Speculating Canada: Canadian Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy

February 7, 2014

Upcoming interview with Sean Moreland on Wednesday February 12th

Author of speculative fiction and poetry, university English professor, editor… Sean Moreland has a diverse relationship to speculative fiction. Dr. Moreland and I met at CanCon in Ottawa, but have since been able to meet at a variety of academic conferences and discuss the topic of Canadian Spec Fic from a variety of different perspectives. On Wednesday February 12, I...

Interviews/News Comments: 0

February 5, 2014

Quote – Hiding Our Heads As We Pollute The Earth

“I know that we are going to destroy the world that holds us. We are savages, treating the Earth like a toilet, fouling our own nest. We all seem to agree on that now… We knew what we were wreaking and it scared us, most of all because we couldn’t see any way of stopping it. So we stick our...

Quotes Comments: 0

February 3, 2014

Speculative Poetics

By Derek Newman-Stille Speculative poetry tends to be largely ignored, cast between pages of short stories deemed superior by those who crave narrative hegemony, treated as filler. But there is a power in speculative poetry, a question forged not just of content but of resistance to the hegemony of grammar. Poetry speaks to me as an artist. Used to pulling...

Editorials Comments: 4

January 31, 2014

Quote – Stones Need Nothing

“The summer stones were rough and warm to the touch. They were not alive, but if they were dead, it was a simple kind of dead: They were only themselves. They needed nothing.” -Erin Bow – Sorrow’s Knot (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2013)

Quotes Comments: 0

January 28, 2014

Quote – Being Self, Without Labels

“She did not want to be ‘chosen’. That word itself sickening, a horrible world. All she wanted was to be herself, that’s all; she did not care about male, or female, or fish, or human, or black, or white, or anything with labels.” -Jennifer Footman – The Mermaid (Canadian Tales of the Fantastic)

Quotes Comments: 0

January 24, 2014

All The World is a Stage

A Review of Welwyn Wilton Katz’s Come Like Shadows (Coteau Books, 1993) By Derek Newman-Stille As someone who has done stage acting, Welwyn Wilton Katz’ Come Like Shadows spoke to my experience of the stage, and added a little bit of magic in addition to the already potent magic of the theatre itself. Set at the Stratford Festival during a...

Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

January 22, 2014

Quote – Live Deep

“You can live on the surface and be safe, or dive deep and begin to discover the truth. But remember, there are always more truths than one.” -Welwyn Winton Katz, Come Like Shadows

Quotes Comments: 0

January 19, 2014

Graphic Noir

A review of Drew Hayden Taylor, Alison Kooistra, and Michael Wyatt’s The Night Wanderer: A Graphic Novel (Annick Press, 2013, Toronto) By Derek Newman-Stille I have been finding comics unsatisfying in recent years because too many of them have been cutting down on dialogue. I tend to like a lot of dialogue and narrative movement in a graphic novel, so...

Other Reviews Comments: 0

January 17, 2014

Quote – Love is a Little Different for Each of us

“Well, it doesn’t matter, I suppose. Love is a little different for each of us, isn’t it? And a little different each time, too. Like me and you, like this, this unique togetherness.” -Sean Moreland – The Rosy Boa” in Pavor Nocturnus: Dark Fiction Anthology (January, 2014 online at http://pavnoc.com/?p=419 )

Quotes Comments: 0

January 14, 2014

Gender Swopping Characters to Reveal Stereotypes

I recently read a fascinating article by Michelle Nijhuis, who gender-swopped Bilbo in The Hobbit when reading to her little girl to try to introduce her daughter to a strong female character in a fantasy narrative. You can explore the article here http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2013/12/18/one-weird-old-trick/ . When I read it, I thought about what an effective strategy gender swopping could be for...

Teaching Comments: 8