writer, editor
In 1983, Virago Press published a paperback collection called Over Our Dead Bodies: Women Against the Bomb, edited by Dorothy Thompson. This book has lived among my feminist books, and over the years, has come to seem out of date, and even perhaps unnecessary. Until now. Today when I picked it up, it felt new… Continue reading War
In the long unspooling of bad news -- virus, climate change -- there are some bright spots. One of my favourites is the reporting of Dr Peter Jüni, Scientific Director of Ontario's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, on CBC. While he gives us sobering counsel on staying alive through the pandemic, it's the way that he… Continue reading Bright Spot
Local poet and publisher, rob mclennan, is doing an interview series of writers who live or have lived in Ottawa. Here's the link to my answers to his questions. Here's an excerpt: "Also, public spaces are cleaner here [in Canada] than in some of the countries we’ve lived in – no littering, for example. We… Continue reading Interview
Last night was my first night sleeping away from home since December 2019. I didn't sleep well. Strange perfumes on the air, wrong lighting, and waking up with "Where am I?" on the brain. I should have passed out with fatigue, not just from the drive (so much traffic on the highway!) but also from… Continue reading Packing, Unpacking
Since Friday, March 13, 2020, I have worked and exercised and sometimes slept in the attic of our house, which my beloved calls the Silk Room. It got this name because of my poor French. We were listening to a Radio Canada programme about stream-of-consciousness writers, mainly James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. I was able… Continue reading Leaving the Silk Room
I have some books on topics that I know nothing about, which I keep for the style in which they are written. I was about to give away Trout: How to Catch Them by W. A. Adamson, realizing that trout fishing is not in my literal or figurative future, when I found this passage --… Continue reading Fishing for Words
Many have written about what they've learned during the pandemic, but because I am housebound for the long haul (until the vaccine is readily available), I expect the list to be ongoing. Here is what I've learned so far. Socializing is a skill. After seven months of not going out, I have lost the skill.… Continue reading Learning
As editor of Canadian Writers Abroad, I tend to leave off longlist credits when an author has several awards to mention. But I don't have several awards to mention (the Grain Short), so I am telling you here: an essay I wrote this winter made the longlist for the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest at… Continue reading Longlist
I once asked my father, who was deaf, which faculty he would rather lose, and he said sight. Shocked by the notion of not seeing, I asked why. He said that not hearing is isolating, that he couldn't join in conversations, that he was left out. Maybe he didn't use the word isolating. About a… Continue reading Voices
Well, you wouldn't read it if I called it Resistance and the Industry Codes. First, the resistance. By this I don't mean anything worthwhile, like resisting oil pipelines or industrial water extraction. I am, or so I say, working on a difficult story, and I would do anything other than write it. The word for… Continue reading Resistance and the Bunny
You might be wondering about the cave that the Nassar family once made home. Let me explain. The underground dwelling is warm and dry in the rainy winter, and cool in the scorching summer. Caves are not unusual in this land of hills carved by dry winds. Unlike European caves, these caves don't drip moisture… Continue reading Caves
The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity sits above the Bow River and the town of Banff. Started in the 1930s as a project to give people in the arts some paid work, it is now a lively institution that houses retreats, workshops, concerts, a library, theatres and art galleries. I am here for the… Continue reading Banff Centre
The summer in East Jerusalem is hot and dry. Windows left open, surfaces in the apartment are coated in dust. Yet as I slowly go about daily activities, I see these little beauties blooming. For me they are like bits of joy caught in one's peripheral vision. And just as I am illiterate in this… Continue reading Improbable
This Is Not an Ulpan, based in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, offers Hebrew and Arabic lessons of a different sort than I've experienced. The classroom lessons are thematic and sometimes take place as excursions -- you go to a cafe to speak the language of cafes. They are committed to engaging with our surroundings. For example,… Continue reading Hebrew Words for Gaza
An easy one. I’m giving you ten random titles chosen from various random generators about ye olde internet — pick one, let that be the title of your new story. Any genre will do, list at the bottom of the post. Length: ~1000 words Due by: Friday, March 2nd, 2018 Post at your online space, link…… Continue reading Story Fun from Terrible Minds
Sometimes when I look at the view from the various hilltops where I live, I feel disbelief. (Disbelief in the most religious city in the world!) How can this be the view when only weeks ago it was lush gardens, clean parks, red buses, brollies and rain? The most sunny day in London could… Continue reading Expat Mobile
How could I resist an exhibition called “In the Valley of David and Goliath”? The exhibition at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem displays artifacts excavated from 2007 to 2013 at a 3,000 year-old site today known as Khirbet Qeiyafa, in the Elah Valley. But maybe, just maybe, it was the city of Sha'arayim, mentioned… Continue reading Look at the King the King the King
First impression, as someone at the handle end of a taut dog leash: walls, fences, and broken glass. The beige stones of the low walls have holes in them, look old, but they still block us from that apparent field of wasteland, from the hidden courtyards, from everything except this glass strewn uneven sidewalk. Once… Continue reading Jerusalem
Wildlife is and should be useless in the same way art, music, poetry and even sports are useless. They are useless in the sense that they do nothing more than raise our spirits, make us laugh or cry, frighten, disturb and delight us. They connect us not just to what’s weird, different, other, but to… Continue reading Spiders and Art
From England to Canada, from the land of brick and gardens to the land of concrete. A cheap hotel near the airport for one night shocks me back into Canadian life. Carpet on concrete floors -- that smell. Plastic cutlery at the breakfast buffet, styrofoam cups, plastic plates, plastic glasses in the room. Zap zap… Continue reading Plastic land
DEBRA MARTENS 