treat, she smushes her face against the pen and starts braying, and when her teeth make contact, I let go ... Read
Tougher Skin
Life of Pie, edited by Myrna Garanis and Ivan Sundal, was launched in the basement of my old student apartment on Saskatchewan Drive in Edmonton on "Pi Day" just before the pandemic lockdown. Sadly I missed the event but apparently the noshes were delectable. Copies may still be available at Glass Bookshop.
... how hot it was earlier in the park, a serendipitous festival with acapella singers and a ukulele player. The room we shared was sweltering and so we wandered together late into the night and eventually stumbled into this pie shop ...
Zookeeper
Release Any Words Stuck Inside of You II, a collection of Canadian flash fiction and prose poetry edited by Nicole Haldoupis and Geoff Pevlin.
We ordered a birthing bot to carry our first baby. Its chamber worked like an aquarium, with filters and a heat lamp. When the baby was cooked, an alarm sounded and out came the child ... Link
Shaking Booty
Blink-ink, Robots/AI Issue
Sometimes outside her closed door, I shake booty to the electrifying strains of Schoenberg. This morning I made her pancakes—seven progressively smaller pancakes in a conical stack ... Link
Black Currant
The Danforth Review, Issue 75
... the bus lurches past sun-reflected towers, up Edmonton Trail, past houses and apartments, past diners and a tire shop and that building painted a piebald cow pattern, past more houses and down into the industrial section ... Read
Not Wired Right
Fiction Southeast, a response to the George Orwell’s “Why I Write”
The single thing I recall from this incident is her telling me that under no circumstances was Underworld an appropriate name for a happy fictional realm. Underworld, [my mother] told me, was another name for hell. I knew a bit about hell back then ... Read
Let Me In
The Antigonish Review, Issue 173
He showed up on her front step one night. When she cracked the blinds her stomach did a flip. He had seen her through the glass. She released the blinds and then stood hugging herself. This was bad. She'd told herself if she saw him again, she'd be cold. A veritable refrigerator.... "Let me in, Esmeralda." ... Link
Mettle
Wascana Review, volume 41
Phil descends from the tin can of the city bus and adjusts to the pattern of streetlights. He hitches his knapsack over one shoulder and zips his collar. He's studied later than usual tonight, flanked in his library carrel by Patricia and Judith, his mineral engineering study buddies ...
Model
CBC Alberta Anthology, Red Deer Press (audio recording below)
Poppy dozes on the raft, face-down on her towel, the ties of her bikini top pooled in two coils at her sides. The gentle pitch of the water and the warmth of the sun on her back have a lulling effect; she barely hears her name being called ... Link
Nonfiction
Hey Menopause, tap refresh!
New Forum, Volume 1, Silvia Pikal editor, was launched with great fanfare in 2019. The women's literary arts and culture magazine features Alberta creators.
Perhaps these terms will always rankle. Well then, how should we claim ourselves? As womyn or womxm? Experiencing mxmopause? Or something else entirely? ... Link
In Praise of Older Women
The Mixed Zone, Women's Sport Trust, is a magazine based in the UK. A piece that speaks to how often older women's wisdom and skills are overlooked and underrated.
And we’ve crested that hill, and suddenly we see the other side. And it’s interesting. But maybe not quite so nice. All sorts of monsters live there ...
Well Preserved
You Look Good for Your Age, Rona Altrows, editor, University of Alberta Press
I observe them huddle together and stand in line, habituated as I am from hours of watching screens, those miniature crystalline savannas, everything a game preserve now ... Link
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Marsupiak
(M)othering: An Anthology, Anne Sorbie and Heidi Grogan, editors, Inanna Publications
I once wrote a story about a man with a prosthetic womb. The man, Geo, is married to the head researcher at the pharmaceutical corporation where the device is being developed. The Marsupiak, in other words, is his wife's invention, and it is Soleil's desire that leads Geo to be fitted with the experimental device... Link
Into the Hot Inner Outer Space of a Recording Studio
Cloud Lake Literary, Volume 3
On the doorstep of the studio, I stand in sparkly boots and a ruched smock over jeans and a tank top. My eyes are made up, and a mask covers my mouth and nose. My childhood guitar, a made-in-Nagoya Ryoji Matsuoka, is freshly tuned. My left finger pads are calloused from hours of practicing. In my bag is sheet music, insurance against a porous and hard-knocked memory... Link
Writing After a Brain Injury
WestWord magazine, Volume 42, Number 1
There’s a line in a Joni Mitchell song about not appreciating what you’ve got until it’s gone. As writers, we often think about the tools of our trade as pens, paper, and word processors. Our ability to research depends on access to travel, libraries, or the internet. A good desk and chair make a difference, and an actual office of one’s own is invaluable. But do we consider our brains as necessary tools?... Link
Book Reviews
Mile-high with Mary Ruefle: a review of My Private Property
Pank Magazine, part book review, part memoir set on an unpleasant cross-country flight.
Bad baby kicks the back of my airplane seat. ... A cacophony of jungle ululations (moist, hot and fretful) assaults my ear drums. Bad baby makes strident, vomity sounds as if his caregiver clutches him too tight. I get it. I want to clutch bad baby… Read
Review: Rising: Becoming the First Canadian Woman to Summit Everest by Sharon Wood
Alberta Views, December 2019
The expedition cook, Jane Fearing, becomes Wood’s ally, and their tent at basecamp lends them the private luxury to vent over their teammates’ sometimes rude comments. “Such nice boys one on one,” Fearing says. “Such dogs in a pack,” Wood responds ... Read
Review: Rising Abruptly by Gisèle Villeneuve
Alberta Views, November 2017
“Jagged Little Peak,” with its nod to Alanis Morrissette, depicts Jo on her 40th birthday soloing up a difficult limestone rock face, fretting over her teenage daughter’s reckless partying... “I looked at my belly in disbelief the day I strained to buckle up my harness over you. The thing growing inside me that took control. I could no longer self-arrest. An internal rope tied us together" ... Read
Review: All That Glitters by Margo Talbot
Alberta Views, March 2021
But the drug arrest is still ahead of her. This misadventure will prompt her to leave Jasper and move to Canmore, eventually starting a landscaping business that allows her ... to climb ice through the winter. In this milieu she begins the inner journey to confront her depression ... Read
Audio
The Banff Centre, Literary Arts Programming
E. D. Morin reads "Fugitive", The Banff Centre for the Arts