Dawson and the Harrison Effect
I’ve been enjoying a couple of relatively new books about the work of the latecTed Harrison. They are Ted Harrison Collected (Douglas & McIntyre) and […]
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A Very Literate Year (Part 2)
July: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers (American, 1951) Hopefully hopeless, Anna Karenina details the rise and fall of a Russian beauty
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Books for Armchair Mushers
Mushing season has begun. While waiting for the Yukon Quest or the Iditarod, here are some suggestions for armchair mushers. Racing Toward Recovery by Mike
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Poetry in Action
Poetry, spoken, plays and short stories at Brave New Words. An evening of music poetry and cocktails. The brave can get up, it’s an open mic.
A dispatch from the Frankfurt Book Fair
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the biggest book fair in the literary world. Publishers, agents, authors and readers from all over the world come to
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Three Books for Adventurous Souls
It’s the fall season, which means two things: the slow-creep of cold weather and a near-existential dread of the aforementioned. It also means, for thousands
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Fun fiction from the Klondike
As the crew who came here to film an episode of the Canadian television series Murdoch Mysteries a few years ago told me, Dawson is
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This place is in my blood
It’s a dark and rainy night, when Kate Williams finds an injured stranger on the Highway. She pulls over to help him, not knowing that
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A word or two about memory, memoirs and waterfowl
The kaleidoscope of memory is a wondrous thing. A quarter twist, and tiny fragments tumble themselves into a startling pattern of perception. Another twist, another
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Review Haiku
“We want to freshen up the image of the library … as the cool place that it is,” Sarah Gallagher tells me with a sideways
Joanna Lilley Shows Her Love for the North in The Birthday Books
Joanna Lilley’s craft extends beyond poetry. With the publication of her new book, The Birthday Books (Hagios Press), the author shows she can write prose
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Off to Skagway to Explore Language
By the time you read this I’ll be “Exploring the Frontiers of Language” in Skagway, attending this year’s edition of the North Words Writers Symposium.
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Mind Stretching Poetry
What does knitting have in common with writing poetry? Both must be done carefully. One mistake can ruin the whole image. Jamie Sharpe knitted a
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Some Writers
A voice in her periphery, one that was indelibly twisted into her memories, rose above the unfolding dialogue in her mind and, like the instinct
People Will Always Need Stories
“ One hundred writers from around the world in 86 events”, was the motto of the 2014 Vancouver Writers Festival. It kicked off with an
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Writing With the Ultimate Deadline
Priest is diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) and is not able to speak, but her eyes said it all: she was blown away by
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Exploring Good Service in Whitehorse
When I first travelled to Canada and the United States I was impressed with the service I got — from the smallest breakfast restaurant, to
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Poems Like Flower Seeds
A good poem can be a flower seed planted in the mind of the reader. Everything is in the poem; it just needs fertile ground
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The Atheist Doth Protest Too Much
I’ve come to realize that atheism sure ain’t that sexy. When you compare all the trappings and incentives that other belief systems have, we come
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The Klondike Echoes Down through the Literary Years
The Klondike has been the inspiration for a great deal of fiction since the Gold Rush, beginning with Jack London, who came with the Stampeders
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Comic Books – Fun and Free for All!
I once made the happy mistake of surfing on eBay, shall we say, under the influence. I say “mistake” as I found out, in a
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These are a few of my favourite things …
Before your vocal chords burst into the chorus from Julie Andrews’ “My Favorite Things” (dash it all, I hate to spoil your fun), I’m not
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Putting hope in the hands of children
Imagine children, some as old as 17, who have never held a book – never read a book in their own language … Liesel Briggs
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The Snowplough Went By at Noon Today
??BY DAN DAVIDSON The snowplough went by at noon today; I think it’ll go by again. The reason I think this is plain to the
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I Am In Love With David Sedaris
I have been voraciously reading David Sedaris’ books for a few weeks now. There are few writers who can make me laugh so hard that
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A Teller of Tall Tales Ended his Journey in Dawson City
There are many gravesites marked on the downhill side of Mary McLeod Road, but the only one with a beaten path to it belongs to
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Early Adventures in Yukon Tourism
Watching visitors to town wander about taking pictures of things that seem quite ordinary to those of us who live here is a reminder that
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They Keep Coming Back
The departure of yet another Berton House writer, Jeanne Randolph, brought to my mind the number of writers in residence who have come and gone
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Process of Imagination
One thing his early journalism career taught author Lawrence Hill was to pursue the adventure of his stories. Alongside working on final drafts of his
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The story of bones
Being in Dawson City for a residence at the Berton House is a dream come true for Winnipeg writer Joan Thomas. This is not the
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Knowing when to begin again
If you were to write about the northern hairy-nosed wombat, each paragraph would reveal something new about it. A paragraph contains one facet of a
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