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May 01, 2009
Have a Great Time, Michael Rubenfeld!
Enjoy New York, Michael Rubenfeld! It’s a city that I’ve known from my youth, and that I love mightily. And take good care of Blog, who appears to know you well and to be very supportive. How are ...
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May 05, 2021Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
I have felt like an imposter. There have been times throughout my writing career when I’ve asked myself do I belong in this space? Do I deserve this opportunity? Am I skilled enough to call myself an ...
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October 08, 2016
Early Encounters with Poetry
A couple of interview questions recently posed to me got me thinking about my early encounters with poetry. For though my first book of poems has just been published a couple of decades after my first ...
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May 14, 2009
More Duppy Business?
Many years ago I read a book called HEALING THE FAMILY TREE by a psychiatrist, Dr. Kenneth McAll. I won’t go into the theories he presents in the book (it’s still available, for anyone who’s interested) ...
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October 29, 2023Reading the Veil
When it’s going well, writing feels like magic. You sit in front of a blank page, and against all expectation, open a portal to new people, scenarios, settings, and ideas. Through some synthesis of ...
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July 05, 2018Scarborough: A Setting
When I was growing up in Scarborough, I loved it and hated it. I don’t think it’s an uncommon feeling towards places where we grew up. But there are things about coming of age in a suburb as a racialized ...
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October 29, 2016
L.M. Montgomery, Ontario, and Poetry
Today I gave a reading from How to Draw a Rhinoceros from the pulpit of the Historic Leaskdale Church, a somewhat unlikely location for my first public reading from this book. The occasion was LMM Day, ...
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September 24, 2019The Art of the Deadline
Every word I’m typing right now is late. Not a month late, or even a week late, but three days late. And with every tap, tap, tap on my keyboard, I feel a pang. Anxiety. Guilt. Racing thoughts. Why ...
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September 27, 2018Coming to Voice
I worked on this piece while at a residency for BIPOC writers in the fall of 2017. I did not pick it up again when I returned. While workshopping it there, I was not convinced it captured what I was trying ...
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May 25, 2009
Things to Do This Summer in Toronto, for Free
In these difficult times when every penny must count, and money for entertainment, as for everything else, needs to be wisely spent, it’s reassuring to know that there are lots of things to do in Toronto ...
