WHAT I'M READING TONIGHT

Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden.  A story narrated by the two main characters, a niece (Annie) and her uncle Will.  I love the dual voices.  The book is both tough and funny. Story of a fifty-year-old Cree bush pilot with several crashes under his belt -- and a bunch of thugs on his case. Annie's story runs parallel to her uncle's and deals with the search for her missing sister.  The setting of the book (northern Ontario) is also a character. No dialogue as such... but you can hear it speak.  Am only eighty pages in.  But there's no rush, is there?

The New Quarterly, current issue, #113.  Some good fiction so far -- I always start in the middle of the magazine and work my way to either end -- by Colette Maitland and Jill Sexsmith.   Leaving the poetry and non-fiction till later.  This magazine is one of the best literary journals in Canada.  (Of course, I have to say that.  TNQ has published my work, after all.)

A manual on literary arts and the school curriculum.  Who writes this shit? And the bigger question: Who actually teaches reading and writing in this cut-and-dried way?  Unfortunately, the answer is damned near everyone who wants to keep their job. (For me, that is simply not an issue.) My kids understand narrative voice and point of view and all the rest of it because I encourage them to listen to what they're reading.  Literacy, literary arts, reading and writing should never be presented as a convoluted crossword puzzle that needs completing in a certain way on certain days on province-wide test papers.
Well, at least I made it to page three before throwing up.  What a piece of crap.

The Heineken label on my beer bottle.