Search
-
October 18, 2023Eclipsed by the Source
“It’s not all dark.” - Roger Waters, “Eclipse”They say the original is always better. In our era of reboots and revivals, when adaptations or sequels fail to capture the scope of their source ...
-
May 23, 2013
A Tale of Two Marys
Colm Tóibin recently spoke to Eleanor Wachtel on CBC’s “Writers and Company” about his new novel, The Testament of Mary. I tuned a close ear since I have for a while been meaning to write something ...
-
October 26, 2016
Favourite Literary Podcasts
I spent much of the day preparing to record a podcast, the third episode of On the Line: Conversations About Poetry (http://www.therustytoque.com/on-the-line). It’s a podcast designed to operate like ...
-
March 25, 2022Locked Down and Longing for Community: The Genesis of The Quarantine Review
It started in a pub on the Danforth, the bar filled with older gentlemen dejected at the cancellation of the Dave Mason concert at the Music Hall a half-block away. COVID wasn’t real to them yet, as ...
-
October 04, 2023Music, Automation, and Writing With a Satellite Mindset
Technology drained away my love of new music with the promise of access. That’s why I didn’t see it happening. Logging on to my subscription streaming service, I’m greeted with abundance—playlists ...
-
October 11, 2023Vulnerability is a Writing Tool
My most reflexive apology is, “I went to theatre school.” Usually delivered with a shrug or a knowing smirk as if to say I can’t help it, it gets a laugh from the creative set about 82 percent of ...
-
August 31, 2016The Lower Reaches of Pulp
It’s rare for me to be disturbed by a book: usually, I enjoy being scared or pushed to an extreme emotion within the safety of a page. But I was badly bothered by a pulp novel from the 1980s that I ...
-
October 18, 2016
Poetic Inspiration II
This is the second in a series of posts highlighting poems that have made my synapses crackle, broadened my sense of what poems can be and do, and sparked me to stretch further in my own work. The first ...
-
October 22, 2016
Beautiful Chapbooks
Chapbooks are versatile. They can take a multitude of forms and serve a multitude of functions. It’s generally a lengthy process for a regular book to make its way into print, but a chapbook can enter ...
-
October 23, 2016
Poetic Inspiration III
This is the third in a series of posts highlighting inventive poems that have broadened my sense of what poems can be and do, and sparked me to stretch further in my own work. (The previous instalments ...
