A novel that, less than a year ago, was without a Canadian publisher has won the country’s most prestigious literary prize. Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues, about a jazz musician who disappears in Nazi-occupied France, was awarded the $50,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize Tuesday evening, capping an unlikely run that has seen the Calgary-born novelist rise from […]
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A Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Advance Quotes!
[A]stonishing, shocking, loving…Step into this novel and you will find yourself submerged; wake from it, and you will find yourself transformed. Web of Angels is a rare gift, perfectly named; within this novel, Lilian Nattel has offered us the work, the weave, of angels. An important book. Groundbreaking, demanding, brave and beautiful. Unforgettable fiction. Brilliant. […]
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Remembrance Day for Kids
Remembrance Day is a happy day for me because it’s A’s birthday and my life is immeasurably better for being shared with him. It is also our skating & cottage friend J’s birthday. Aside from that, though, it’s a day of laying wreaths, remembering battles and honouring those who fought in them. But today I […]
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Reunion
I spent this weekend with half a dozen families that I know very little and at the same time very well. We meet every year, our bond based on the most important of commonalities: we received our babies together. Now these children are all 13 years old. Some have older siblings, bio and adopted, a […]
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: More Inspiration
This falls into the never too late department. Fauja Singh ran his first marathon at age 89. He began running when he was 80 to cope with family losses. His background isn’t in athletics: he was a farmer. Coming here from England, this Sunday, he hopes to set a world record for the books in […]
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Tara Miller: What is Sight?
Jeff and Tara Miller. This photo was taken by Tara Miller (click to enlarge), a professional photographer who works with her husband Jeff, also a photographer. In itself that’s enough–the photo is gorgeous. But there’s an unusual twist to the story, which is what led to her work being featured on CTV in their Meeting […]
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Steve Jobs on Life & Death
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important…You are already […]
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Poet and Mentor
I’ve mentioned Rhea Tregebov here before and am happy to have occasion to do so again. I’ve known Rhea for years, ever since The Writer’s Union of Canada matched us up to work together on my first novel, The River Midnight. Rhea was my mentor, a fine freelance editor, a children’s author and a poet. […]
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: The Lizard Cage: A review
Every once in a while, I read a book that I want to tell everyone to read. The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly is one of those novels. These are the reasons why: It’s beautifully written. It’s about an important subject. It’s stayed with me. It’s made me more aware of all I can be […]
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: Thoughts on a State Funeral
20 years ago, Jack Layton founded the white ribbon campaign to end violence against women. Now it is a movement across 60 countries. That’s what I learned while watching his funeral service today. I was bawling, not over the sadness, but the dignity and nobleness of the occasion. I’m spurred on by Jack’s integrity, by […]
Continue readingA Novelist's Mind: Lilian Nattel Online: babushkas: brave, bold singing grannies from the wilds of Russia
In Russian culture, one iconic image is the elderly woman — in Russian, she’s called a “babushka” — sitting on a roadside, selling vegetables from her garden. One group of babushkas from the village of Buranovo, 600 miles east of Moscow, is blowing up that stereotype. The dozen or so women — mostly in their […]
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