(St)Ill Writing

If a writer writes a book and no one reads it, was anything written at all? This has been my predicament for years. Decades, even. And I can say with all the clarity of maturity and experience that I have no idea why. I have tried. You can check out my 'Published Works' page and...

“We Shall Arrive Soon” True North Writing Contest

It was an unexpected surprise to find out that my short story, “We Are Fuel” was chosen as a runner-up in the Communitech True North Writing Contest. (Special thanks to Erin Bow for selecting my work!). I’m excited to be part of this Canadian event, and after a quick peek at the site for the...

Ecstasy (A Poem)

This is a love poem, but blogging it is also an elegy. The magazine it originally appeared in circa 2014 (print, no less), was the now-defunct From the Well House. It's a shame when any creative endeavour has to end, although I may have been part of the problem, being that I never knew until...

Mode Melodies (A Literary Game)

Not that you really need another distraction to writing your novel or finishing that chapbook or putting together that poetry manuscript (or spamming innocents, or whatever it is my most loyal blog readers do). But I stumbled on a game. A literary game. Actually, game is kind of overselling it—it's more of a writing exercise....

Pseudologia Fantastica / Fantastica Conficiens (Truth, Fiction, & Deceit)

I won’t lie—I am seven months behind in my National Geographic subscription. It’s not that I’m okay with letting things pile up. There’s just so much demand on my time. It’s a problem, but it only affects me. What am I to the big, wide world? Even still, I try to keep up. National Geographic...

Unsent Love Letter to Virginia Woolf (a poem)

[Scrawled on the steps of 46 Gordon Square, London, England, April 2014]   Dearest Vergie,   It may please you to know I took some time out of my busy itinerary today to visit you in Bloomsbury. I rang, but you must have missed the bell. that’s okay, most of us won’t even have well-wishers...

May Contain Other Tree Nuts (a poem)

Call me an optimist but I look forward to the day when  I find a pecan or an almond in a fresh batch of pistachios (try saying that five times fast).   Back of a used napkin math here: In a lifetime, I have probably cracked into ~22 kgs of pistachios and never do I...

Like They Said…

"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us…we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A BOOK MUST BE THE AXE...

~2,400 Year-Old Wisdom For Reading the News in 2017

It is said that they who know well how to live meet no abusive douchebags or maddening politicians as they scroll through the news, and come out of the workday untouched by the weapons of capitalism. For, in them, an abusive douchebag would find no flesh for his selfish hands, a mad politician nothing to...

I Seek the Bots

hashtagged, optimized, baptized by Google first page fresh meat desperate kid like like love? ok, let's not scroll too far three clicks, buzzwords, news cycling fake but not fiction fight the right causes network bridges don't burn no turning back algebra abracadabra algorithm all on the rhythm penis pills? mail-order wives? monthly income from home?...